Game Changer by Empowerhouse Coaching

Ep.3 | LDS Shooting & Culture Reflections, Jessica Sanchez’s 20-Year Comeback, and Dr. David Fajgenbaum’s Tragedy to Purpose

• Amanda Escobedo • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

Send us a text

📖 Episode 3 Summary

In this episode of Game Changer by Empowerhouse Coaching, Amanda Escobedo unpacks three powerful stories that reveal how culture, leadership, and resilience show up in defining moments:

  • The LDS Shooting – Leaders responded with statements that were measured and compassionate, choosing not to attack or assign blame. Yet the public quickly turned to online searches, seeking motives and someone to fault. This contrast highlights how deeply blame-seeking remains woven into our culture, even when leadership communication takes a more objective tone.
  • Jessica Sanchez – After 20 years of perseverance and self-belief, Jessica’s breakthrough reminds us that resilience is often the unseen work behind “overnight” success. Her story is a clarion call for anyone questioning whether determination really pays off.
  • Dr. David Fajgenbaum – A doctor who nearly lost his life, David transformed his personal tragedy into a movement that saves lives. His story is living proof that pain, when met with purpose, can become a powerful force for change.


Together, these stories challenge us to reflect:
 👉 What assumptions or conclusions might we jump to without the facts?
 👉 How do we cultivate resilience when the path feels long?
 👉 How might our own challenges carry the seeds of greater purpose?


🔗 References


#LDSShooting #CultureOfBlame #ChurchShooting #LeadershipMatters #CultureChange #PoliticalLeadership #GovernmentLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #GroundedLeadership #InfluenceWithIntegrity #JessicaSanchez #AGT #AmericasGotTalent #SimonCowell #Determination #Perseverance #Resilience #NeverGiveUp #DrDavidFajgenbaum #ShawnRyanShow #TragedyToPurpose #Cancer #Doctor #Disease #Trump #FBI #KashPatel #Podcast #PurposeDriven #PresenceMatters

Amanda Escobedo (00:01.058)
Welcome to Game Changer by Empower House Coaching, your podcast to master the mental game, elevate your brilliance and build a legacy of progress and impact. My name is Amanda Escobedo. I'm your host, inner game coach, and I'm here to help you change the game. Welcome to episode three.

I've got a few updates for you all. One is I like to share like my active updates. Like I've been really on this fitness journey and my active update is my first half marathon is taking place this weekend in Long Beach. This is kind of like the comeback because for quite a few reasons, one, I have identified as not a runner my entire life. I've never felt fit.

For those of you that know me, might have already, you've heard this story for sure when I was a kid in the fifth grade, the kids used to call me Amanda the Big Fat Panda. And I've struggled with weight my entire life. And I have never really been really good in sports. And it's a little confusing too, because I had long legs. I feel like I should be a really good runner, but running has always been such a challenge for me.

And even though it's been such a challenge for some reason, I've had this little tickle inside of me that's like, we are going to figure out how to master running. So it's literally been decades of just trying to figure out how to become a runner, working through this identity of I'm a runner versus I'm not a runner, mastering the critter brain, mastering the body, like the lungs and the muscles and all these different things. I've been stuck at just a, I'd say a pace that I was never really satisfied with.

All that to say, come back coming, I'd say when I was in San Francisco, I think when I was 27, is maybe 26, I started finding my fitness journey. And at that time, I was working at the North Face, and the North Face is, like a ton of athletes are working there, obviously. They're coming through the corporate headquarters, and everybody has extreme outdoor athletic hobbies. People don't just travel the country to travel the country, they...

Amanda Escobedo (02:08.077)
travel to a different country to surf in a different body of water, or they travel to do an Ironman or to jump off a cliff, whatever that is. Everybody had something and I was like, well, I don't why I have it. I don't really have much. But I was inspired there to start my fitness journey and I was inspired there to start traveling. And so within that fitness journey, I was excited because I was finally starting to see progress. And at the time when I was starting to see and experience progress, I started getting these.

heart arrhythmias and my heart was getting stuck in the wrong beat. And so that what took me on a whole, I'd call it a hero's journey. And today we're actually going to talk about the hero's journey and the story might come back up again, but I was fine. I was fine until I started exercising and all of a sudden my heart just started getting stuck in the wrong beat. So for most people, when you're working out your heart rate spikes to, I don't know, 140, 150, 160.

And then it comes back down and mine was just getting stuck and staying there. So I was going in and out of the ER and it was a challenge because I was like, gosh, I'm on this fitness journey. I'm doing so well, but then it's like triggering these arrhythmias and I have to keep going to the ER. And then the ER that my doctor gave me these beta blockers and these beta blockers really slow down your heart rate, would slow down your energy. And you don't feel like you have the energy to achieve what you want in that fitness journey. So was getting frustrated.

So we on these meds, the meds didn't work. We did a procedure for my leg that didn't work. And then we went through an open heart surgery that didn't work. We went through a second open heart surgery. And then finally we think that that got better. And so, but there's still a recovery phase, all these things. And so it was just a big wrench because I had just started to see some progress. I was starting to feel like maybe this health fitness running journey is for me. And so,

kind of took me out of the game for a bit, brought myself back in, and then running has always been in and out. And then from San Francisco, I moved to LA. And then LA, I was like, I'm gonna sign up for my first half marathon, which is hilarious, because it's this Long Beach one. So I actually signed up for this half quite a few years ago, but I didn't train effectively. I didn't even know that you're supposed to train.

Amanda Escobedo (04:16.046)
I think I got up to seven miles was probably the most miles I did. And then I just tried to do this half and I pulled something in the middle of half. had to walk most of it. And that was just like a moment of defeat. And I was using that circumstance of evidence of why I'm not a runner, why this is impossible for me, all these different things. And so now it's probably been at least five years since that, since my first attempt at a half.

and now I like was working with a nutritionist. So I know exactly how to fuel my body and fuel has been a game changer. I've actually been working through a running plan. My speed has gotten better. So I'm really looking forward to this half. It's kind of like the comeback that I've been waiting for. and the goal is actually to do marathons, but you know, baby steps. We'll start with the half and we'll probably do another half and then a marathon, but

Step one, let's just accomplish our first half. So wish me luck. Because then once this milestone is achieved, we're doing high rocks in November. And then I also want to do jujitsu competition.

That'll probably be January, February. You need to give me some time to train for high rocks and then start training for that, my first competition. Uh, and I'm very new to jujitsu. I'm what they call a spazzy white belt. It means I don't know what I'm doing and I'm dangerous to anybody on the other side of me. They actually say spazzy white belts are way more dangerous than a black belt because again, we don't know what we're doing, but it should be fun. So we've got quite a few goals that I'm looking forward.

Before we get into some headlines, I kind of just wanted to talk a little bit more about this podcast and the focus. It's hilarious to me because this is only episode three and I've gotten mixed reviews on this podcast. And what does that mean? Well, let's talk about it. It's interesting. If I go back to what was my purpose and what is my goal for this podcast? A lot of different things. I had my old podcast and I lacked

Amanda Escobedo (06:25.088)
clarity and a vision. At that time I was just trying to think of problems that people might have and I was trying to solve them in a podcast episode. And it just was not really relatable I feel just trying to pick a problem out of thin air and what has really been eating at me for a while and I'm sure it's just not just me but it's just the shift in this culture that we have today within our nation where it feels like we are a lot more divided than united.

And with my HR and my coaching background, I observe and see the world through behaviors, through leadership behaviors, through words, through judgments, through intuition, intuitive intelligence, through self discovery, through innate gifts. Like I see the world a little differently than most people. And when I got certified, I have a couple different certifications within.

my coaching practice, if you will. But when I got certified with the Stanford University based course in mindfulness and emotional intelligence, I almost felt like I was gifted with this box of...

I don't know. It's like Pandora's box of jewels. I don't know. Gold. It feels like I have what everybody has been searching for. Like what is my purpose in life? What am I here for? What are my innate gifts? How can I impact this world? And these tools in my perspective should be taught to us as children. It's the self-discovery tools, finance, financial acumen. It's like these key things are missing from our school system. But rather than just kind of complain about things that I'm frustrated with, I'm really about solutions.

And I'm really about action and so I was sitting in marinating with kind of the turmoil that's going on in society and culture There's fear there's anxiety. There's division. How can I contribute to? Increase self-awareness. How can I contribute to providing people with conscious communication tools? How can I help people? Effectively figure out you know, what do they think about something instead of jumping into like a tribal mindset? It's really easy

Amanda Escobedo (08:35.472)
for us because we are wired to fit in and so when we see these algorithms, these social media and the news, it's really easy to be taken on in a narrative, in a wave. If you don't have the tools to understand there's a narrative attached to this story, how do I unpack where the narrative is? What is the actual story? And if I remove the narrative, what do I actually think about this? So a big part of my goal here is to help break down the head

lines so that you understand again what is the actual story being told, what's a potential narrative being pushed on you, and also there's a little bit of my goal is a little bit of criticism on our politician, our leaders, but when I say criticism my goal is to also provide alternatives or opportunities on how they can effectively lead. And so my with increasing all of our awareness of these behaviors I hope that we all start to show up better ourselves.

and I hope to also teach you again not what to think but how to effectively think and when I say how to effectively think it's really about cultivating your intuitive intelligence which is according to Stanford University mistake free. Now I share that context because and I want to bring it back to the mixed reviews because I've gotten some pushback from some people on the side of where I'm objective on these politics.

And it's almost like there is a desire for me to pick a stance and condemn leadership in a certain manner. In particular, our president. And it's not my goal to pick a side. Again, once again, I am not here to pick sides. I'm breaking out the leadership behaviors that drive our likes, our dislikes, our frustrations that help us understand united versus division. And also the other piece within that, like if you think of parenting, parents don't owe

effectively lead I'd say in a way that kids can hear us like what's what's an example of that if someone if your parent is saying hey you should be doing this why haven't you done this and maybe whatever this is is good advice

Amanda Escobedo (10:52.162)
The brain rejects that. And so my goal is to help us let go of the how it's being shared and understand what is the message that's trying to be shared, what's the intent behind the message, and then decide what to do with that message. A lot of us get wrapped around on if the message is perfectly delivered in a bow tie. And it will never be perfectly delivered, but there are best practices on how to effectively deliver. So that's what I'm trying to do is give us those best practices.

even if we don't have a message delivered to us in the most

I want us to be able to try and understand what is the message, what is the intent here and what do I think about this? And I want you to think like that and apply that to politics, to world problems, to world challenges. And then not only, don't want to just stop there. I really believe that the challenges of the world are an opportunity to be a sense of purpose for us. We can actually take these life challenges and

Transform them into our sole mission to solve our purpose and we're actually going to go through some examples Of what that could look like today. Maybe not in the politics world But some of the headlines or stories I want to break out with you are people that have turned maybe their careers They transform tragedies into a purpose a life mission in a career So going back to the mixed reviews I want to address like my goal again is not to pick a side is not to tear apart our leadership and say

the Democrats or the Republicans or this side is better than that side, that is not my goal here at all. Because again, my goal is to unite us, not to divide us. And then on the other side, positive I've gotten outside of the criticism, the positives I've gotten where people do love the leadership part, people do love the culture part, people do love the practical tools that have already been provided. So I just wanted to address again, a little bit of the criticism which is there's

Amanda Escobedo (12:58.226)
almost like a pressure or a desire for me to pick a side and condemn one side over the other. And it's not going to happen. Short story, it's not going to happen. And I will have to say, you know, publishing episode one and launching this podcast.

It took a lot of courage for me to post this. I had this vision and even though my goal was to be objective, I knew somebody was gonna be triggered by this podcast. No matter how objective I was in this process. It took a lot of meditation on my part to get comfortable with the fact that some people might be triggered by this podcast and I had to learn.

That's for them to manage through, not for me. And I am so connected with my personal vision. I am so connected with my purpose. I'm so connected with my mission in life. And I hope to inspire others to lead authentically. There's an entire level of faith here because I don't have a clear, as I'm working through this podcast, what's my outcome to educate everybody. Literally my goal is to give people tools, practical tools on how to discover,

who they are and then how to do better in the world, how to lead a life of purpose.

But that said, all of that requires us all to lead with courage and not everybody is going to be your audience. Not everybody is going to be my audience. And that's okay. But I will say it is an uncomfortable feeling to initially have and to work through to not be liked by others, to be criticized by some, but this is where your intuition really matters because you know, as we as humans, we want to continue to evolve. We want to continue to get better. And part of the,

Amanda Escobedo (14:47.12)
evolution of us becoming does require us to be receptive of feedback. But there you should not receive all feedback. And so the goal is as you're getting feedback or criticism, whatever that is, is that you're using your own intuition as a sounding board to see what makes sense for me. What should I reject? What should I take? And how do I navigate from there? But again, leading authentically requires a lot of courage. You might ruffle some feathers.

but that's okay. That is okay. So I just kind of wanted to address that a little bit before I dive into the headlines. Now going into our first headline of today, I wanted to talk about, about the shooting that happened at the Latter-day Saints church recently. I think it happened on 9 28. There was a headline that was called, was LDS, the Latter-day Saints shooting suspect,

Thomas Sanford, a Trump supporter. What we know.

Now this headline just caught my attention immediately because I was like, why is it already asking if it's a Trump supporter? Why did they pick a Trump supporter? Why didn't they pick, I don't know, a Democrat supporter? And why is it related to politics? And so my brain went to all these different ways and I was very intrigued to see how this storyline was going to go. But just in case you aren't aware of the events of what this article is referencing, there was a really sad, tragic event that happened.

So there was a guy named Thomas Jacob Sanford that drove into a church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blank

Amanda Escobedo (16:30.978)
Michigan. He opened fire so he didn't just open fire, he set the building on fire. So it went ablaze and four people were killed, eight people were injured and then Sanford was killed in a police shootout. So this tragedy came very shortly after two other kind of violent attacks against what I'd say like Christian situation. So there was that school shooting that happened in Minneapolis. It was a Catholic school.

shooting. There were two children killed, 17 injured. And then you had the assassination of Charlie Kirk, who is a Christian conservative. So these are three attacks in just a few weeks, and it can feel a bit like a pattern. But within this, you know, it can feel like a pattern. What we want to do is notice that feeling of a pattern. And so we can take those as data points and get curious on, is this a pattern?

Is this enough data to validate this is a pattern? So this is where I wanna start breaking things down for us. And the reason why I say that is because like the Christian factor, this motive against Christianity starts to come up in our leadership narratives and a bit of the article as well. So the motive was still unknown. So we wanna make that clear. So before I go into the details of this article, I do wanna break down what people, our leadership team has really said.

and how they've addressed the shooting. And again, our goal here is to break down narratives and our goal is to see how our leaders showing up in such tragic moments and how does that contribute to either unity or the divide of

this country. It's these staple moments if we are not intentional can drive the culture together or drive the culture apart. So let's start with of course President Trump. Now President Trump had a response and his response was, I have been briefed on the horrendous shooting that took place at the Church of Jesus Christ at Latter-day Saints in Michigan. The FBI was immediately on the scene and we will be leading the federal investigation providing full support to state and

Amanda Escobedo (18:44.43)
local officials. The suspect is dead, but there is still a lot to learn. This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America. The Trump administration will keep the public posted as we always do. In the meantime, pray for the victims and their families. This epidemic of violence in our country must end immediately. So a couple immediately

immediate thoughts here. One, would say impressed that he didn't blame the Democrats because that seems to be a key narrative and theme that he seems to point fingers and all things tragedies or whatever it is, anything that's gone wrong, seems to be pointed to that. there is no Democrat note here, which is a good shift, if you will. But there is an assumption and I will say he did say it appears. So he didn't say it is an attack. said

said it appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians. Now I found this a little interesting because you know the Charlie Kirk assassination there were a lot of different narratives on what was being attacked when I was watching different videos when I was reading different articles there were I'd say three strong themes that were coming across on the Charlie Kirk assassination one was this is an attack on Christianity I saw a whole deep dive on a whole attack on

Christianity for the Charlie Kirk thing. This is an attack on conservatives. This is an attack on free speech. Now I just want to pause for a minute on that focus. Why do I want to pause on that? again, these are, any of these could be true until we validate them. Any of these could be true.

And I'm curious to know as you're going through your social media feed, like for the Charlie Kirk situation or for this Latter-day Saints situation, like what has been the narrative that has been showing up in your feed and or what was the immediate thought for you on what this was an attack on? And this starts to show how you already think. What are the belief systems that you already have? And how is it that some people think that the Charlie Kirk assassination is an attack on Christianity?

Amanda Escobedo (21:08.856)
How is it some of them other people focus on free speech? And this is just an example of diversity of thought and different perspectives and different values. You know if someone is really big in their faith and Christian like this could be really fearful for them if that is a belief system and that's a perspective that comes from their home base from their family values from something that's important to them. Right? If someone is a conservative and they've been really trying to practice like that

whole thing. Maybe they're new, maybe they're not to the group. Whatever it is, what you have to understand is different people's perspectives and their life experiences that may have contributed to those perspectives. Is one right or wrong? Until we validate the motive. But I want us to increase our awareness of these narratives that get pushed onto these situations. At the end of the day for the Latter-day Saints, we do not know if this is an attack specifically on Christianity. We do not

know if this is an attack on something else. And so it might seem, you might be like Amanda, they literally just blew up the church. Yes, I validate that. But what I'm saying is we have not validated a motive. And so what we want to do is just recognize that we have not validated that. And that is a narrative. That is somebody's thought. if Trump is saying it appears to be an attack on Christianity, that is his thought of what this appears to be.

it does not make it a fact. So just highlighting that piece. The other piece again that I will give him credit on this which is a different type of tone of his than his usual tone is there isn't really a blame at all.

So even though he's saying it's an attack on Christians, he's not saying who attacked them. He's not making assumptions. He's not pointing fingers. So I'd say that's a little bit of a shift in his behavior. You avoided blame in this process. And then the other part I'd say that he did good at is condemning the violence, obviously. And he's saying condemning the violence as an epidemic, that must end. Opportunities though for, I'd say, Trump in leadership, you know, his brand is very

Amanda Escobedo (23:23.056)
law and order, right? That I would say, at least my perspective, Trump's brand is law and order. And so when you say this epidemic of violence in our country must end, my brain, I don't know if all of your brains do this, but my brain goes into law and order. Now there are people that do not like that brand of law and order. So it could be a negative rub. So even though he's, I'm highlighting, even though he's condemning the violence, I can see

how that could be a negative rub. The other piece too is when we just say this epidemic of violence in our country must end immediately. Is that statement just going to end it? Right? Like this epidemic of violence in our country must end immediately. If I were in an organization, okay, and I had the CEO or the president addressing something really tragic or something that went really wrong within an organization, they were addressing it. They were trying to give it show up with the facts, but there's also

something that needs to change here. So here in this situation it's violence that needs to change. You can't just tell people stop doing that, stop being violent. Obviously that's not working so what we need is a plan of action to address the violence. So I think what would have been a little more impactful within this is to more than just I'd say

condemn the violence, but maybe have some type of call to action. like proposing tangible steps of unity, dialogue, or prevention of violence of some sort, I think would be an opportunity. And the other part too is, shifting a little bit from fear, cause this is a little how it's being communicated. It is scary. There is a huge tragedy that just happened, but shifting a little bit from, from leaving us in fear, we're recognizing violence is happening and then we're just saying, just stop, but it's still happening.

shifting from fear to a shared responsibility. so shifting from fear to a shared responsibility, a collective responsibility, he could be closing his statement with something like, what role can each of us play in addressing the conditions that fuel this type of violence? So posing a question to the public, posing them in their own solutions. And so again, I think condemning something is good, but then having some type of call to action or

Amanda Escobedo (25:46.808)
reinforcing this is a shared responsibility and inviting other people's solutions within there. But overall not a terrible statement on it. Pretty objective. There wasn't blame.

There was a personal narrative when he said, appeared to be an attack on Christian opportunity to have a call to action of some sort. Now we have also FBI director Cash Patel. So he had a very short statement response as well on this and he stated, We are tracking reports of the horrific shooting and fire at the LDS church in Michigan FBI agents are on the scene to assist local authorities Violence in a place of worship is a cowardly and criminal

Act. Our prayers are with the victims and their families during this terrible tragedy." His statement is very simple. I think it's aligned with his role of FBI. Clear, objective, informational is really the goal anytime I'd say Cash Patel is speaking against something that has occurred. He condemned the violence without polarization. So again, another win. Two for the win without polarization. There was no blame.

And he maintained, I'd say, his own role clarity. What does that mean? Well, again, his job as like the FBI director is to provide the public with updates and to maintain trust. so maintaining trust means not driving a broader cultural or political change. And so he stayed within those guardrails by not

not pointing blame and then also staying objective and sticking to the facts. And then his own closing statements, I'd say, led with faith and empathy. So by closing with our prayers, our with the victims and their family, it humanizes his message a bit, which is, I'd say, without making it partisan, right? So I think humanizing the message, especially for an FBI director, is really good. So his job as an FBI director is not necessarily to lead an

Amanda Escobedo (27:53.12)
influence change and all that. He's really a data collector and trying to solve cases and inform the public of what's happening. Whereas Trump, his role is really influencing leadership and culture as a whole. But we all have an influence on cultures. So whether you are in a leadership position or not, you have an impact on the culture. Just take that note. And then the last kind of example I have within this is US Attorney General Pam Bondi. And she says,

Amanda Escobedo (28:37.816)
So a few good notes here in her statement. She's acknowledging there's uncertainty. So what appears to be another appeared a horrific shooting and

fire. She's providing operational updates. She has an emotional resonance, meaning it's heartbreaking, it's chilling, she has this humanization.

notes within her statements. And then she's also leading or closing with empathy and shared humanity. And what I mean by that is particular when she closes with, please join me in praying for the victims. This frames as more of a collective moment of compassion, which I think is great. So overall, not too shabby. So observations of all three, I'd say they were all pretty objective. They condemned the violence. They offered empathy.

they avoided partisan blame. So these are I'd say some overall wins for our political leaders. I'll take any type of win. Any type of win. Now let's go into a little bit of the article and the article title. So let's go back to what the title was and this title really caught my attention. Was LDS shooting suspect Thomas Hanford a Trump supporter?

Immediately my brain went to, well, this is a clickbait title, right? Like why are they assuming Trump's supporter? That was my brain went to the assumptions there, right? Why aren't they assuming a Democrat? Why aren't they assuming, I don't know, JD Vance? Why don't they, why like they're jumping to that, in my mind went to clickbait. But then as I read the article, I was like, okay, maybe this actually makes sense. So as part of this article is talking about,

Amanda Escobedo (30:30.08)
People on social media started finding, people started doing their own investigation, because that's what we all do. People found the killer's social media and they found some data points is what we'll say that could allude to he was a Trump supporter. And so as an example, the article highlighted there was a 2019 photo of Stanford in a Trump 2020 shirt. It said, make liberals cry again.

He also had a picture Trump yard sign outside his home or 2025 his wife's Facebook post in 2021 had hashtags bring Trump back hashtag who voted for this And in parallel his public records showed no party affiliation So again, the other thing I want to reinforce while this article is highlighting these data points I'd say that had been found of this person

and social media is these details one are not proof of a motive. So one of the things I want to just like pause here for a second if you're reading an article like this like your brain is going to start to assume that this is a motive he's a Trump supporter possibly this is where my brain goes when I read something like this these are data points that show this killer is a Trump supporter if this killer is a Trump supporter then then this person it's all bad everything mashed together

and matched with Trump and the killer, it's all bad. We're tying the two together. But we haven't confirmed a motive and we haven't confirmed how this goes together at all. And so, but again, one thing I wanna give this article credit for is they did point out that these data points are pure speculation and they do not verify or assign blame. But these are just some things that have been, I guess, surfacing within social media as people have been digging and finding things. Now,

you

Amanda Escobedo (32:28.334)
One of the things I wanted to like go back to if we go back to trump's statement on this is an attack on christianity What I found for myself is like my brain even went to Huh? Is it possible that this is an attack on christianity is christianity being attacked? And so it even brought a little bit of subconscious fear to me where my brain went back and I had to go through these like little cartwheels within myself to challenge that

that challenge that thought process, challenge that potential belief that followed through on this incident, because it's not a fact. At the end of the day, it's not a fact. But the way our brain is trying to bring things together, it's looking for data points to protect us, right? The way our brain is working all day, it's scanning the world, looking for danger. On average, 80 % of our thoughts are negative. 95 % of our thoughts are repetitive.

of negative repeatedness going on. And so your brain by default is wired to go to the worst case scenarios. But just because your brain is transcribing circumstances into the worst case scenarios does not make it true. And so I'm trying to increase your awareness of where your brain is going and shock you into a sense of consciousness so you can question, get curious on, is what I'm thinking

of fact is what I'm thinking an assumption. If it's an assumption that is not based on fact, where did this assumption come from? And is there a way for me to challenge this narrative that I'm thinking? Now the other piece too.

that I want to highlight with this article and with our leadership's response, even though, as I mentioned, you know, the Trump's response, Pam's response, Patel's response, they did not have a sense of blame within their statements.

Amanda Escobedo (34:32.662)
This article is already showing whether they have those statements where they're leading with blame or they're leading with objective. The culture of our nation is still looking for who to blame. And that's where they're on this research hunt to see what party is this person on, right? Are they a Democrat or are they a Republican? That's how the people of America are processing this tragedy. This article was formed because people in the world are doing research on the killer to see what party they're a part of. So

I highlight that because even though Trump didn't blame anybody, Patel didn't blame anybody, Bonnie didn't blame anybody, our culture didn't need our leaders to blame anybody. They went down their own rabbit hole of investigation to see if there was someone to blame. And the data points that they found showed that this person maybe was a Trump supporter. And does that mean we're trying to create conclusions that Trump supporters are murderers? That's really where your brain can start to go.

to increase your awareness of the culture tension is deep. It's deep. And so just because we have a change of behavior and leadership today does not change the culture tension that has taken years to build.

So just a couple of things to kind of think of, know, that leadership isn't really just about what's being said, it's about shaping culture. And so what I say today is, can have waves on the culture for years, hopefully for the better, but once that culture has already started to cultivate, it takes a long time to rewind a transformational process to transform it into something else.

And then the last note I'll say is, let's see, I guess I really just want to leave you with a question for this article is, where in your life are you quick to assume motives before you have a fact? So that's what this whole article is about is there were some assumed motives of some, this is party based, right? That the public of a nation, that's why they went down this rabbit hole to find some facts. Are there, where,

Amanda Escobedo (36:45.518)
are not are there where in life have you really been quick to assume motives before you had all the facts and what would it look like for you to pause get curious on what narrative start to flood your head following a circumstance like a shooting you know what judgments come into play without you knowing all the facts what assumptions are living with you already

Now when I ask this question of, you know, what would it look like for you to pause, get curious on what narratives flood your brain following a circumstance, all circumstances are neutral. That's one thing I want to highlight. All circumstances are neutral. Let's go to death. Even death is neutral. Death is not bad. Death is not good. Money is not bad. Money is not good. It becomes good or bad based on the narrative that you apply to.

to And so if we even go back to death as an example, think of Charlie Kirk. There are so many people that are devastated by his death. And on the other side, there are people celebrating his death. So is death bad or is death good? Death is objective. Death is neutral. It's completely neutral. Everything in the world is neutral. It becomes good or bad based on the narrative that you start to apply to it. And so again, going back to this question, what would it look

like for you to pause and get curious on what narrative floods your head following a circumstance like a shooting like this one like the latter-day states like the Charlie Kirk assassination right like whatever circumstances are frequently happening what is your narrative on that and is that narrative getting you energized are you getting excited are you getting pumped or are you feeling low are you feeling fear are you feeling anxious your narratives are what are fueling the emotions

within your body. And so before we can transform what you're feeling, we have to understand what you're thinking. So something to think about pause. Pause and what is the narrative that I'm applying to this circumstance.

Amanda Escobedo (38:56.462)
Now the next article, if you will, that I want to share with you, this is actually like a little article that showed up on my Facebook that caught my attention. And it's not political. This is actually way more fun. So Jessica Sanchez, I don't know if any of you guys are America's Got Talent fans. I never really watched the show at all, but this caught my attention because Jessica Sanchez, she won season 20. She's a singer and she was on

season one. So 20 years later, Jessica Sanchez, a singer from Chula Vista, she first auditioned AGT America's Got Talent at 10 years old in the year 2006. And 20 years later in 2025, on AGT's 20th season, their celebration, she returned and she won. Now, I love this story for quite a few

reasons. This is an example of I'd say like the hero's journey and the creative process kind of

overlapping. And I want to describe what both of those mean and a little deeper on this story. So number one, at a very young age, and I'm going to share some links, I've been obsessed with watching her AGT like talent, whatever it is on YouTube, I've watched her sing 45 million times. There's really only like four videos and I've watched them 45 million different times. She is amazing. And even at age 10 was amazing. And what I find interesting that

For many of us, it takes years and years years to discover what are our innate gifts. Some people never actually do the work to discover their innate gifts. Others, some of their innate gifts are very obvious. And for her, it was very obvious. At a very young age, she learned she can sing. And so at 10 years old, her vocals were ridiculous. And so she had this gift of her voice. And so many people think

Amanda Escobedo (41:01.648)
though once you find your gift success follows. But that's not really true at all and what I want to highlight are some of her setbacks and that setbacks are part of your story. Setbacks are part of your journey to success and success doesn't just stop at an outcome. That's another thing but let's go into some examples of some early setbacks. So at age 10 Jessica applied and was part of season one of the AGT in

2006, but she didn't win as a child contestants 2012 at 16 she came to American Idol season 11 and she finished as a runner-up so from 2006 then she went to 2012 and then 2012 and American Idol shoes runner-up and didn't win that and so Many might think you know, maybe this isn't for me and maybe I should give up. She's tried these two big moments She got close, but she didn't make it

So how many times do you keep trying? This is where our brain critter loves to kick in and say, well, maybe this journey isn't for me. And then in between the seasons, she spent one of the things Jessica said when she came back on season 20 on her first audition. She said she spent many years falling out of love with music because of outside expectations. So other people had a vision for how she should sing, how she should show up and try

to conform to other people's ideas of who she should be got her to fall out of music because it wasn't her right and so in essence this is an essay her story is really a journey of becoming discovering who she is beyond what others expect of her and so Jessica now

She was, what is she, 29 I think is what she said in this last season, season 20, she was 29. She's now 29, she's pregnant and fully in her power, knows exactly who she is in 2025. And so this is what I would call a little bit of the hero's journey meets like the creative process. What does that mean? Well, most of us have in the world,

Amanda Escobedo (43:17.774)
Let's start with the creative process. Most people have many great ideas. What does that look like? I want to get married. I want to be an engineer. I want to buy a house. I want to travel to Italy. I want to start a business. Whatever that great idea is, it starts in what we would call preparation. And preparation is that big idea hits you for the first time. It's so energizing. It feels doable. You're starting to think of all the cool things that are coming out.

of it. If you want to get married, you're already thinking about the spouse and what you're going to do with the spouse. If you want a bad house, you're already starting to envision what this house looks like. And then phase two of the creative process hits you. And phase two looks like the brick wall of frustration. And the brick wall of frustration could look like, I don't have the money to do that. I don't have the skills to do that. I don't have the whatever, whatever, whatever. Your brain starts to talk.

through all the reasons why this dream, this idea that you have curated in your mind is not possible. And so even as an example with me, I remember when I first discovered the coaching world, I was super hyped and I remember all this research I was doing. was saying, this is what I'm supposed to be doing next. And then very quickly after my brain was like, you can't start another career. You can, how are you going to become a coach? How are you going to do this? You can't do this. You can't do that. And so fear hit me. And then I

into phase three, which is incubation. And incubation is basically where you put that great idea and you just put it on the shelf and you forget about it. And for me, my great idea of being a coach, I put it on the shelf and I forgot about it for quite a few years. If we go back to great idea to get married, you want to find a life partner. Some people may be starting the apps and then all of sudden they get jaded, right? You're not getting matches, no one's responding, you meet with a

bunch of duds, you start to feel like gosh maybe there are no more people out in the world.

Amanda Escobedo (45:23.872)
Or if we talk about the housing market and everything's out of control, you're researching and everywhere you're like, I can't afford anything today. This is going to be impossible. That's the brick wall of frustration. And so we put this great idea of buying a house, of getting a spouse, of becoming a coach, and we just put it on the shelf and we forget about it for maybe a few days, few weeks, few months, few years. And then there's a time, a point of time that you start and you become ready. Your brain is clear. The defeat has dissolved. The brick wall of frustration.

is dissolved and you're ready to get back into the game. You're ready to strategize. And that's really step four. And maybe you are reevaluating different ways to get in more cash for a deposit, or maybe you are coming up with new strategies for dating outside of the apps. You're like, I'm going to figure out hobbies and meet people IRL. Maybe I'll tell all my friends, do they have any referrals, whatever that is. then for coach, it's like, maybe I'm going to start looking up all the different coaching certification

programs and just seeing what's out there. So now we're just starting to initiate and get through the process. Now, depending on how big your goal is, you could be from brick wall of frustration, which is step two, to incubation, step three, to strategize, step four, to brick wall of frustration, to incubation, to strategy. You could be on that little circle for years, years and years and years and years and years. And that brick wall of frustration can feel so real, like maybe this is not

meant for me. And a big key part of getting through your idea into what we call stage five, which is the illumination. It's almost like the breakthrough. You have the aha moment on how to get through this and how to get the outcome you're looking for. It requires faith.

and your possibilities. It requires faith and uncertainty. It requires you to let go of your attachment of expectations. And so a lot of us, have expectations on timelines, on when things should happen, where we should be in life by now. And all these expectations form from parents, from teachers, from friends. We start to compare ourselves to other people. And so when things aren't happening, the way we expect them, that they don't look exactly how they we expect

Amanda Escobedo (47:43.496)
them to look or in the timeline that we want them to like manifest or come to fruition, we become very frustrated and we start to spiral and there's an opportunity to really get defeated and stay down. But what I want to increase or normalize for you all is that the brick wall of frustration is a part of the process. And so the easiest way to get through the brick wall of

is to let go of that type grip of our attachment to the outcome, to how we thought things were going to turn out for us. And be open and hold faith to the unknown and the uncertainty. At the end of the day, on the other side of what we're trying to get is all unknown and uncertain. And you have two options on how you want to navigate that. You can navigate that with fear or you can navigate that with faith. One will keep you stuck and one will keep you creative and propelling.

forward and that's our goal with you and faith in your opportunities, faith in your capabilities, faith in your belief system that

there is what you want has been strategically placed in your heart, strategically placed in your desires is unique for you, that it is meant for you. And that in this process of trying to achieve that is you a process of becoming. And so this is a little bit of the, I'd say the creative process, the hero's journey that we all kind of go on. And this is Jessica's journey because again, through her time, she felt in and out of love

singing because she was frustrated with all the expectations that people were putting on her and she was an incubation for years and now she came back and part of coming back you can't help when you're watching this episode when she's trying out

Amanda Escobedo (49:37.774)
And she's talking to the judges. You can't help but feel this serendipity Synchronosity this flow this luck feeling like perfect place perfect time like something just feels too perfect that's the only words that really come to mind and The feeling that I was experiencing Was mentioned and so by Sophia Vergara she mentioned she was one of the judges She said I think there's something very special happening on stage with you

It's so amazing that we're on the 10th anniversary, the 20th season of AGT and you're here after 20 years and pregnant, right? And pregnant. So one of the things that we talked about in the coaching world, as I mentioned before, I specialize in cultivating creativity, cultivating creativity in business. One of the ways we define creativity is getting you into a flow state and getting you into a flow state when you're working on a project, getting you into

that flow into that zone, but we're also trying to get you into the flow of the world. How do you flow through challenges? How do you flow through life instead of getting stuck in a brick wall of frustration? And part of also flowing is getting you into this world of serendipity, synchronicity, where it feels like you're at the right place at the right time and things are just happening for you. That's this moment for Jessica Sanchez right now. She is hitting a very serendipity, synchronicity,

like moment for herself. And then the other part too, going back to what I mentioned, the brick wall of frustration is a part of the creative process. It's a part of the journey. And our goal is to get you to flow around those frustrations a lot quicker. And that's to the practice of letting go of our attachments of the outcome. But what I love about what Simon Cowell says in response to her 20 year journey, he said, you know, was so important for you to come back after 20 years.

If you don't win the first time you've got to always believe in yourself and that's what you've done That was a beautiful arrangement. It sounded amazing So he's responding to how beautiful her arrangement in her song was and he also says, know to succeed you have to have real determination and talent and all of those years of really wanting something and just going for it and it was just that powerful and so this is a little bit of where he's talking about the

Amanda Escobedo (52:07.28)
resilience that she had and never giving up on herself. So some of the key attributes that are really required of cultivating your creativity is you must have a sense of obsession. You must be obsessed with what you're trying to achieve. It's that obsession that's going to start to cultivate that determination. And just like Simon said, you know, it's not it's just it's it's about determination. But he also mentioned if you don't win the first time, you've got to always believe in yourself.

If you're listening to the first episode, that's where I talked about I try and experience the world as a cheese maze

The cheese on the other side is my goal. It's everything that I'm trying to achieve. And, you know, when we hit that first brick wall of frustration, rather than just getting stuck and staying down and using that brick wall as evidence of why this is impossible. If we start to imagine the world as a cheese maze, that's where we start to say, huh, I believe this is possible for me. Let me see if there's another door. Let me see if there's another door. Let me see if there's another door. So you never stop. And then you're also learning along the way, because now you know,

don't go left down this road that brings me towards a dead end let me try and go right this way and so you are taking those new learnings to help you effectively navigate moving forward.

So I love that Simon Cowell had mentioned again, if you don't win the first time, you've got to always believe in yourself because it's really about having faith that you can figure this out for yourself. And so a key, a huge key about navigating the creative process when you're at that brick wall of frustration, when things don't go as expected, is success is not guaranteed by talent. It's not guaranteed by timing. It's built through cycles. And so it's built through failure. It's built through

Amanda Escobedo (53:55.664)
reflection, it's built through learning, it's built through pivoting, and it's built through action by continuously moving forward. And so Jessica's story, what I love about it, it's not really about winning, it's really a part of, it's really a story of her becoming.

And so just some other examples, you know, I'm giving you Jessica's story of like 20 years. took her 20 years to win the AGT, AGT competition, the season 20. But it's really less about just like she won that show. It is really about the 20 year journey. And what I want to do is give you maybe another example or two just to show that things take time. And I'm not sure where in our brains that we got that we should just try something once and be

successful and when it doesn't happen we just give up. No it's a lot of trials and errors. for those of you that love the Dyson vacuum, you didn't know James Dyson, Dyson spent 15 years creating 5,126 prototypes before launching the first Dyson vacuum. Every failure was one step closer to the breakthrough, to his vision. So imagine how big that

cheese maze must have been to have 5126 brick walls of frustration in that cheese maze. 5126 prototypes in 15 years before he had the breakthrough. There's also Gregor Mendel.

And Mendel is one, I guess, that discovered genetics, is the founder of genetics. Mendel did a pea plant experiment in the 50s and 60s, but his work was ignored. And it wasn't discovered by scientists until 1900, which was 30 years later. 30 years later.

Amanda Escobedo (55:54.03)
Take that time into consideration, folks. Take that time into consideration. And then the last example I have here is Sam Walton from Walmart. So Sam opened his first store in 1945 for Walmart. Walmart was not incorporated until 1962. So he opened his first store in 45. It was not incorporated until 1962, which is 17 years later. And it took him another 20 years before it came a national

powerhouse. You've just got to keep chipping at that goal every day. One percent better. Keep moving. No matter how small the action is, you're constantly just chipping, chipping away and working toward that goal. You're failing, you're reflecting, you're learning, you're pivoting, and you're moving. And you can't do all of that until you let go of your attachment of the outcome. You let go of expectations.

Now the other thing I want to highlight with this story for the incubation piece. So, you know, we talk about that 20 year gap. What happened for Jessica between when she was in season one of AGD to this 20 year season, she had that little glitch where she tried out for American Idol, but there are many years in there of incubation. And how do we know there are many years in there of incubation? Well, she mentioned throughout the years, I kind of fell out of love with music because I was really young and I was

so swayed by what everybody wanted me to be, who they wanted me to be. Maybe it took me 20 years, but I know exactly who I am, and I know exactly what I want. What if your setbacks were right on time? It took her 20 years, but what if those setbacks are what brought her here on this 20th anniversary and she was right on time?

One of the things I really love about her statement that is so powerful to me is maybe it took me 20 years, but I know exactly who I am. I know exactly what I want.

Amanda Escobedo (58:01.24)
Clarity is the key that we are all searching for. Clarity is the key to peace of mind. Clarity is the key to self-discovery, knowing who you are. Clarity is your vision for the future. And so if you don't have clarity on what gives you anxiety, if you don't have clarity on what you don't like about your job, if you don't have clarity or vision for the future, clarity is where you want to start.

to where you want to start.

And so before we kind of move on to the next headline, what I want to do again is leave you with a couple of thoughts and maybe even questions. And this is really tailored to that brick wall of frustration. And I want you to consider next time you're up against that brick wall of frustration with whatever it is that you're trying to achieve. You're trying to build a business. You're trying to raise money. You're trying to have a baby. You're trying to get married. You've come so

close to all these things you want and then it didn't work out for you.

What if every brick wall of frustration was a moment is an invitation to your transformation? What do I mean by that? Well, if it's an invitation, it's almost like a stepping stone toward your transformation. What if every brick wall of frustration was an opportunity for you to practice letting go of expectations? What if every brick wall of frustration was an opportunity to practice letting go of perfectionism?

Amanda Escobedo (59:40.344)
What if every brick wall of frustration was a moment, an invitation, an opportunity to practice letting go of people pleasing? What if your brick wall of frustration was an opportunity to practice choosing faith over fear and uncertainty? What if your brick wall of frustration is an opportunity to reframe your relationship with time?

We often think I should be further, but Jessica, as an example shows, well, maybe you're exactly on time. 20 years later, her moment arrived. And so some empowering mantras that you might want to consider, I'd say quote unquote, living with, trying on, repeating in your head, writing down every morning or before you go to sleep. Some mantras that might help you shift your relationship with expectations or shift your relationship with time, shift your relationship

with failures might be failure isn't the finish line, it's feedback for becoming. Or every no is redirecting me more towards alignment. Or.

I'm not behind, I'm right on time. And setbacks are a setup for my next level. And if none of these resonate with you, you can always sit with yourself, grab your pen and paper, do a little brain dump of what's on your mind, what's taking up real estate of your brain, and just read through what is on your mind and what's taking up space in your head, what that energy it feels like to dump it from your head to the paper. And like, is it full of judgments? Is it full of wisdom?

And what you can do is literally ask your wisdom like how would you respond to this obstacle? If you ask your wisdom any powerful question it will answer it and so that type of open question like how would you respond to this obstacle? Sit and wait and you will you will not be surprised with the type of wisdom that starts flowing through it might give you new new Mantras to live with it might actually give you some tangible actions on how to solve for

Amanda Escobedo (01:01:52.143)
the obstacle. So hopefully one of those resonated with you. If not, you are welcome to create your own live with mantra. Now the last story I have is actually a podcast that I was listening to. It was from the Sean Ryan show. So you can look him up. It was a episode 240. I'm totally going to butcher this guy's name, but he interviewed Dr. David Vajgenbaum.

And I'll go into a little bit of who this doctor is, but what really kind of tugged on me with this story is this is a story of...

Tragedy obstacles and purpose and as I mentioned before one part of my mission and my goal is to hope to Inspire you to find a problem that you're passionate about solving and to give you the tools to go lead with a sense of purpose Turn it into your mission And so I think this is a perfect story a perfect example that kind of shows how that lives in real life So if you aren't familiar Sean Ryan show is a podcast so Sean Ryan is a former

US Navy SEAL CIA contractor and he is the founder of vigilance elites and so he has this podcast where he interviews a bunch of military veterans public servants entrepreneurs and thought leaders and he does a lot of exploring of both their triumphs and their challenges and so the story in general a lot of the stories come out with a lot of wins losses growth struggle and wisdom which I really love

And so with Dr. David, I'll call him Dr. David, Dr. David's story, his story is really a story of transforming hardship into purpose. And so a little bit of Dr. David's story. So his mother had cancer.

Amanda Escobedo (01:03:46.19)
While his mother was diagnosed with cancer and she was working through treatment There was a point of time they recognized that she wasn't gonna make it and she was losing a little bit of cognitive and speech in this process and before she passed he vowed to her He vowed to become a doctor and he vowed to become a doctor He was he was inspired by her suffering and not only did he vow to become a doctor because she got cancer He also launched an actively moving forward AMF

in memory of her. so AMF actively moving forward is a support network for college students, greeting lost ones. So he actually launched this while he was a student himself. And what I love about this is he was looking for a support group to help him through this loss of his mother and he couldn't find one that really resonated with him and that he felt was beneficial. So he created his own. And this is one thing that I always say when I'm working with clients is like,

lot of things we do is we, work through a lot of.

I'll say career transitions and in part of the career transitions, it's what we talk about is, you what are the jobs out there? What are the skills that you have? What have you done? And it's not me navigating and directing them any which way. It's helping them reimagine what a new career could look like that's more in line with their purpose. How can they turn their purpose into profits? How can they make an impactful income? And so within that though, as they're doing kind of an evaluation on their path,

and their experience and they're trying to reimagine of how that could look within the workforce today. Sometimes there aren't things that really resonate with them or there's again going back to problems and challenges they're experiencing and this is where we're saying, hey if that solution isn't out there, are you the one to create it? And that's what Dr. David did. So he was looking for a support group and it didn't exist for him for college students so he created his own and that's entrepreneurship. Actively moving forward, AMF.

Amanda Escobedo (01:05:49.648)
Now this isn't where the story ends. So he became a doctor because he was inspired by his mother's tragedy. She had cancer and then he created this support group, AMF. But in the middle of med school, he had symptoms that quickly spired. So in the middle of med school, he had organ failure, he was on life support and he had an unknown diagnosis. He collapsed in the middle of med school out of nowhere when this happened. And then it turned out he had

Castleman disease. And so when he was diagnosed with this, his body was just starting to die on him literally. He was read his last rites, his family came prepared to say goodbye, but then medicine intervened and saved him. And so through this he found a sense of purpose through his own pain. So he didn't wait for others to solve for his Castleman disease. He chose to research his own illness. So he or

a global movement called CDCN to accelerate the research and it used his blood samples, data, and science and he used himself as the subject, reverse engineering his illness to find what was wrong. And miraculously he had a breakthrough. Now the drug, I'm totally gonna butcher this drug, serolimum.

which is already on the shelf, it emerged as his lifeline. It turned down his overreactive MTOR pathway. So the breakthrough drug, this serolimus, don't make fun of me, is what led to his long-term remission. So he founded again CDCN to unite patients and researchers and now he lives in remission for years and he leads efforts to help others with this very rare disease.

Again, this is an example of transforming pain into purpose and now he's helping countless other people. And so what I want to kind of take us back to, know, the mean, like what...

Amanda Escobedo (01:07:59.98)
The meaning of hard could be for us. All of us are going through deep challenges. Everybody has something that they are working through. No matter who's smiling on Facebook, who's smiling on social media, how happy everyone's marriages look, how happy they look at work, how much money they look like they have.

We all have a sense of pain. We all navigate challenges. And many people navigate multiple challenges. But I think the question is, is there an opportunity for us to transform this challenge so that it's working for us? Rather than something happening to us, is this happening for us?

And when we start to ask the question of why is this happening to me? How, what is the benefit of this challenge? Is this working for me? If there was a benefit, how could this challenge be working for me? You might start to cultivate a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning behind the tragedy, a sense of meaning behind the pain, a sense of purpose. And so,

Going back to the hero's journey as we talk through, I shared a little bit about the creative process, which is like that six step process where.

You've got that great idea and then you go into the brick wall of frustration. You've got the break idea. You get started. You start doing research, feels doable, and then you quickly hit the brick wall of frustration. That was the creative process. Now everything Dr. David is going on, I want to highlight as the hero's journey. And I want to kind of share a little bit of a difference. Now with the creative process, we follow a map that follows your idea. Your idea is what's going through step one through step six. It goes through preparation.

Amanda Escobedo (01:09:43.216)
which is where you start to investigate, do research, talk to people about your idea, go to the brick wall of frustration, you go into incubation, you go into strategies, brick wall of frustration, incubation strategy, you go through that cycle for a bit, then you have an illumination, which is a breakthrough, and then verification, your great ideas in the world. That is the creative process. The hero's journey is very similar, except the difference is, instead of just following your idea, we follow you. And so the way the hero's journey is, starts

with step one is you get the call. And that's where I'm going to break down a little bit of David, Dr. David's journey. He got the call and the hero's journey can actually apply to any area of your life. It can apply to your finances, your romance. It can apply to your home environment, to your family, any part of your life circle is what I'll say. It can apply. And so with health as an example, with family for Dr. David, his life was fine.

He was fine living his life and then he got the call, his mom got the call, she got cancer. And a circumstance within his family changed him. It completely changed him. And they start navigating solutions together. But what I will kind of more pivot and focus on is his own journey of his own pain, of his own disease and his own illness. While he's navigating med school and he's doing well, then to all of a sudden collapse. There's a shift, an unmistakable cause.

that you have to answer. You can't not answer the call. And so the call for him is an almost death experience. And his collapse was not just an illness, it was really what I would say a catalyst. And it was a catalyst that really transformed his own personal suffering into collective impact.

And so a big way, one of the big ways in order for you to, I'd say, graduate from the hero's journey to answer the call, you actually have to become somebody new. You can't stay the same person. And so for him, going back to answering this call, he didn't just accept this disease as a death bed. He decided to research it, solve for it, and then turn it into a personal mission to help other people. That is the hero's journey. He is not the same person before.

Amanda Escobedo (01:12:04.72)
being a doctor. He would have been a doctor, now he became a solution or he found something that can actually save many many other people. And so the question to you, I always got a question for you, I'm always gonna have a question for you, what if your hardest moments are actually pointing you toward your greatest work? What if the challenges that you fight through have the opportunity to become your personal mission?

And when life forces you to reframe your purpose, are you willing to lean into that? Now, one of the reasons again, why I started this podcast is I wanted to transform our mindsets, a bit of these challenges from seeing these challenges as happening to us to happening for us. And so again, what problem are you passionate about solving? And why are you passionate about solving that? Why does that problem speak to you?

How can you transform your hardships, what you're experiencing, your pain into a sense purpose?

We all face hard. That's the reality. Everybody has something. We all face hard. We all have obstacles. But what if these challenges weren't detours, but they were actually invitations for you? What if your hardest moment is pointing you towards your greatest work? Your obstacles are not an ending to something, but really the beginning of becoming. And what if your pain is actually the very fuel to what you've been asking for? Purpose.

Now I want to give you two examples of other stories that kind of fall into this of transforming tragedy or hardships into purpose. So going back to one of the certifications that I have, which is the Stanford University Certification in Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence. This program was initially taught to MBA students at Stanford University and it was eventually taken out of Stanford University and it was given to a few hundred women that had lost their husbands in nine

Amanda Escobedo (01:14:12.288)
So after these women had lost their husbands in 9-11, they had gone through seeing their therapist, they had gone through a bit of a healing cycle, they grieved and they came out of that. So this was a part of the process where they came through this program now, it was renamed, it was called the Clarity Catalyst. These couple hundred women were taken through the Clarity Catalyst, the self-discovery course in mindfulness and emotional intelligence. And the intent was to give them

clarity and a sense of purpose. Help them reimagine what their future could be. Because if you really think about it, they had designed their life with their husband. They had designed their future with their partner. They had a vision and now that story has changed because their partner was no longer there. And so it was really about what were they going to do next. And after going through this course, many women graduated and were able and successful with transforming their tragedy into

purposeful careers. Many of them became published authors, public speakers, entrepreneurs. They were able to use their story and enable it as a sense of purpose for themselves and make money doing it.

And then the other one I have here is Elizabeth Glazer. Actually, before we go into Elizabeth Glazer, this one is a little more connected for me. So for those of you that know Colin Kaepernick, he was a football player for the 49ers.

If you don't know he was actually adopted by his family and one of the reasons why he was adopted is because his parents tried to have a child and The child that they had ended up passing of congenital heart disease So this is close to me because I have congenital heart disease and I've had quite a few surgeries and so they adopted Colin because they had that loss and But that loss they didn't just lose that child. They turned that loss into a sense of purpose including

Amanda Escobedo (01:16:13.2)
including Colin Kaepernick. There's a camp called Camp Taylor that I used to volunteer. I volunteered at twice. I wouldn't call it the Bay Area, but it's more in Northern California. There's also a camp in Catalina Island in Southern California called Camp Del Corazon. And these are camps intentionally built for children with congenital heart disease. I used to go to the one when I was a kid in Catalina Island.

And Camp Taylor is one that I volunteered at as an adult. And Colin and his parents are donors, big supporters, and volunteers of Camp Taylor. And so again, what I love about this story is they didn't just let that tragedy go in vain. They turned it into a sense of purpose for them. What can be your purpose?

What can be your purpose? There's a lot of tragedy in the world. There's a lot of pain. We know you got something. How can we reframe that so that it's working for you? How can we turn that into your foundation, to your base, into your fuel, into your fire? These are questions that I really just want you to sit with. Well, this is all my articles for today. Keep it a little short, keep it a little sweet. I also just wanted to open the invite to all of you. If you are coming across a story that you think

be inspiring or empowering to share. If you're coming across an article or a video that you think would be good for me to kind of break apart critique, unpack the leadership and the cultural opportunities, please share. You're welcome to share your news articles, your videos, your links, whatever it is that you're coming across. And you can email them to connect c-o-n-n-e-c-t connect at empowerhousecoaching.co. No at the end.

empowerhousecoaching, all one word, dot co. So again, connect at empowerhousecoaching.co. So any stories of purpose, resilience, determination, politics, business, hardship, things that I can transform into opportunities, leadership opportunities, cultural opportunities, purposeful opportunities, I'm here for you.

Amanda Escobedo (01:18:25.624)
Well, that's all I've got for you folks. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Escobedo and you've been listening to Game Changer. If today sparked insights, ahas, or new appreciations and perspectives, I'd be so grateful if you subscribe, left a review, and shared this episode with three people in your network who are ready to master the mental game and unlock their potential. Your support helps others discover this resource and invites them to be the next Game Changer.

Join me next time for another conversation on leadership, culture, and creating impact that lasts. Thank you.