AG #009: My Mom Prayed for My Stolen Wallet - And It Worked

AG #009: My Mom Prayed for My Stolen Wallet - And It Worked

A stolen wallet in Barcelona taught Anna Powers that being "anti-generic" starts with the people closest to you.

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Anti-Generic with Anna Powers, host Anna Powers shares the true story of getting everything stolen at a cafe in Barcelona - and her mother's "ridiculous" response that changed how Anna sees faith, authenticity, and what it really means to be anti-generic.

You'll discover why the traits you filter out might be your greatest strength, what happened five months after the theft, and why anti-generic is about living your full self - not performing contrarian takes.

Question of the Day

What's something about you - a belief, a conviction, a quirk - that you've been filtering out of your content because it seems "too weird"? Drop it in the comments.

Key Takeaways

• The things that make you "kooky" or "weird" might be your greatest competitive advantage
• Anti-generic means living your full, true self - not just writing edgier copy
• Someone else being authentically themselves can transform YOUR life
• Filtering out your real beliefs costs you the connection your audience craves
• Faith, conviction, and quirks belong in your brand - not on the cutting room floor

Timestamped Outline

00:00 - How someone else being anti-generic changed my life
00:09 - Welcome to episode 9 of The Anti-Generic
00:57 - The Southern culture of going with the flow
01:23 - A semester in France and a trip to Barcelona
02:04 - Everything stolen at a cafe in Spain
03:55 - Filing a police report and calling home
06:32 - "I'm going to pray you get that wallet back"
07:21 - Five months later, a knock at the door
09:56 - What a stolen wallet has to do with being anti-generic
13:00 - Closing thoughts

Links & Resources

• Subscribe to The Anti-Generic with Anna Powers - https://www.saraannapowers.com/anti-generic

Connect & CTA

Subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

Every week, The Anti-Generic shows you how to use AI to grow your business without sounding like everyone else. Human-first, AI-amplified. Subscribe so you don't miss the next issue: https://www.saraannapowers.com/anti-generic

Credits

Host: Anna Powers © 2026 Sara Anna Powers. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Here's how someone else being anti-generic helped me massively strengthen my faith and get back something material that I really, really cared a lot about. Hey, it's Anna Powers, and you are listening to episode nine of the anti-generic podcast. I also send this out as a newsletter each week, and of course, we're sharing here on YouTube as well. So this newslettered podcast YouTube channel is all about how to be anti-generic. And one of the most important things you need to do to stay anti-generic is to live out your fullest, truest version of yourself. That is so much easier said than done in modern day society, where definitely the culture that I'm in, we're always looking at how can I adjust, read the room, do a temp check, figure out, you know, if what I'm thinking or about to say is gonna make waves. If it is, let me dial it back in a little bit. So I'm in the South and there's a big culture of being polite and just sort of going with the flow. And, you know, you kill more flies with honey and never really rocking the boat or sharing a bold opinion because you don't want to make people uncomfortable. So sometimes being anti-generic actually means saying or doing things that are a little off the wall and that don't really make a lot of sense. Let me give you an example. When I was 20, I spent a semester living in France. And there was one weekend that I had some new friends who wanted to take a little trip down to Barcelona. And I had never been there. I thought that sounded like a wonderful idea. So off we went to Barcelona. Now these friends liked to party. These were just kids that were in my study abroad program. These were not people I had known for any length of time. So they would all go out, stay out super late. That's never been my jam, not a big partier, have never been a big partier. So one morning when they were all sleeping in, um, sleeping off the night before, I should say I got up early by myself and I was gonna go to some art museums and exhibits, and I stopped at a cafe. And while I was at this cafe, my entire book bag was stolen. Now, this book bag contained basically my life in Barcelona. So it contained my wallet, my passport, all of my credit cards, my train ticket to get back from Spain to France, and my keys to my apartment in France. Now it will be a long podcast episode for me to walk you through exactly all the steps I had to take to kind of um fix that situation and handle that situation. Having my belongings stolen in a foreign country where I also didn't speak the language because I had taken four years of Latin in undergrad. And then at the by the time I was living in France, I had had two and a half years of French, um, no Spanish. I mean a little bit of Spanish because I did a summer um mission internship in Argentina. So, you know, six weeks worth of Spanish, not enough to get around in Barcelona where they're really speaking Catalan anyway, which is, you know, not your average Spanish, right? So um having my belongings stolen in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language was probably on my top 10 list of things that could go wrong that I really wanted to avoid. But once it happened, what I realized was honestly, it really wasn't so bad. Wouldn't recommend it, but I started to see the positive perspective of it. I was still healthy, no one had physically harmed me, you know, my stuff was gone, but I was just in the same shape as I was when I walked into the cafe, and I was able to navigate through the situation. There was a lovely couple who could tell that all I could say was Mia Bolsa Negra, and I was completely stuck. And they helped me, um, they spoke Catalan and English, and they helped me find the Barcelona Police Department. I made a statement there, um, filled out a police report. The police department let me call my parents internationally to freeze the credit cards. Um, that was not a fun call to make because it was early Sunday morning, I believe, um, in Spain, so like middle of Saturday night in the US. So, of course, they were nervous when they got that call, but very relieved when it was just that some cards were missing. Um, so we did that, and then I was able to, with the police report, get back on the train. I guess they see that a lot. So as long as you have the police report saying that your ticket was stolen, they will let you back on the train. Unfortunately, my landlord was out of the country. He had the only set of keys to my apartment, the only spare keys. So I stayed with a friend for a couple of days until he got back. So I was kind of locked out of my space. Um, and then once I got back into the apartment, thankfully, my smart parents had had me make copies of all my important papers, and I was able to take those to the American consulate in Marseille to get a uh a passport reissued for myself. So it was quite a lot of steps to go through. But also, you know, when you look at the big picture, again, it was just things that went away and I was healthy. And so there was something really freeing about going through that experience and coming out on the other side of it, like, whew, that was really bad. Wouldn't want it to happen to anyone that I love. But also, it was I was able to navigate it and I was okay. So um, the theft happened in October. For Christmas, I asked my parents for if one of my Christmas presents that year could be a new wallet because the wallet that was stolen had been given to me by my mother. It was um nothing super fancy. We didn't really buy like supername brand things in my family growing up, but it was just one of those, you know, you find the perfect wallet that's the perfect size and shape and color, and it's just just right. And so they said, of course, you know, that can be your main Christmas gift. Go pick out whatever wallet you want and we'll we'll get it for you. Um, so I looked and I looked and I looked a lot of different places, and I just never found a wallet that I liked. I was just using like a little, you know, $5 one from the gas station or something that I picked up in Europe to replace my nicer one. So I didn't find one that I liked. And so rather than just kind of settle for something I half liked, I just asked them, hey, can we put that gift on hold? Haven't found one that I liked yet. Let me just um look a little bit more. And can I just like reserve that gift for when I find one that I like? And that is when my mother said, I'm gonna pray you get that wallet back. Now, this was my mother being her true self. This was my mother being her anti-generic self. I thought this idea was totally crazy. I remember immediately thinking, that is so stupid. God has way bigger things to worry about than my wallet. Like that is such a first world problem. I don't know that we used that expression back then, but I that was how I felt. Like, this is so silly. I would never bother God with that. And I outright told her, do not do that. Because when she prays, she prays. And I didn't want my mother spending all her energy on a material thing, a wallet, you know. Um, I told her God had way more important things to worry about, and she insisted, no, I'm gonna pray and you're gonna get your wallet back. Okay. Fast forward, again, the theft happened in October. Fast forward to March of the next year. So what is that? October, November, December, January, February, March, five months later. I was home on spring break and there was a knock at my parents' front door. I opened the door, it's the postperson with a big envelope for me from the Barcelona police department. I opened the package, and there immediately was my stolen wallet. There were no credit cards inside, but there were actually quite a number of my documents. So my passport was in there, um, my train card for Montpellier, the city that I had been living in. I think my gym card for Montpellier was in there, just a bunch of ID cards, no credit cards. Um I was floored. I could not believe it because there's so much crime in Barcelona. And what you hear is mostly, you know, they grab what they want, they just throw it in the trash. All those months later, could not believe it. So my mother, by her insistence on praying that I got that wallet back, and then also by God answering that really wild prayer, that strengthened my faith in a way that nothing had strengthened my faith up to that point in my life. It was such uh, it was such a point in time for me where I realized God really cares. He cares about the big things, of course, and he also cares about the little things. And there's nothing too small that he doesn't want us to bring it to him. We're his children. Now, as a mother, I understand that much more. It doesn't matter how small and unimportant the thing that your child is interested in. Like if they want to show you that tiny, weird, uninteresting, normally, normally uninteresting thing, you want to see it because they're excited about it and they care and you care because you're their parent. And I didn't have that concept of God before that happened. But with my mother being willing to be her anti-generic self and say something kind of kooky, I'm gonna pray that you get that wallet and actually believe it and stand on her beliefs. And then it happening that massively strengthened my faith. So ever since that moment, I have really realized that the little things are important to God too. And that has been such a blessing to me throughout the decades that I've lived since that experience. So, what does this have to do with being anti-generic? Because that's really why you listened to this, why you watch this, etc. Quite simply, my mother was being anti-generic in saying she would pray for that stolen wallet and in being so confident that I would indeed get it back. It made her sound a little crazy. It really, really did. And it seemed ridiculous and quite frankly, really weird. But it also worked. It worked. And because she was willing to risk being anti-generic, I got my wallet back and I got my faith strengthened. It was a two-for-one. It was a God nod to me that he really cares and that my mom was also actually way smarter than I had given her credit for. So if she hadn't been living out her anti-genericness, my faith wouldn't have been strengthened. And I honestly don't think I would have gotten that wallet back either. In closing out this week's message, being anti-generic, it isn't, you know, I'm a copywriter, right? So I talk a lot about here's what you say to be anti-generic or how to develop these contrarian kind of points of view and be bold with the way you write things out and message things. And that's part of it, okay? But I want to be clear that being anti-generic isn't just about saying things that are controversial or contrarian. Someone can fake that, quite honestly. Being anti-generic is really about living out your full true self, even and especially the things that make you kind of weird. Okay. Um doesn't always have to be something weird. That's the point. Anti-genericness isn't about just being contrarian, it isn't about just being weird, but it is about, hey, if you're contrarian, let that out. If you're naturally weird, let that out. It's about being who you naturally are. No matter. Um, it's about living out your unique views and your thoughts and your beliefs. Let me say that once more. It's about living out your actual views, your thoughts, and really holding firm to your beliefs. No matter, or even if they're kooky, they're weird, they're crazy. Or at least they look that way to everybody else. So that's what I wanted to share today. Again, that Barcelona wallet story has made such a massive impact on my faith. I hope that you experience a level of confirmation that God is real and sees you and cares about you, um, similar to what I experienced with that story, because you will be able to draw on that for years and decades. Um, but that's what I wanted to share with you and just talk about anti-genericness in a different way from you know, pure online business messaging, which is normally what we're talking about on this podcast. So thank you for being here with me. You can always drop me a message at Anna at Sarah AnnaPowers.com or on Instagram at Sarah Anna Powers. I'll see you next week. Take care.