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One Stone

Sounds right.

All right, Liz, let’s go. Before we dig into what you really want to work on today, would you be willing to share a little bit of your backstory with our listeners so they can have some context?

Sure. I’m a widow raising two teenagers, and I had a job as a contractor, government contractor, working in a science center back about two years ago and a series of things happened in one year. This was seven years after my husband had died. I was making my way as a widow, working, a single mom, and a number of things happened in a period of a year that were a little overwhelming. The first thing was that my brother died. My brother, who I was really close to, died on the day that I started this job. This dream job working as basically the assistant to the director of this USGS science lab, which was such a great job, but immediately I had to defer for two weeks so I could deal with that death.

It was my second brother that I had lost to alcohol after my husband died, and then six months later, I got a call that my mom was dying. I went out to Seattle to be with her, when she died on the day that Trump was elected, or nominated. No, was sworn in. On the day that he was sworn in, in January of 2017, which started my year of just really big struggles. I was glad that I was with my mom when she died and I got to be with her and hold her hand. And then the year began and six months later, I had a hysterectomy scheduled. The week before the hysterectomy, I was in a head on collision with a woman who ran a red light, so I had this accident. I walked away from it. The car that I was driving was a car that I had bought when I had sold my business. It was one of the last remnants of this previous life that I had before my kids were born, and that car was totaled.

I got out and laugh because I was completely fine, although I saw my life flash before my eyes. Having already lost my husband to a car accident, this was a really traumatic event for me, but I didn’t really even realize it until later. I basically hitched a ride to work with the cop and everything and went on my merry way. A week later, I had the hysterectomy to cure this ongoing issue that I had with fibroids. A week after the surgery, I was in the hospital for a debilitating pain in my chest, which we attributed initially to the car accident, until three days later, I had a call from OB doctor, and she said basically that I had cancer and not fibroids, and that she wanted me to go see an oncologist and have an MRI done, which I had done. And I thought, “Oh, I’m better, I’m fine.” Like with a car accident, where I just was like, “I’m good,” but it’s not.

And then I went to the oncologist and she said, “Oh, I’m sure you know by now there’s this lump between your heart and your lungs, and we need to send you to a thoracic surgeon. It might be part of the rare cancer that you have. There’s only like seven people that have had that cancer.” So there’s not really good protocol for anyway. So then, I had the cancer, that was a week after the surgery, which was six months after the car accident. Long story short, while I had the surgery, I was supposed to be doing work at home for my job so that I could keep my job after the transition to the new administration, and because I then had all these other things happening, I wasn’t able to do the work at home so I lost my job. So that’s pretty much, you know, that year in a nutshell.

I realized from being inside that the government is not set up to save the environment.

Basically, the next two years I spent processing. Well, first of all, getting help from the cancer, and getting better from the cancer, but not getting strong afterwards really, because a lot of it was just processing these things that I just listed to you that happened in 2017. It was just a lot. And when I found you, when I found Wendy, I was in the process of trying to stand back up after all of this stuff that happened and realizing that it was okay to take some time off to process it, but I really wanted to put the things that I had learned from being inside the government and seeing how it works and seeing where the shortcomings are in the ecosystems budgeting for USGS and Department of Interior, fixing the glitches that I see in the private sector because the government is not. I realized from being inside that the government is not set up to save the environment.

So I started a nonprofit in 2018, the fall of 2018, and I don’t even remember when I found Wendy, but when I saw one of my family members had, I saw that she had begun selling her photography and seeing just transformations in her personal life and in her business life, and I thought, “I want that. Who was it that she thanked?” So I looked up Wendy, and that’s how I got started with the coaching. I want to say that it really transformed me almost immediately from a place of, how do I put these pieces together now that I’ve seen what they are to making progress on a daily and weekly basis. I hope I didn’t go over my time for my story.

No, this is all your time, Liz. This is all your time.

It’s a long story. So here I am. Now I have this business, but I’m also volunteering and that’s why I’m at the bee lab right now.

Okay. I totally want to thank you for sharing that story. That’s one huge nutshell, Liz, and it’s really brave of you to come on and share it. I’m certain that in its sharing, others are going to find comfort and inspiration. I know I do, and I think that’s a good place for us to take our little break. So for those of you out here, we’re going to take a really quick break. We’ve been talking with Liz about her courageous work to rebuild her life. When we come back, I’m going to really dig into some coaching with her, and as always, I’ll be giving you some tips and tools that you can start using today. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.

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