How To Tell Your Story - Interview with Michelle E. Dickinson - Journeypreneur Podcast Ep. 162

Victoria: Hey everyone, it’s Sensei Victoria Whitfield here, your journey partner in business, welcoming you back to episode 162 of the Journeypreneur Podcast. This is your source for channeled holistic stress management techniques, guidance, inspiration and motivation to stay on your path to rapid financial ascension and massive impact as a conscious entrepreneur.

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So in this podcast episode, I have the honor of getting to share with you the story and work of sister goddess Michelle Dickinson. You can find her at MichelleEDickinson.com. 

So I really want to make sure that you're able to connect with her. She is the author of "Breaking Into My Life." You can go find that on Amazon right now and order up her book as well as she does resilience work. She works with organizations to shift their culture, to create compassionate workplaces for individuals and for teams. Michelle, Goddess, welcome to the podcast.

Michelle: Thank you so much for having me. I must say it's a pleasure to be here with you. I love your energy and what you're up to.

Victoria: Thank you! Oh, the feeling is mutual.

So this may be the very first time someone is getting to hear about you and what you do in the world or see you and learn more. So I was wondering if you could share with us in your own words exactly what it is you do, and especially what are the three things that you're known for. Could you tell us?

Michelle: Yeah, for sure. I think if you were to ask those around me what I'm known for, they would probably say I'm an author of the book that you mentioned, which is rooted in my TED talk. I gave a TED talk about growing up with my mom who had bipolar disorder. So that's the second thing. And the third would be that I am a new entrepreneur. I'm fairly new in the space and after leaving the corporate world behind. So it's a very exciting time. So they would say she's a new entrepreneur and wants to change the world.

So, yeah, I'm sure you'll hear I feel quite pleased to change the world.

Victoria: We need all that now more than ever. And so that makes me curious, though. So take me into it. Like, what inspired you to become an entrepreneur and to really commit to this purpose, sharing your gifts in your in a business of your own? Like what? Is there a story there?

Michelle: For sure. I mean, you know, I I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that I am so clear as to why I'm on this planet. And I can't say that I knew that even five years ago. I'm deeply connected to the work I do.

So I grew up with a mother who had bipolar disorder. I cared for her for a very large period of my my life, even up until I was an adult. So I saw what it looks like to suffer. Right. And I felt what her suffering felt like. And then so that was my first perspective about mental health. Right. I dealt with seasonal depression periodically as an adult. But then last I think it was two years ago, I was diagnosed with depression myself for the first time. And so I know what that feels like.

And then I also was in a workplace where we were trying to create compassion at work. But yet I had a boss who was not compassionate. And as soon as I felt that, I stopped and said, "I can get angry or I can say to myself, I need to be the change that I want to see in the world and I need to be the one creating more compassion and understanding."

So those those are the three lenses that I have on mental health. And when I felt that lack of compassion was the fire, at that point, the fire was lit in my belly to be the change. And so, I mean, that was really it. If you would ask me a few years ago, what are you going to do? What are you going to be when you grow up? I would have said I'm going to retire into the sunset of my corporate job, and that's it.

But there was a bigger plan for me - in just giving my TED talk, writing my memoir and getting really connected to this work. And honestly, it's the power of storytelling. When I tell my story, it opens the door. It creates an access for other people to not feel so alone and isolated. So if I could go first and tell my story, and it opens up something for someone else that brings me all the joy and fulfillment that I could ever ask for.

Victoria: You know, storytelling is one of the oldest forms of human gathering technologies, like being able to gather people and organize.

It's been around: oratory, right? And so that connection and sharing how, through sharing the experience of what you've been through, it's almost as if vicariously a person receives that same learning by encountering the story with you. It's a really powerful, powerful technique.

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Let's talk about it!

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