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From High Achieving To Fully Alive · Is Your Way In Your Way?

0:25
Cassandra: Good day out there to all my listeners, and I'd like to welcome you to Is Your Way and Your Way.
0:31
Cassandra: And for those new listeners out there, my name, and I'm your host, is Cassandra Crawley Mayo.
0:37
Cassandra: And I have a question for you.
0:39
Cassandra: What happens when the world tells you you've made it?
0:43
Cassandra: And what I mean by that, let's say, you know, you're almost about to retire or you're doing really well, your kids are grown up and you're really saturated in your community and just a lot.
0:56
Cassandra: But yet inside you feel a little lost, although you've accomplished a lot, are still accomplishing.
1:05
Cassandra: But my guest today, her name is Sarah Byers, and she was a CEO for over 20 years.
1:13
Cassandra: She was juggling success, um, family, and community.
1:18
Cassandra: But it wasn't until this heartbreaking loss of a loved one.
1:23
Cassandra: And I know a lot of you can relate, it's just something that that just resonates with you that make you like sit down and pause for a minute.
1:33
Cassandra: And and by doing that, she discovers success doesn't always mean wholeness.
1:40
Cassandra: So today we're going to talk about the courage to embrace all parts of yourself, the polished and the vulnerable, the strategic and the spiritual, and why true freedom comes from when we stop being in our own way.
1:57
Cassandra: This conversation will challenge how you see leadership, success, and even yourself.
2:03
Cassandra: And I'd like to introduce you to my guest.
2:05
Cassandra: And her name again is Sarah Byers.
2:08
Cassandra: Hello, Sarah.
2:10
Sara: Hello, Cassandra.
2:11
Sara: Hello, everyone.
2:12
Sara: I'm so happy to be here.
2:13
Sara: Thank you for that beautiful introduction.
2:15
Sara: Wow.
2:16
Cassandra: You are so welcome.
2:18
Cassandra: And you know, for my listeners, they know that we talk about topics related to personal improvement, self-improvement, uh, self-development, and all of that.
2:32
Cassandra: But today, you know, our topic is going to be its titled Becoming a High Achieving, Becoming All of You.
2:43
Cassandra: Let me say that.
2:44
Cassandra: From high achieving to fully alive.
2:47
Cassandra: Okay.
2:48
Cassandra: I'm telling you, from high achieving to fully alive.
2:53
Cassandra: So um, Sarah, one of the things I'd like to start with is I want to read a little bit of your bio so that my end of my audience will understand what qualifies you to for us to talk about what we get ready to talk about.
3:08
Sara: Okay.
3:09
Cassandra: So Sarah is on a mission, guys, to help people lighten the burdens they carry and rediscover the joy of living with authenticity and connection.
3:20
Cassandra: She's a CEO, Oversight to a Family Business, Leonardo's Pizza.
3:26
Cassandra: She's an inspirational speaker and channel poet.
3:30
Cassandra: She has woven her leadership experience and spiritual insights into a life of impact and service.
3:37
Cassandra: She is the author of two poetry collections, Heart and Moon and Wise Stars, and a co-host, the Collecting Insight podcast, where she explores the beauty and complexity of the human experience.
3:53
Cassandra: Whether leading a business, writing from the heart, or speaking on stage, she inspires others to unlock their innate power to create more love, hope, and humanity in the world.
4:08
Cassandra: So, Sarah, tell my listeners who is Sarah Byers?
4:14
Cassandra: Like, for example, like tell us your backstory before you started working for your dad full time.
4:21
Cassandra: What's going on with Sarah?
4:23
Sara: I love that question.
4:25
Sara: And thank you for sort of creating that container for it because who I sort of was almost at the beginning is who I'm becoming again.
4:35
Sara: And that's been just a wild journey.
4:38
Sara: Um, so it's interesting as a child, uh very young child, I was I always had a microphone in my hand.
4:45
Sara: If I could have a microphone, then I would be talking essentially gibberish to it.
4:51
Sara: Um and I uh when I was 13, I I thought no one asked me to, but I thought I had to keep this secret in my family.
5:02
Sara: And that sounds significant, but I thought I had to keep it or else it was gonna hurt my family.
5:07
Sara: And um that is where unbeknownst to me, I started to develop pretty severe anxiety, actually.
5:16
Sara: Um and that anxiety, even though I was the responsible one in my family, I had a sister who has suffered with substance use disorder for 35 years.
5:30
Sara: Um but I I so I had to, even though I felt that crippling anxiety, I still had to be the responsible one, the capable one, the one who is going to try to hold it all together.
5:45
Sara: And uh so through my life, that anxiety up until my joining my family's business sort of chased me.
5:54
Sara: It was like it was right behind me, and I was trying to outrun it as fast as I possibly could.
6:01
Sara: Um, so that I actually uh went to college and um it became so significant I couldn't get myself to go to class.
6:10
Cassandra: Wow.
6:11
Sara: And so I dropped out of college and I was working uh for the Gap in Banana Republic at the time, so retail clothing store.
6:22
Sara: Yeah.
6:22
Sara: And I started to move forward with them.
6:25
Sara: Um I became promoted, I started moving around the country into a variety of management and leadership roles, and uh ultimately found myself from Cincinnati, Ohio to South Florida, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and then finally to Charlotte, North Carolina.
6:45
Sara: Um and I, you know, was within that company I learned a tremendous amount.
6:52
Sara: It was 12 years of amazing education.
6:55
Sara: And um, but I was still in a space where I'm not, I'm I was trying to be what everyone wanted me to be on the outside.
7:07
Sara: I was sort of externalizing.
7:09
Sara: So I was epitomizing the uh quintessential gap leader.
7:15
Sara: Um and I was about to receive a promotion to move to Houston, Texas.
7:21
Sara: And my boyfriend at the time and I, I visited home Vermont every summer.
7:29
Cassandra: Okay.
7:29
Sara: And that summer I got to the airport to come back, move go back to Charlotte.
7:35
Sara: And I just had this overwhelming feeling, I cannot explain it, but that I needed to move back home to Vermont.
7:44
Sara: Now it made no sense.
7:47
Sara: Um, I the gap I'd moved to a certain level that Vermont didn't have those opportunities.
7:52
Sara: Um and so I spent about three months thinking about this because I could still feel it.
7:58
Sara: It's sort of like when your head and your heart are in competition, because it made no sense.
8:03
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah.
8:05
Sara: And I talked to my dad who said, you know, you can come back here, but if you come back here, you are not like you're not running anything, you're not managing, you're not, you can work here.
8:16
Sara: Okay, but I don't care that you've overseen hundreds of people or that like if you come back here, this is what you're doing.
8:24
Sara: And so I couldn't get away from the feeling.
8:27
Sara: So I took a 70% pay cut and moved back home to Vermont.
8:34
Sara: And thankfully, my boyfriend, who's now my husband, uh came with me.
8:37
Sara: Um but that was one of my first big leaps where it didn't make logical sense, but it was what I felt.
8:48
Sara: I felt something bigger than me pulling me.
8:51
Sara: It was like magnetic.
8:53
Cassandra: Wow.
8:54
Sara: Yeah, so that was sort of the the the lead up to coming back home.
9:00
Cassandra: Um yeah, yeah, that's interesting because I remember growing up, um there was a part of me that kind of wanted to start all over wherever I moved.
9:12
Cassandra: I I moved a lot of places, and what I realized that I was running from myself.
9:18
Cassandra: Yeah, and myself went with me everywhere.
9:21
Cassandra: It's kind of like that anxiety, okay, I'm gonna go here and I'm gonna be okay.
9:24
Cassandra: But yet that, you know, it's kind of like so how long are you gonna keep running?
9:30
Sara: Oh my gosh, so powerful.
9:32
Sara: Because yeah, I mean, I would say that that is probably pretty accurate for myself as well.
9:39
Sara: Um, and while my move back to Vermont took me to a different level of self-understanding, I still had so much to learn.
9:50
Sara: That was in 2001, and I was 29 at the time.
9:55
Cassandra: Wow.
9:56
Cassandra: Now, when you were younger, you talked about you holding a microphone a lot.
10:00
Cassandra: Like, I know, like what did you have any goals or aspirations to it when you were growing up?
10:08
Cassandra: What were they?
10:09
Sara: That's a great question.
10:11
Sara: Um, interestingly, so when I was 13, I um had the chance to be a page in the Vermont legislature, which meant that I got to miss uh Tuesday through Friday for during the legislative session for a few months.
10:28
Sara: I didn't have to go to school in eighth grade, and I got to instead be a part of the Vermont Senate and House and you know, that whole entire system, which was pretty amazing.
10:39
Sara: And at that time, I was pretty certain I wanted to be a lawyer, and that was um my, you know, I just wanted to find a way to do good work in the world.
10:53
Sara: And my mother had always told me that I could be argumentative at the time when I was younger, um, or just debate more more a debater.
11:04
Sara: Um and so that was my aspiration at the time was I wanted to ultimately become a Supreme Court justice.
11:12
Sara: Oh, right.
11:13
Sara: Um, and I I identified as being like being smart was was my only identity at that time when I was younger.
11:25
Sara: I always my sister was the beautiful one, I was the smart one.
11:30
Sara: Um, and so that's why leaving school disrupted everything for me because I no longer considered myself smart, and so I didn't know who I was.
11:41
Sara: Yeah.
11:41
Cassandra: Right.
11:41
Cassandra: Yeah, that's like the status quo.
11:43
Cassandra: Like, okay, that's what we're supposed to do, go to school and then you know, get a job, get married, have a white picket fence, have some kids.
11:50
Cassandra: Yeah, right.
11:51
Cassandra: And that that wasn't okay.
11:53
Cassandra: So when you started working for your dad, what was that like?
12:03
Cassandra: Because he said, What do you say?
12:06
Cassandra: Now you're gonna work when you come here, you know, even though I own the company, don't think that, you know, that you you're privileged and you're gonna do this and that.
12:14
Cassandra: What was that like?
12:16
Sara: That was hard.
12:17
Sara: Um, and the reason it was hard was not because I wanted to assert necessarily the privilege of being the owner's child, but rather that I wanted to be recognized for the 12 years of work I had done with this uh massive company.
12:36
Sara: Yeah.
12:36
Sara: And so that is what was really, really hard.
12:41
Sara: And the structures were really different.
12:43
Sara: I was joining a family pizza business.
12:45
Sara: My dad had two restaurants at the time, and it was so different.
12:50
Sara: I, you know, there weren't rules and structures and an operational manual and systems, et cetera, that I was executing.
12:57
Sara: It was just, it felt, it felt wild and unruly in a way that was a bit uncomfortable for me.
13:03
Sara: And my dad and I, my dad had always been um my greatest cheerleader and supporter.
13:10
Sara: Um and when uh my parents got divorced, my father actually uh had custody of us.
13:18
Sara: And um, so he was he meant so much to me throughout my life.
13:24
Sara: And when we started to work together, that dynamic changed because all of a sudden I am working for him.
13:33
Cassandra: Yeah.
13:33
Sara: Um, and I'm strong-willed, and he is the founder of this business, and so there were there were complexities there to try to figure out who we were going to be in this new dynamic of father and daughter and employee and owner, yeah.
13:53
Sara: So that was that was that took that took quite a bit of time.
13:57
Cassandra: Okay, all right.
13:58
Cassandra: So although he was the owner, uh, were you believing you were an owner too?
14:05
Cassandra: No, because not at all.
14:08
Sara: Not at that time.
14:09
Sara: I am today, but then um, then no, I did not, I did not feel that way.
14:15
Sara: However, because of all of the things I'd experienced, I knew I I knew I had something to offer.
14:23
Sara: Um, and that offering um could be challenging perhaps to, you know, father-daughter dynamic is my dad was always my mentor, my leader, my guide.
14:41
Sara: And now I had this information that he might not have because I'd worked for a company corporation for 12 years.
14:49
Sara: Yeah.
14:50
Cassandra: Right.
14:50
Cassandra: Okay.
14:51
Cassandra: So why?
14:52
Cassandra: So something shifted.
14:54
Cassandra: Okay.
14:55
Cassandra: Um, because you said, I'm curious to why do you call yourself a CEO turn soul explorer?
15:05
Sara: Yes.
15:05
Sara: Because um once my dad and my relationship got figured out, um I began to achieve.
15:17
Sara: Um, I got involved in our community.
15:21
Sara: I was chairing multiple boards at a time.
15:24
Sara: I was being asked to speak here and there, and I received an honorary degree from a college.
15:30
Sara: I I just I started to to um achieve in ways that I never expected in my life, um, particularly without a college degree.
15:42
Sara: Um, and so I I just kept achieving and racking up uh, you know, accomplishments and awards, et cetera.
15:49
Sara: And um at this time I was CEO of our business.
15:53
Sara: I co-owned it with my father and my husband.
15:57
Cassandra: Okay.
15:58
Sara: Um, but I was going really, really, really fast.
16:01
Sara: Um, I also had a daughter um that you know I was trying to be a mom to.
16:08
Sara: And in 2019, a sister of Mercy, who in Vermont was a community leader, she and I would see each other twice a year and exchange pleasantries.
16:20
Sara: But she called me one day and she said, You've been coming up in my prayers for the last couple of months.
16:29
Sara: And I just thought you needed some extra blessings.
16:32
Sara: So I've been sending those to you.
16:33
Sara: But you are now coming up morning, noon, and night.
16:38
Sara: And I feel the need to ask you, is there something in your life you are not paying attention to?
16:45
Sara: And that's I'm like, I have no idea.
16:49
Sara: I'm like, I'm busy, but I feel good, you know.
16:52
Sara: I because I was missing every sign.
16:54
Sara: People were like, I don't know how you do all the things you do, I don't know how you're on 10 boards, I don't know how you're doing this, I don't know how.
17:01
Sara: And I was just like, I just am, it's all good.
17:03
Sara: Like, I didn't get it.
17:05
Sara: Yeah.
17:06
Sara: Um, and then in 2020, my stepfather, who was uh a Vermont senator and a lawyer himself, um had dealt with Alzheimer's for the past 12 years.
17:18
Sara: And when he developed Alzheimer's, his hardened parts began to slip away.
17:26
Sara: And I began to connect with him in a space that I didn't understand until fairly recently, but it was in spirit.
17:33
Sara: I could almost feel his soul and his spirit, and we became very, very close.
17:40
Sara: And in 2020, he was moved to hospice because he was in his final days.
17:46
Sara: And I was driving back and forth between my house, my daughter and husband, and hospice.
17:53
Sara: And uh, I would listen in that 20-minute drive to the music from the Titanic movie.
18:00
Sara: Now that sounds really ominous, yeah, but I just wanted to feel this moment because I had felt so much spirit from my stepfather.
18:09
Sara: So um he passed uh one Saturday at 6:56, and I drove home listening to my same music.
18:19
Sara: Yeah, then I pulled onto my street, and I'm like, okay, it's time for this music to come to an end.
18:26
Sara: And so I pulled up a song by the Lumineers, and it was their song Ophelia, and that's the song that showed on my radio screen.
18:35
Cassandra: Uh-huh.
18:36
Sara: But that was not the song that started playing through the speakers, it was Frank Sinatra's My Way.
18:43
Sara: Oh, wow.
18:44
Sara: And it said, and now the end is near, so I face the final curtain.
18:49
Sara: Right.
18:50
Sara: And I'm looking from my radio, but it doesn't say that, listening to these words.
18:55
Sara: Uh-huh.
18:56
Sara: And I am like, somehow this is my stepfather.
19:01
Cassandra: Wow.
19:03
Sara: And I sat there in front of my garage with the music blaring in my ears, tears streaming down my face because the same spirit I felt when he was here, yeah, I was feeling through this.
19:20
Cassandra: Wow.
19:21
Sara: And uh, you know, my mom, who is a scientist, uh read a ton of books.
19:30
Sara: Um, she's a pretty spiritual person, but read a ton of books on the afterlife, death, etc.
19:38
Cassandra: Yeah.
19:38
Sara: And found one person that she really connected with who, whether you believe it or not, indicated that they could connect with the other side.
19:48
Cassandra: Oh.
19:49
Sara: And this person had a seven-month-long waiting list.
19:52
Sara: But my mom on Christmas Eve that year got on the phone with this person in Arizona.
19:58
Sara: And the first thing she said was, There's a gentleman here singing.
20:03
Sara: Does Frank Sinatra's My Way mean anything to you?
20:08
Cassandra: Wow.
20:09
Sara: And it blew my world wide open.
20:12
Sara: So when I say Soul Explorer now, it is because I believed a certain set of things, and now I I am open to things that might be invisible, that might seem impossible.
20:31
Sara: And I've explored myself and my connection to both a creator, a source, God, whatever your word that you use, myself and everyone else.
20:45
Sara: So now I'm I I just I have I've learned so much.
20:50
Sara: I I began writing poetry in the middle of the night.
20:54
Cassandra: Yes.
20:54
Sara: Um often without recollection in the morning.
20:57
Sara: And I've written 3,000 poems that have guided this soul exploration.
21:03
Cassandra: Wow.
21:04
Sara: Yeah.
21:04
Cassandra: That's great.
21:05
Cassandra: Yeah, it's been amazing.
21:30
Cassandra: So at this time in your life, what would you so what is your passion now?
21:36
Cassandra: Like you said, you're still um, you still own the business, you're still working, your daughters are maybe older now.
21:43
Cassandra: Yep, 20.
21:44
Cassandra: Yeah.
21:45
Cassandra: Um so what's your passion now based on all of that?
21:53
Sara: You know, my passion now is be is to embody all of myself.
22:00
Sara: And I say that because it was pretty scary to have this soulful words coming in the middle of the night.
22:09
Cassandra: Right.
22:10
Sara: My feeling like I'm hearing music for my stuff, like that with the CEO, you know, professional board, a corporate board.
22:20
Sara: You know, um, I I'm like I basically kind of put this part in hiding because I'm like, that does not fit into this other persona of Sarah Byers, who's somewhat public and it doesn't it doesn't fit, yeah.
22:36
Sara: Um, until it became so strong, it became there, I I have no other choice now but to be all of myself.
22:49
Sara: And so, in terms of purpose now, my purpose feels like it is to be all of that, and it still includes, you know, in January, I just finished chairing the Vermont Business Roundtable, which is a group of 125 CEOs.
23:05
Sara: Um, so how it's now how do I bring that part in?
23:13
Sara: So for me, it was by, you know, the board chair speaks at the start of our meetings, and it's I'm gonna start this meeting one day with one of my poems.
23:23
Sara: And it was really amazing because after I did that, I'm the third female chair in history.
23:29
Sara: So that in itself is, you know, this is taking a bit of a risk.
23:34
Sara: But um, the whim many women came up to me and said that was so courageous.
23:40
Sara: And then I had men texting me after saying, I write too.
23:45
Sara: Oh wow.
23:46
Sara: Um, but it really kind of did something.
23:49
Sara: So, so for me now, I I chair a college board.
23:53
Sara: I'm like, this is just who I am, all of it.
23:57
Sara: Yeah, and so for me, it is being in the spaces that I'm fortunate to inhabit, meeting the people like you that I am blessed to be introduced to, and being the wholeest version.
24:13
Sara: Because when you initially sort of talked about going from high achieving to fully alive, I now know what that feels like.
24:21
Sara: Yeah, it feels like being me, and that me is not a finite thing, it's not like one and done.
24:28
Sara: Oh, I found her check.
24:30
Sara: Like it is an infinite discovery to me.
24:33
Sara: And being open to that unlocking and de layering of who I thought that I was, so that I could be the conduit for something greater on this earth.
24:48
Sara: Right.
24:49
Cassandra: Exactly.
24:50
Cassandra: That's interesting because when you weren't that when you didn't finish college, you're like, Well, I guess I'm not smart anymore.
24:57
Cassandra: You know, you you uh was disappointed in yourself.
25:01
Cassandra: But when you look back on, you're like, I I may not have been smart for that, or that was not what I was called to do, but right now I'm smart.
25:10
Cassandra: I'm okay and I feel great.
25:12
Cassandra: Um, and and in other words, you got out of your way, you were in your way because we think because we didn't go to college, you know, my parents probably disappointed.
25:23
Cassandra: I disappointed myself, you know, and you were just in in your way, and that's kind of what this is about.
25:30
Cassandra: It's like, is your way in your way?
25:32
Cassandra: And you're like, okay, because when you get out of your way, you feel you just become in a good place.
25:39
Cassandra: Yes, I mean, it's just amazing the meaning that you start having in your life, and you had, you know, we I talk about um uh barriers, you know, those self-imposed barriers, you know, even the fact that your mom and dad separated.
25:57
Cassandra: I mean, you could have been in your way with that, but yet look what you did with the stepfather, look at the impact that he had in your life, you know.
26:06
Cassandra: So I think that is amazing.
26:08
Cassandra: And you talk about you want to help people connect to their truest self.
26:15
Cassandra: How do you do that?
26:17
Cassandra: Because on this podcast, it's like my lot of my listeners are stuck.
26:22
Cassandra: They want they know that there's something else they should be doing, but they just can't figure it out, they don't know what it is, or they know, but they just can't move, you know.
26:33
Cassandra: It's it's I know because I've been there.
26:36
Cassandra: So, how do you how do you help people connect to who their truest self?
26:44
Sara: What do you do?
26:44
Sara: Such a beautiful thank you for saying that.
26:47
Sara: Um, because yes, so I should also say I took a step away from the day-to-day of our business um in 2021.
26:57
Sara: And uh I was lost at first um because I didn't know who I was without all of that.
27:06
Sara: Um and and for me, because I still have moments, what I'm gonna say is that I think that that feeling that you just described is something that just keeps coming and going.
27:21
Sara: So it's like a wave.
27:23
Sara: It's just you're on the top of it, you're on the bottom, you're on the top, you're on the bottom.
27:27
Sara: So it's not, we often look for this one space where finally we will forever feel good in our purpose, etc.
27:37
Sara: Yeah.
27:37
Sara: And it just doesn't happen.
27:39
Sara: However, to me, when you're in those moments of feeling stuck, so a couple of things.
27:47
Sara: One, I just started to get to know me, and that meant even in five-minute increments, you know, people would tell me that I needed to meditate or I needed to be in prayer, or I needed like for for me, what that means is sitting, doing nothing and noticing myself, noticing my body, my feelings, my thoughts without attaching anything to it.
28:13
Sara: Because I started to learn that when things weren't good on the outside, when when I I would do something with my body, like I will twitch my jaw, I will like I'm now noticing how my body responds to different things so that I can soften into it.
28:32
Sara: So I'd say first is is just finding that solitude, even if it is five minutes, um, because that solitude allows you to get to know yourself because we're running so fast.
28:48
Sara: I don't, I think we're listening to our mind, but we miss the heart.
28:52
Sara: So um, and then the second thing is that to me, I see life.
28:58
Sara: I just mentioned a wave.
28:59
Sara: I I do see it as water, so I see everything is sort of flowing through, and that when we get in that stuck place, it's almost because we're in resistance to something.
29:12
Sara: Like we're we we we are not sure, and so we're perseverating about it and we can't figure out what it is, and in that like state of mind, we actually stop the flow, so the flow sticks and it's just motionless right here, and we feel stuck.
29:29
Sara: So to me, it is a matter of allowing even the hard things, the unknown, which it usually is, letting us embrace the fact that we don't know where we're going.
29:43
Sara: And for me, the embrace and understanding that I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow is what has brought in some unique things into my life, like writing and podcasting, et cetera.
29:59
Sara: Because otherwise I would have been like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, I feel it, but I don't know what it is, I don't know what it is.
30:07
Sara: And it's being okay because the ultimate human condition is the fact that all of us are going to leave this earth and none of us know when or how.
30:17
Cassandra: That's right.
30:18
Sara: And so all of these other little things are sort of part and parcel with that.
30:23
Sara: So unknown is scary, yeah.
30:25
Sara: Um, but that's those are the two things I would say to anyone who feels stuck in that place.
30:32
Cassandra: Yeah, and um, and I like what you said, even though you know you're in a good place, we have uh ups and downs, you know, mountain peaks, valleys, and all of that.
30:44
Cassandra: However, when you know, and and we're all different.
30:48
Cassandra: I am a woman of God, a woman of faith, and you know, I can recall getting into that space, knowing that it's something, and I remember crying out to God, what is it that you want me to do?
31:03
Cassandra: You know, I actually uh wrote a book.
31:05
Cassandra: The name of my book is Is Your Way in Your Way, same as the podcast, and I have a chapter in there, and I call it the chair experience because that's when I was at my wits' end, knowing there was something else that was going on with me, but I just couldn't figure it out.
31:22
Cassandra: And you're right, just kind of stay in the moment.
31:25
Cassandra: And I always say, when you're ready, the teacher will appear, you know.
31:29
Cassandra: But you gotta be ready.
31:31
Cassandra: It's really weird, and and you want to be open, don't shut yourself out because you don't know you know what you're missing.
31:39
Cassandra: And sometimes I say, What's the worst that can happen?
31:42
Cassandra: You know, in the in that state.
31:45
Cassandra: And it's interesting when your stepfather passed, you started thinking, but yeah, that was in 2020, but you said in 2021, afterwards, a year after you got stuck.
31:57
Cassandra: You know, absolutely, yeah.
32:00
Sara: You got stuck.
32:00
Sara: I got stuck probably last month, Cassandra.
32:03
Sara: I mean, truly, I'm not I yes, it in some way, maybe a smaller way, but in some way, yeah.
32:10
Cassandra: And that and that's okay.
32:11
Cassandra: And I think that was the rebirth of the fact that I wrote the book is to help guide and power women to get unstuck, you know, because I always say, you can't tell me if you've not been there yourself.
32:27
Sara: Yeah.
32:28
Cassandra: Certain things.
32:29
Cassandra: So I have this this this uh this uh a signature program titled um um the rise journey, you know, and and and that's you know, for us to rise beyond limits, you know, so I can really, really relate with you.
32:46
Cassandra: And one of the things you said is you talk about pressure being more than just stress.
32:52
Cassandra: Where do you think internal pressure comes from?
32:56
Sara: Oh, you know, I often talk about life as like a circle or a clock.
33:04
Sara: I actually view it in my head as a clock.
33:06
Sara: Um and I see us as, you know, when we're born, we're these pure, for lack of a better word, whole beings.
33:16
Sara: And then we move through life and we layer.
33:19
Sara: So we layer stuff, we layer stories, we layer external pressures, we layer societal systems, we just layer, layer, layer, layer.
33:30
Sara: So that to me becomes such a significant pressure on us.
33:35
Sara: So it's not only, oh my gosh, I've got to, you know, complete that budget projection.
33:43
Sara: It is, it is also who am I in accordance with this, that, this today.
33:49
Sara: It's social media, the what the reader thinks I should be, what my parents, my children, my husband.
33:55
Sara: So you layer all of this, and that becomes such it, it's just a constant weight on us, um, energetically, spiritually, emotionally.
34:08
Sara: And I think that a lot of us get to a space where all of a sudden we're like, wait a minute, I can't, I I can't handle this space any longer.
34:19
Sara: And you start to push the pieces away.
34:24
Sara: And you know, that can look to me, that's as metaphorical as going through your closet as it is anything else.
34:33
Sara: Um, so you start pushing away, pushing away until you end up at at death, essentially, the same pure and unencumbered that you were in life.
34:45
Sara: But from a pressure perspective, I don't think it's just stress.
34:50
Sara: I mean, all the world that we live in, if we are externalizing, create stress.
34:58
Sara: And so I often think now, like I used to live from the outside in.
35:04
Sara: I was, and that's what was in my way was I measured myself against everything the external world was telling me.
35:13
Sara: And now I live from the inside out, so I measure myself in accordance with me.
35:21
Cassandra: Wow, that's good.
35:23
Cassandra: That's awesome because we do compare ourselves too.
35:26
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah.
35:28
Cassandra: Oh my goodness, yes, we do.
35:30
Cassandra: Yeah, um, you you have um a deep conversation podcast.
35:37
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah.
35:39
Cassandra: Let me ask you this, but so the people that you have there, and and one of your things you said you learn from people who are making a difference in the world, right?
35:53
Cassandra: Are there any common themes you are discovering with these deep conversations?
35:59
Cassandra: Like what's coming out of those?
36:03
Sara: So it is it's the collecting insight podcast, and we explore being human.
36:08
Sara: And and we so my podcast partner and I um were acquaintances only when we started this a year and a half ago.
36:18
Sara: And we come, we look at the world very differently.
36:21
Sara: We are very different ideologically, we're very different in how we perceive the world, but what we shared is this desire to serve.
36:34
Sara: And so it was really interesting.
36:35
Sara: We would have coffee conversations initially that were really interesting because we try to find this space that is human between us.
36:45
Sara: And so we developed this podcast and we've had wonderful conversations with people, and I think what what I've found and what we've found is that life itself is a complex journey of everything, and that we our human spirit is the strongest thing that any of us has.
37:12
Sara: It's what gets us through the difficult times, it's what we're all trying to discover.
37:20
Sara: And I think what's most beautiful is the recognition that we're all connected.
37:29
Sara: So through these conversations in our on our podcast and conversations with people like you, we are all one people connected.
37:39
Sara: We are in this web of being, in this, on this earth and in this universe.
37:45
Sara: And the more each of us can share who we are, share our stories, be vulnerable, I guess, um, but truthful about all of what it takes to be human in this world, I think it makes each of us stronger.
38:03
Sara: So I feel like I am a more whole person today because of all of the conversations that I've been honored and privileged to have over the last year and that's really, really good.
38:18
Cassandra: Um I'm gonna we're gonna wrap up because I could continue to speak with you.
38:25
Cassandra: Uh, but what you just said just made me think about how we all need each other.
38:31
Cassandra: We can't do anything by ourselves, you know.
38:35
Cassandra: Um, you know, and that's that's that's the the connection, you know.
38:41
Cassandra: Um, but anyway, I'll get off that soapbox.
38:44
Cassandra: That's for another thing.
38:45
Cassandra: I love it.
38:46
Cassandra: When when you did, and I just want you to share this with my listeners as we wrap up.
38:52
Cassandra: When you did your 2025 commencement speech, um you wanted given that speech, you wanted the class to get something out of that.
39:04
Cassandra: Okay, they're young and they have a full life, God willing, ahead of them.
39:09
Cassandra: What would you want my listeners to get out of what we've just discussed today?
39:16
Sara: Um, so in that commencement speech and in this conversation, um I had three messages that I think will ring true as uh embodiment of who I try to be and share with the world.
39:33
Sara: And that is first to live true, so to live true to yourself, second is to love fully, so to love this life, each other, the beauty that we get to consume every day in the natural world and in our relationships.
39:56
Sara: And then the last thing, and so that's what I'll dive into a little bit, is to dream the impossible.
40:02
Sara: Because to me, we hear a lot about dreaming big.
40:07
Sara: Yeah, but I wanted all of those people, everyone in the audience, to dream beyond big.
40:15
Sara: Because as you stated in the very beginning, I didn't think that I would become anything more than what I'd already become: a CEO, a board leader, a community leader.
40:28
Sara: Uh I didn't think that I would had anything else to be.
40:32
Sara: And then all of a sudden, I became a poet and I became a podcast host, and I became a the spiritual thought leader.
40:43
Sara: And so to me, our mind.
40:45
Sara: Are limiting in what we can imagine ourselves to be.
40:51
Sara: So if anyone out there thinks that one thing that they feel in their heart is impossible, you feel it because it's possible.
41:01
Sara: Go out there and get it.
41:04
Cassandra: Yeah, that's good, Sarah.
41:05
Cassandra: Thank you for that.
41:06
Cassandra: So what I'm hearing is live, love, and dream the impossible.
41:11
Cassandra: Yes.
41:12
Cassandra: Sarah, how can my listeners get in touch with you?
41:15
Sara: Thank you for asking that, Cassandra.
41:17
Sara: Um, they can get in touch with me best through my website, which is Sarah SByers.com.
41:23
Sara: And they can follow along with poetry and thought leadership at my Instagram page, which is DearJoyLove.
41:33
Cassandra: Okay, alrighty.
41:34
Cassandra: Well, Sarah, thank you so much.
41:37
Cassandra: And for my listeners, I know that lots said today really resonated with you.
41:43
Cassandra: And I encourage you to share this podcast with somebody that you know this would bless.
41:50
Cassandra: Um and and also um remember this.
41:56
Cassandra: I always said I love you.
41:58
Cassandra: I always say God bless you.
42:01
Cassandra: Thank you, Sarah, and everybody say I say bye for now.
42:06
Cassandra: Thank you, Sarah.
42:09
Cassandra: Thank you, Cassandra.