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How I Asked for a Sign and Found My Way to Florida · In The Driver's Seat

• Lisa French: January 2018 was peak moment of a very uncomfortable period of time I was going through. was unsocial and motivated. My birthday came and I didn't even want to celebrate despite after years of doing an entire birthday month, I was normally full of happiness and laughter. So I did recognize something was off. Just at the time, I didn't know why I was not myself. Now I know that it was actually a signal a chapter of my life was coming to a close. Welcome to In the Driver's Seat. I am Lisa French. I'm a former race car driver turned empowerment coach. This is about exploring the power of mindset, belief, deliberately creating a life that you truly love. I share from my life journey. stories of resilience, heartbreak, rediscovery, and the lessons that I've learned along the way. My goal is for you to find a little piece of yourself in my stories and inspire you to step into your power. Whether you're here to learn, reflect, or simply just feel a little less alone in this world, you're in the right place. I'm so happy to have you here as we journey toward a life full of clarity, purpose, and possibility. So let's get started. The last episode, we talked about different stages or categories of what it looks like to live with intention. And one of the categories I talked about was called, I called drifting. when you're just not really actively participating in the creation of your life. You're going through the motions, not really up on inside. had a period of a very long drift, which started in It was around the time my youngest child had high school and I was in boss's office during my employee evaluation when he asked me, Now what does Lisa want? That question started the whole process of me well, what is next for me? Because there was no more upward movement. I worked at hospital and clinic and there was no more upward movement for me. But the hard part was I had the best boss. He was the kind that just saw everyone's strengths and like a good example of that. I remember it during one of our department leader meetings, which we have maybe just a little over 25 people attend the meetings. One time he went around the room and each person he called out their strengths and contributions that person brought to the success of the organization. Only a handful of the people that were at the meeting actually directly reported to him, yet he knew and appreciated every single person in that room. I had had a couple of jobs where I didn't feel appreciated at all and I knew that I never wanted to experience that again. So that made this decision on what could be a good fit for me outside of this organization that much harder. While I was in the search period, I started to notice how I felt being in the office. I was not made for office life. The continuous meetings that repeated every month and the lack of sunshine and fresh air where my office was located. I just realized how much those things meant to me. So by the fall of 2017, the house I was renting was placed up for sale, it put on the market. And so many people were telling me, ⁓ it's going to sell so fast. That's a really cute house. It's on a corner lot, yada, yada, yada. Then again, I just really struggled what to do next. Do I stay in Knoxville? Do I find a job elsewhere and move to a different town? I brought home several boxes from work and packed up summer sandals. then just decided to stop worrying about it. I had saying across the mirror on my dresser ⁓ that said, go and let God. and Despite the house showing several times, it didn't sell they it off the market shortly after Thanksgiving. My landlords told me that they would relist it by spring and I declared to myself, I will by then what I am doing. So then came that birthday month that I had zero interest in. Because I was trying to pull myself out of the funk, thought, all right, let's try online dating one more time. But met this really nice guy from Omaha, which is about two hours from where I lived. During one of our conversations, ⁓ he that he never move away from the Midwest. And when he said that, I just felt it hit me really hard. Like, what am I doing trying to date someone when I know that eventually I want to move to warmer weather climate? I do not like winter like the hard snows and the the whole winter of Iowa is not my jam. drift was long because it was subtle. And it took me a while to completely recognize that the life I was living no longer lit me up on the inside. But it led me to once I realized that, I thought, well, what am I going to do to correct course? Which leads me to the second category I talked about intentional living was called deciding, which is the point where you realize you want more from life and you start making little decisions that will get you there. So right after the guy from Omaha statement made me realize I should not be trying to date anyone at that I had another revelation. I had been blogging a little bit to pique the interest of people around the story of my dad's disappearance. My plan is to write a book about him, but working a demanding job left very little time, let alone energy to do that. Sitting at my computer in downtime at home was not appealing at all. And so that's where the whole idea of a writing retreat was born. I thought, ⁓ I'll buy a little camper, I'll go on a writing retreat. could go different places and explore. ⁓ What about Florida? That's always been my happy place. Well, if you're gonna go to Florida, why wouldn't you go somewhere you've never been? And the always looks beautiful when friends post of it on Facebook. Then I just kept more and more things about, you're gonna need to do some work for money and... That means you're gonna get immersed into the community and meet people. And now I realize this was not a retreat, but it was me moving. I landed on Panama City Beach. So that started in March that year. And by the end of the month, I was in Tulsa. I traveled to Tulsa for my daughter's ⁓ birthday. And I told my children while I was there that I was moving to Florida. That was the first time I had told, I'd said it out loud or told anyone. So was a really big deal. In April, so a couple of weeks later, I had. asked for a sign because now I'm starting to kind of get a little bit, well, is this the right move? Is this really the right I should be doing? I really love who I work the organization I for, the people in administration. So I said, God, you know, this is a really big thing for me. Please give me a sign if this is the right thing to do. And the very next day I was standing in my kitchen, just kind of quick scroll through Facebook feed this blip of a picture showed up and I immediately because despite the of it going, everything happened so fast. I can't describe it as fast as happened, but I see this picture and immediately I thought to myself, my gosh, if that was somebody standing? Cause it was a picture of a man taking selfie. on a beach with the water in the background. And my instant thought was what if that's Panama City Beach? And I realized it was inside of a group that I follow, a spirituality group. And they had at the time over 250,000 people in the group from all over the world. So as quick as I asked myself a question, like, what if that man is standing in Panama City Beach? I thought to myself, like, what are the chances? know, there are a million beaches all over this world. What the chances that that particular picture was Panama City Beach, Florida? And I scrolled back and sure that exactly where that picture was, was taken. I thought, ⁓ my gosh, I just asked for a sign yesterday and this is crazy. And so I thought I was almost I was so close to saying to this guy, oh my gosh, I was I'm thinking of moving there. I had asked for a sign or whatever. And I thought, oh, this guy's not gonna care. So I just loved the post and went on about my business. But still, obviously, just floored at the sign. The very next day, the same guy out of 250,000 people. The same guy I see post a pre-sell of the book he was writing and he was from Illinois, Chicago area, which I have a lot of family ties in Illinois. And on his website, he mentioned that his mom was his biggest supporter. of his writing that always encouraged him to write and that was exactly my experience too. My mom always encouraged me to write. So I'm like, all right, I get it. I get it. I get it. Okay. Like as if I needed a sign near sign, I got it. The following months were, just full of preparation for this big move, learning about the area, giving, the hospital day notice that I was leaving build websites so people could follow me. I can blog and they could follow me on my adventures and telling If people ask me lots of questions about this, maybe there's lots of excitement and positivity built up around this. People would ask me questions like, what are you going to do for work or blah, blah, blah? And I asked all these questions and I would say, I don't know. I don't have a plan, but I'll figure it out when I get there. Then I would kind of joke. I'm more worried about where I'm going to find a good fish taco. So wishful thinking is imagining the life you want, but deciding is saying it out loud. And I said it out loud, now I was going to be held to take action. The last category that I talked about in the previous episode was what I called in the driver's seat. You're in the driver's seat. Which is when you are lit up on the inside, you're joyful, you're loving life, you're having fun. When I hit the driver's seat part, it such a magical period time for me. Things were just happening for me without even much thought behind it. Just I mean, I think it and then it happened. As I said, I didn't have a whole lot planned out for this whole adventure. in my job as executive assistant to the CEO of the hospital and clinic, I had to be very organized or things would just fall through the crack. ⁓ you forgot to renew the hospital's license. I guess we can't see patients or bill for their services like that of responsibility. So my go with the flow adventure was refreshing to say the least. was happy to kind of just, just ⁓ in the wind a little bit. But of what I had studied on my spiritual journey was they talk about how to not try to control every step of the process, but recognizing the next step when it's presented to you. And I was embracing that part full force in this period. I had bought a 28 foot 1994 RV. I drove down here. I left my car behind for my brother to sell for me. And the day after I arrived here, I Ubered to Walmart, you know, for like beach life essentials. I'm obviously needed food. I got a steel bottle, got a beach chair. And while I'm pushing my cart through the store, I think to myself, well, gosh, the next priority really needs to be getting a car. And then I kind of giggled thinking, I don't know anyone that can take me car shopping. Like I'm gonna have to Uber to car shop. And that's thought of going to a car lot and looking at used cars and go up, they'll see anything here. I like up guess I gotta call Uber to come back and pick me up. I hadn't even left Walmart yet when I had a message from an old race friend saying that he had told me about one of his friends who lived across the bay in Panama City. his friend told me that to told him to give me his phone number and then if I needed anything to let him know. And based on the age of my friend contacting me, I but wondered if he was retired and sure enough he was. So that's how I, that quick, had lined up how I was going to go car shopping without having to ridiculously take an Uber. Within a week or so after arriving, I was walking to beach one morning and it came to me that I also need to try to meet people. And how am I going to meet people? I thought, ⁓ I'll join the Chamber of Commerce, which was a direct idea from the fact that I had served on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce in Knoxville. I represented the hospital while I served on the board. And I knew that their particular ⁓ chamber, they had a membership for individuals. You didn't have to be an actual like full fledged business to be a member. So I got back to the RV. I got on the website, send a message to the chamber, the beach chamber. And the membership director called me and said, Hey, we have a program tomorrow morning at the college. Come as a guest. And I went and joined immediately. I thought I was joining because I just wanted to meet people. It turned into this wonderful way to network get business that I wasn't, that was not part of my thought process of joining. just or people found out I was a writer and then also found out I had been, and I had administrative assistant background. So those two things came into play as helping businesses here. ⁓ that needed that I was good at. Then eight months after I arrived here, was planning to go one of my best friends from Iowa ⁓ who going to father-in-law's with her mom and her sister. And she asked me to come down and spend time with them. Of course I'm to be there. And then I realized drive is seven hours. Everybody talked about how terrible the drive that drive that particular drive is interstates in Florida through the central part of Florida is not fun at all. my air condition in that car the best. So I thought, well, why don't I look into flights? And I think they were around $400 or so. None of the flights are direct. I have to fly somewhere else first and then to Tampa. So really I wasn't gaining anything. Like it was still going to be about seven hours or so travel. And now I'm going to spend more than it would cost me in gas to drive. So like, okay, well, how can I make this fun? Even though I'd much rather fly than drive, how can make this fun? So I put on Facebook asking people for road trip snack road trip songs. And the night before was getting ready to leave, also realized I had to leave an hour, like it's seven hour drive, but I lose an hour because I'm in Florida in the panhandle, a central time zone and that's I live. So I'm going to lose an hour going. So it's actually eight. I need to leave eight hours ahead of when I want to be there. And there was law firm from Tampa that was here. We had a category five hurricane right after I arrived, five weeks after I arrived. And they were here helping people with their insurance claims, getting the money from their insurance so they could repair their homes or rebuild their homes. And this law firm had joined the chamber. So that's how I met them. And they would have like little togethers of different organizations that were in the chamber. I would get every so often. And I got invited that night to go to the restaurant and I went. no, I can't go. I to be up early in the morning. And he kind of was like, well, I was hoping to see you. And I thought, okay, whatever. Like I still need to go get gas in my car and things don't stay late here anyway. So I thought, I should be home at a decent time. So I get there and he's joking around, What did you have that was so important that you couldn't come see us? And I said, well, tomorrow I'm driving to Venice and it's like a seven hour drive or whatever. He's like, oh, that's right. Oh, that drives terrible. And I'm like, yes. He tells me how terrible the drive is. And he said, all of a sudden he just goes, a light bulb went off and he said, well, why don't you just fly on our plane tomorrow? And I'm like, what? And then one of the attorneys said, ⁓ yeah, like you could just fly on the plane with us tomorrow. He's like, I'll let the pilot know make sure that he's okay with it. the guy that was ⁓ first told me about like I should fly with them. He's like, yeah, I was supposed to fly back tomorrow, but I can't I gotta stay till the end of the week. So you just take my spot on the plane. So that's how I ended up with a free flight to Tampa. I got to go the next day I met the executive airport and getting on a private plane and it was just so much fun, such a fun experience. And I, what I had told my friend that that was how I was coming. I wasn't coming. I wasn't driving. I said, so I'll probably have to Uber from the executive airport there. And she said, I can't wait to hear all the details, but this doesn't surprise me at all. that this has happened for you. So I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to know how it works out. step, you don't have to have everything super out. How you're to reach the point that you want to get to. What you need to do is pay attention to what's moving in your favor and take action with it. So back to the January 2018. From the outside, ⁓ that looked like a low point in my life. But what it really was, the chance for me to sit in the quiet listen to the beating of my own heart and the calling of my soul. It was what I really needed to identify what direction to go in next. If you're in that season, that the quiet isn't empty. It is the space you need for the next decision to find you. Then you'll be in the driver's seat. If you would like to use the visualization method that I spent a lot of time practicing during my deciding stage, you can find it at lisafrench.rocks forward slash or I'll also have a link for it. can find it in the show notes. I will also be hosting a live session soon for people who are ready to stop drifting start deciding. The session will take you from pictures in your mind to living it. And those details will be coming soon. I appreciate you being here. Thank you.