Most people don’t think they have a story to tell, but the truth is that they just don’t know how to tell their stories. This episode’s guest, Creativity Coach, writer and author, Cynthia Gregory, is on a mission to change that. She helps people recognize their “secret sauce,” drawing out meaningful stories of love, struggle, and triumph, and using them to create a more compassionate world. Her anthology, “Love Notes from the Soul”, evoked unexpected emotion and enthusiasm from both its readers and its authors. The project, going into its third edition is a testament to the power of storytelling. Listen in and discover why your story is more powerful than you think.
Connect with Cynthia or buy Love Notes From the Soul at https://www.coachcynthiagregory.com/
[00:00:03] Deborah, with her 30 years of being an entrepreneur and creating over seven companies, knows exactly what it means to accept the mission. When you make that decision, when you accept the mission to become a solopreneur, to take yourself and your talents to market, then you embrace a life of not only unlimited possibilities, but also the unknown. It's an elixir of fear and bravery that only someone who's taken the leap really understands.
[00:00:28] On our show, Deb digs deep with her guests to highlight what you, the listener, wants to know. The stories, the whys and the hows to navigate the journey to success. Get ready to hear from some of the most incredible mission takers from Generation Z to boomers. So sit up, perk up and get ready to be blown away. Now here is your host, Deborah Drummond.
[00:01:14] Well, lucky, lucky, lucky me and lucky you. You are a fabulous audience. I tell you that I hope by now, I've told you you're fabulous and amazing and the best podcast audience ever for a lot of shows, a lot of years. And if you only know this a little bit, a lot of shows that a lot of years in your future, I'm going to be telling you how fabulous you are. So you are always feeling fabulous. You come back here.
[00:01:39] This is one of your best self-esteem, goodness, esteem, having fun, listening, laughing, going no way. Going, oh my gosh, that's a good idea. I'm joining in. And today, you are going to fall in the love of yourself. Today, you're going to feel super special. And you're like, what possibly? Who could Dem have on the stage today? Well, let me tell you, we have coach Cynthia Gregory. And she is not just a coach like you might think of a coach.
[00:02:07] I know you're looking at her, you're like, oh my gosh, she's like the best football coach. The best. You're like, she looks like she knows what she's doing and she does. She is a creativity coach. But I'm telling you, we're going to talk about love. We're going to talk a little bit about love. Yes, I am going to talk about love. And so for those of you that are in love already like, oh my gosh, it's insane singing. And for those of you that have been stunned a little bit by the love, you're like, no, thank you, please. Hang in here. Because you know what?
[00:02:35] I want you to think about a time when maybe you wrote a love now, right? Maybe you went out on the counter in the kitchen and said, thank you for picking up my dry cleaning. Or now, why didn't you pick up my dry cleaning? That's a love now. Maybe you were in school and you had those parties at Valentine's Day and someone put a card in your bag or you wrote one to somebody and you were hoping they were going to write one back to you.
[00:03:05] Maybe it was in someone's lunchbox. Maybe it was a love note to like a friendship love note. Like we do that all the time, right? But these love notes, like these words of affirmation, like these words that give feeling, right? So the whole idea around love notes. This one is a specialist in love notes. Like body one, two, three, four, 24. We don't know how long this is going to go because the idea around love notes. Okay, look at it.
[00:03:34] I'm going to tell you, Cynthia, you never know this, but at our big launches that we do for 262 when you come to one and you see, there's always these really big boatings. Audacious rings like those plastic pins rings that everyone wears. And then at our big events, we put love hearts. Now, that was a craze, right? Everyone's like, which one did you get? You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to give that one to Kim. Right? I'm going to eat that one.
[00:03:58] So the whole premise around that little tiny thing that makes a big impact that makes you smile on the inside. I'm going to stop talking. This is not my specialty. If one of you want to send me a love note, please do. I'd love to read the one. But Cynthia, there's a lead in for you. You better talk about some love notes, Deb. So I'm feeling special. How are you today? I will. Thanks so much, Deb. I am just in love with being in love.
[00:04:27] I swear to God, I was minding my own business when I got an assignment. I was on silent retreat in Big Sur, listening to monks chanting in the background, reading Mary Oliver, just being caught up in the beauty of the moment and loving the place so much. And I got to download an assignment called Love Notes from the Soul, an anthology of stories. And I can't make this up. Right? I would not have shown us in this assignment, but it was an assignment. I'm into book number two now.
[00:04:56] Three, four and five are on their way. People seem to love it because who can't love a love note? I know. Okay. So there's the scenario. You've gone, obviously, away to go do some personal transformation, whatever that means to you for whatever we had to do that. And then you get what some people consider a download, an epiphany, an idea, a hunch, a punch. I think it's non-negotiable, right? There you go. There's a new one.
[00:05:24] A hunch that's non-negotiable. That's a punch. Oh my God. So I write that down. That's right. Nah. Yeah. That's for somebody today. Never said that before in my life. So you're sitting there and then this comes to you. Had you ever compiled a book before or been an author? I'd been an author before and I'd been asked to edit anthologies before, which I found out I really loved. I was a writer discovering that I'm an editor. It was super fun. A new part of myself to love, if you will.
[00:05:54] But Love Notes from the Soul was a step further. I was like, Love Notes, sure, but Love Notes from the Soul, that's so woo. I came from a corporate background and I thought they're going to run me out on a rail. And the opposite thing happened. And when I told people I was working on this amazing new book called Love Notes from the Soul, they got all misty-eyed. And like, oh, that just sounds amazing. And I'm like, tell me your story. Let's fall in love with your story. And the more I talked about it, I found myself falling in love with people's stories.
[00:06:24] The stories of struggle, the stories of triumph. And I'm like, do you know how amazing you are? You are the only one in the world to have that story. That is quite a love note. And in a very complicated world, we all need more love notes, don't we? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I hope I find one today. But you know what you do, right? These things that you do. I know when I'm going through peepers or my jewelry box or whatever. There's these little things, these mementos that mean something to you.
[00:06:53] Okay, so take us to, there's this great idea, epiphany, download, as you call it. You start to put it right there, people's responses were misty-eyed. And so that was very inspiring. And then take it. Well, I published that book in under a year, which is kind of not done. I mean, it usually takes a while to publish a book, but the momentum of it was really kind of beyond me. After a while, I felt like I was running to catch up with it.
[00:07:19] It was just generating that much interest and that much potential. And so, of course, I did what every high achiever does. I just jumped right into the next book without, you know, blinking an eye. And this time, the second time around, I was asking, what are you doing to create a more compassionate world? And there's so many people, everyone in the 262 community is. People that I'm involved with who wouldn't consider themselves on any kind of a spiritual journey are doing the right thing every single day,
[00:07:48] which for me is creating a better world. And those stories were just so easy to aggregate and to bring in and share. And I recognize that part of my mission in helping people share their stories is really falling in love with their own story because so many people, yeah. You know, they're just living their life. They're just doing their thing.
[00:08:12] And it's just like each one is so unique in the history of the world that all of these different factors had to come into place for those two people to meet, to have that exchange that opened their hearts or maybe broke their hearts so they could open up again another time. You know, it's all about the surprises that life throws at you that in the moment you don't always appreciate. But in retrospect, you go, I'm so glad I didn't get what I wanted back then.
[00:08:41] I'm so glad that guy or that girl broke my heart because I wouldn't be in the current relationship that I'm in if that hadn't happened. And so it's about kind of embracing it, you know, that the serendipity of life, too, and letting it lead you down that path so you can get to that. I know, beautiful.
[00:08:59] So the book that is alive and kicking today that people can go get is a compilation of people that have written their story in relationship to love, relationship to, like, to give us a little more of what. Because I think that when you have something a little defining, because don't we have so many stories? Not that we think we do. Not that we think we do. You said it, right? Never. Never. Never.
[00:09:26] Like, well, I don't know what I'm— okay, you didn't know about the Ask Party strip, but like, well, I don't know what to ask for. You're like—it's almost like saying, like, not that they don't know themselves, they just don't know how to know or how to access it. So what was it, why obviously you said it was easy and a year you're up on the market, now you're working on your second book. what was the defining that allowed people to go oh I have a story about that right well
[00:09:55] it's really your secret sauce and you said it's like most people don't see their own story so that's my expertise and I know I know the psychology of story I know the way stories are built I've made stories my the study of my life and so I'm my ears are going to them so here's an example of one story I know a man who um who has a corporate job and he also loves drumming he's in a drumming circle and I said well where did you love the music come from again the misty eyes well
[00:10:24] back in Indiana where he grew up in the middle in the heartland in the you know in the in the the you know all of the good in the world happens in the midwest right and he grew up in church and his family had their pews in church and the music was exciting and he was engaged and so from a very young age he was fed the language of music and then in his in his corporate life he had an opportunity
[00:10:51] to go to Africa and he fell in love with the drumming circles that heartbeat motion of drumming and my favorite part of his story every one of them I have a favorite part in but my favorite part of his story is he traded his first authentic African drum for the shoes on his feet because his shoes were a luxury item where he was he wasn't talking to a bunch of people who were dressed
[00:11:16] with top to toes and so for him it was the easiest trade in the world I love that story so much I love that story and it feels like it said right right yeah once you start pulling that thread of what somebody loves and why they love it and the impact of that love it gets to the very core of them and that's the magic of of the love note story so the more I do this it's just uh the the I almost get
[00:11:45] giddy with the idea of sharing this much love and it's just everywhere and it's everywhere and I've got four more books coming that are going to be all full of it okay the um okay so let's let's reverse it a little bit because we both get very versed on how people feel after they contribute into a book but not everybody can see that it's not something I'm not an author I'm not an author actually for I'm not
[00:12:09] an author I just is it you know and they have that um you know they're trepidatious so they don't really know if what they have not that they don't value it but almost they don't know if it has value for others right is there right because it comes yeah yeah because it comes from them and they've looked at the story they know the story and they've heard a thousand times so what um what are some of the
[00:12:33] feelings that people get from participating in something that's of the need oh yeah my god intense pride they're sober and I you know I tell all my authors take a photograph take a selfie with you in the book and they send them to me and the looks on their faces are so proud and so just like they are illuminated this is their soul illuminating shining through their pride their sense of
[00:13:02] accomplishment sometimes it takes a lot of courage to share your story there's a story in here of a woman who did an amazing amazing project a national project and there was one person in that whole process that was a bit of a thorn at her side and just the day before the book was published she said oh god Cynthia I'm terrified I'm terrified they're going to find out and I'm like honey this is your story if they want to share their story they have to share their story this is your story you own
[00:13:29] every bit of it and so there's that too it's like getting to own your story and seeing its impact on the world they wouldn't know they wouldn't know outside of publishing that that is possible people often cry people will cry when we do our readings they say no listen we're pros here practice at home don't cry when you're reading pros don't do that because so often when people hear their words they've only
[00:13:56] heard in their head come out of their mouth they hear it differently and they just dissolve into tears and usually I'm like yep that's a love note because when it hits you that deeply yeah it's not ambiguous you know you've experienced something truly beautiful and sacred well I mean I know that you had that download about love notes and that probably helped with the title of the book right oh yeah oh
[00:14:20] yeah but I'm gonna ask you what about you and your love notes like did you ever have a valentine's day bag at school like what's your like when y'all have love and that I think sometimes they talk to you in your language so tell me what you think about love and all that good stuff um well I um I've recently allowed love back into my life which was super fun which is probably a lot of what this work is doing
[00:14:44] but um honestly I think that as a writing instructor a creativity coach I'm often working with people in groups or individually and I'll go have you ever written something down and then put it away and come back and were astonished by what you read and went who wrote that I've experienced that when you're in the moment you know time goes by you can go by hours and you're so immersed in your art that you don't even notice it and you don't think anything of it and you put it away because it's what you do all the
[00:15:13] time you put it away and you come back to it later and I go when you come back to your writing or any kind of a creative project like that and you kind of wonder to yourself who wrote that my feeling is that is a love note from your soul that came it didn't come from you it came through you and that because I've often felt sometimes when I write and I'm in really in the moment I mean in the move in the in the in that really deep creative space I feel that I am channeling something from
[00:15:41] beyond myself that it's like my brain as well educated as it is can't possibly come up with the depth of understanding intellectually or emotionally what is coming through so I'm kind of a a tightest in that way sometimes when the story is coming through so that's to me what love notes is about and as a result of these books too to answer your question um I do a lot more love notes now
[00:16:05] I tell people in my life I love them all the time and before I wouldn't do that I go oh no that's too I don't want to overstep but um I had dinner with a friend last night haven't seen her for a while and she was going through a couple it's kind of a tough time and I just put my arms around her I said I love you so much and that's what she needed to hear and it's such an easy thing to do so yeah it has changed me
[00:16:30] it's made me a bigger fan of love a bigger fan of expressing that love in the moment and allowing it in it's all good that's it right I think that a bigger fan of love I love that I love that that's it you know I always say that sounds like such a great song you know someone should make a song I'm a big fan of love because I think by nature no matter what your experience with love is and we usually tend to
[00:16:56] think about you know that relationship love I think that most people are a big fan of love and then you can see it in so many ways but also letting it in because sometimes love can be funky right love can be funky and right allow and you having your own personal development which I think happens when
[00:17:17] you choose to take on the calling or the right it is a personal development journey for the compiler as well the ineptives between multiple people listening holding I call it holding that container but if you're holding a container of people to allow them to step back into love to feel love to share love because it's pretty rare someone's going to share about something and say and share it detached particularly a topic
[00:17:46] such as love that would be a probably a rarity but um you're holding that container as well for all those people yes and I think that you know um if we all have our own curriculum in the school of life in earth school um then this is definitely one of mine because it's it's my love of story it's my love of humanity it's my love of wanting to see the world healed and healthier and and and for everybody in
[00:18:16] it right so this is my small individual way of practicing this in my own life and the people that I'm lucky enough to share a life with and it it's kind of like those concentric circles right it's a butterfly effect share a little bit more love locally and it's gonna somebody else is gonna have a great day and they're gonna share that with somebody else and they're gonna share that with somebody else we can do this we can fill this world with love and I think what does it only take like three percent of
[00:18:44] us to have that ground slow to make that happen I think we're there I think we're there now we're so close we're so close right um okay so you've seen it I've seen it but maybe our audience hasn't seen it so they're like okay you know I'm gonna write my book I'm gonna write that book one day I personally think participating as a compiler is a really great place to get your feet wet like I think of someone
[00:19:10] who's supported people that they're written solo books so like all of that I think it's really interesting to watch and observe because you know the marketing of your own book I gotta say can also be kind of funky right it's like it's a big task and if you have a business to screw a little bit and I think I always say to people as a learning experience as a personal growth experience it's like going to a really good workshop go you're gonna meet yourself you're gonna learn new skills you're gonna like dying you are coming on an entrepreneurial background or you're coming from a
[00:19:40] place where um this is completely not your wheelhouse you know uh so as a group and collective because we think oh my gosh we're going to do this or we want to write a book one day and you know yeah you that have participated in this loud notes book because we know that three percent of the world wants to write a book and or 97 percent or something 87 percent wants to write a book and only three percent people have that's exactly it yeah this is a great way to step it in
[00:20:05] what's the group dynamic like like do people end up making friends do they meet people is it so you can do just on their own like what's that collective dynamic it's so much easier than doing it on your own as you know it's like it's everything is on you and this is what I love about the collective and the collaborative part of it is like we're all in it together which makes it really fun I've got I've got a growing community of writers now and they they do they become friends
[00:20:33] they rely on one another we're all we're in kind of communication and that that group experience is beyond anything that I could have imagined that's probably one of the biggest surprises to me in this process I'm like oh I can end the book I can recruit people to do this but the real heart and soul of it is how these stories come together and how one story if you read them sequentially if you pick up the book and you read it from beginning to end the story preceding the story you're reading is going to
[00:21:03] impact the way you understand that story because each story kind of opens you up a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and then the other thing that's really astonishing about this process is that the sacred cities start to occur like I did not intend to make this a post-vietnam war book but there are two stories that are really poignant and beautiful one from the point of view of somebody who was a child when her brother went off to war and the other one was a medic
[00:21:30] in vietnam and even though their experiences were so very different they have that core common understanding of a shared experience that I don't I don't share in I didn't have that experience so it's really beautiful the way that people connect through their stories and how the ideas just expand they just continue to expand the basic ideas this are how are you creating a world that's more
[00:22:00] compassionate I got 28 various versions of that right right would you decide well that was the that was question that they were that they were to answer per se was about yeah yeah what are you doing personally and whether that's raising the family or actually creating art or whatever it is that they're doing that is your contribution to humanity that is what they came in this lifetime to share
[00:22:25] and they're busy going about their business of this lifetime and so we all have that connective tissue I think we're all here on assignment but if we can share stories together we can come together in community whether it's sitting around a campfire telling stories or in the in the oral tradition before printing presses and books people shared knowledge through stories you know they had
[00:22:50] stories attached to everything they did and we kind of lost that in our our very sophisticated world and but I think that that that primitive part of our brain still responds to story and so does our heart obviously not at all you know what when you say that there's this great movie that I've watched a thousand times so you guys watch a thousand times one you know okay so one of the movies for me is you got me out with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and she yeah she owns this beautiful store just around the
[00:23:17] corner and of course he's a big conglomerate guy that is you know who's literally opened up a store around the corner and then you see that um you know at one part in the one scene in the movie is about him with his niece and nephew and our niece and brother or whatever and they go to story time because it happens to be a just beautiful quaint little and I see story time story time story time people just they there was there there was and has been many I mean we probably call them lectures now
[00:23:47] right for adults story time is lecture pretty much right right when a poet's reading there's poetry readings there would be you know authors sharing from their book I mean a lot of times you've shown up at a library people are reading from their books that really is adult story time and I think it's almost like active movie watching where you get to you're there you're active you're listening you're watching somebody and you're participating in this incredible story and um I think it's like that when you
[00:24:15] read an anthology of multiple stories it engages you and somehow it transports you to that experience and then you have your own relatability to it so your experience in reading an anthology is so growing for you personally because you're engaged in right do you get it it's like yes yes I do I do and I think that that's why we love story time as a kid right we can just immerse ourselves into it because as children we don't see the
[00:24:41] difference between story and reality it's all the same and then as adults we grow out of that but we still have that attachment to story we still respond to it my sister and I used to tell each other stories we shared a bedroom large family many kids and we shared a bedroom and we would tell each other stories at night um to help each other fall asleep so when she was moving from Washington State to Minnesota I was living in LA her husband took a position in Minnesota and she goes I'm gonna drive cross country
[00:25:10] and I said alone no you're not and so I drove from LA to Seattle and I drove with her and I chose a book by one of my favorite authors which happens to take place in those northern those northwestern states and so we're driving across I-90 across the country and we're reading to one another whoever's driving gets to listen whoever's passenger gets to read and it was one of the best road trips of my life yeah
[00:25:34] absolutely look as we're coming to an end I think they a great place to end off is if there's anything that because I introduced you as a creativity coach and I'm sure there's some um so what is a creativity what is a creativity coach and what is it that you do for people and then leave us with the if you have the name of the second book or maybe it's just in conception we don't know but if you can share that and then of course all of Cynthia's gorgeous beautiful information as you know will be in our
[00:26:04] full show notes for you to tap into but what is a creativity coach let's end there I help the people to share their stories they're just so stopped up they're afraid to make a mistake and I'm like let's just start you know let's just start and telling their stories can look like a book it can work look like a workbook it can be a letter everybody starts at their own place and I give people permission to share their stories and I encourage them which I think a lot of us got turned off of of creative
[00:26:32] writing perhaps in middle school when we started being really judged for it and I'm like and mine is a judgment freeze out my entire mission is just to help people share their stories to fall in love with their stories and then to share them with the world very cool very cool you have the name of the next one is it I do is it oh you do okay so no I do share do tell yeah yeah it's love knows 3.0
[00:26:59] it's the inner life of leadership I think we have an awakening uh world of leaders coming online now I don't want to share those stories because I think they're totally inspirational and they apply to so many people across the board right on right on well I'm a big fan that's all I'm going to tell you right now that that that read between those lines those written lines oh my gosh and Cynthia it's
[00:27:24] so great and and if you for those of you that are following 262 and we know that's a lot of you um Cynthia is on our stage she's part of the 262 she's very active there so if you're in 262 look her up if not you can go to the directory on demdrummond.com you know that's where we post everything you can go to the directory if she's not there send us a message we'll connect you to her um if you want to be seen here you want your story if you want time to start your story on podcast on our stages
[00:27:52] our pages on our platter anything that we do then you know you can go to devdrummond.com it's all there have some fun and at the bottom of most pages you'll find the contact link that will directly go to my email bypass my team so I get to as Cynthia would say hear your story what is it that you want to say um so I always say like you know the the teacher always shows up when the student needs it and the student shows up when the teacher needs it yeah right if that was for you today
[00:28:20] yeah so yeah I hope things landed for you um go get the book you know if you want to be in one contact Cynthia she she's got them lined up and ready for you I'm sure there's a category of topic that would um accentuate what it is that you want to share yeah perfect perfect okay so thank you once again you're an incredible audience Cynthia thank you so much for being with us today I know I asked you one
[00:28:46] last question and you didn't see that the book was ready but I gotta ask one thing bursting the tops to your head a completely different topic believe them top what is there anything that's on your bucket list that you would like to accomplish before the the end of them oh my gosh a second trip to paris okay paris it is so anyone else there knows anything paris contact Cynthia that's
[00:29:14] how it works so you know paris Cynthia we got it all right just bonjour au revoir yeah paris it's all for our time today je t'aime okay bye everybody be well and stay groovy see you next week bye