Your Story Is Bigger Than What Happened To You

[00:00:06] Welcome to The D Shift Podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation, and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get this shift started.

[00:00:23] Hello, and welcome to this episode of The D Shift Podcast. And you know, if you've been listening in, I love podcasts where I get to interview people I know. And my next guest is a dear friend. And she is an amazing human being who has a really interesting story and not only has an interesting backstory, but also is doing really incredible things in the world to help other people who are dealing with really serious issues.

[00:00:53] So I want to introduce you to the amazing Orlia Moore Moore. She has spent over 27 years helping experts turn their message into a profitable speaking business. She's the founder of OAE, Orlia Moore Moore Enterprises, and the creator of transformational programs, including Monetize the Mic, Master Your Message, and the Mindset Mastery Coaching Certification Program.

[00:01:21] And I have to say, what really brings my heart into this conversation is Orlia also created a foundation called You Are My Light. And it is a foundation that helps survivors of human sex trafficking and slavery to come out and to get the education, services, healthcare, mental health, spiritual health that they need to be able to move forward in life. So she has a huge heart.

[00:01:50] So welcome, Orlia. Thank you so much, Mardi. I love being here. Thank you. Well, and I love having you because you have, you know, when people see you and hear you and know what you do, they think, oh, there's a person that's never had any adversity in her life. There's a person who's just, you know, coasted on through life. But that's not really the case. So whatever you're comfortable sharing with us, tell us a little bit about your background and why you're on the mission you're on now.

[00:02:20] You know, one of my mantras is every day above ground is a good day because you got to start there. It's a, you know, you have to be grateful for where you are, no matter what you've been through and life has thrown at you. We all have our challenges. This is not about who has a worse story than another. It's not a competition of stories. I'll give you mine in 13 seconds because it will move the needle of us moving forward in our conversation and helping your audience better.

[00:02:48] I was a beaten up child. I was molested four times before the age of 14. I was raped three times before the age of 22, twice gang raped, nine months apart, left for dead. And I was also married to a very abusive husband, both mentally and physically. And as a result of that, I gained a morbid amount of weight and I had four abortions. I was 428 pounds at my heaviest. So needless to say that we all have adversity in our life. It could be big, it could be small, but with the way we live it,

[00:03:17] it doesn't make it small or big. It just makes it what it is. So yes, I have lived some horrific things, but that's just once, that's what makes me want to be stronger and better in my life. And I've chosen not to be the victim. I've chosen to just get out of my own way and start healing by finding mentors and people that can help me get, move along faster than anything would have helped me then.

[00:03:46] Yeah. And I think this is, and I agree with you. Everybody's challenges are their own unique challenges. And what may look big to one person is small to another person and so on. But I do think a lot of times, especially women going through divorce, they look at a woman that they admire or they look up to, or that seems to have it all together. And they sort of make the assumption that I can never be that

[00:04:11] person. You know, I'm, I'm damaged, I'm broken, I'm not good enough. I'm what, you know, fill in the blank. And I think that's where your message really carries because you don't have to have a perfect life to be successful and, and to be very, a public figure in your life because it, those two things are not synonymous with each other. You can be whatever you want to be through the divorce.

[00:04:41] Absolutely. Uh, when I was going through the divorce, uh, it was, it was heartbreaking, of course, because I didn't get married to get divorced. So, so did many of us, you know, we get married. It's the best day of our life. It's the white dress. It's all of the things and the families and the celebration. And when the celebration is over behind closed doors, nobody knows what's happening. And, and, and you, you think about it and you're thinking also when it's happening, you're thinking,

[00:05:07] yeah, I can forgive. I can forget. Let's move on. They, you know, and then when it's a repetitive thing, then you're thinking, well, it's not so forgiving anymore. You can't just forgive that kind of behavior because you're allowing it. And I've allowed it. Believe me, I've allowed the narcissistic behavior. I've allowed the, the, the physical behavior. I've allowed many things.

[00:05:29] And I, the moment I said, no, that's enough, right? When you say that you got to mean it for yourself. And I don't think you need to mean it for the other person at all. You need to mean it for the little girl inside of you. Yeah. How do you think you got to that point or how did you get the courage to get to that point and say, no?

[00:05:56] When I got pregnant with my first, with the first child, um, I was, I was not ready to begin with, but I was not going to marry the, I'm not, I was not going to have a child with this man. I am against abortion. It's not, it has nothing to do with what the law or what God's law says. I did not think about it at the time either. I was thinking, I was a bit selfish, I would say, in the sense that I

[00:06:21] did not want to have kids. And at the second, the second part of this is that I was not going to have a kid remind me of him all my life. Cause it's a memory of what was happening and I was not going to live with it. So that is when I said no. And I went and got an abortion and then he went and complained to our local, at the time I was Jewish and I was married to a Jewish man. So he went to

[00:06:47] the local rabbi and they made, made me come and have a conversation with this big thing. And my father was horrified by it because I was now tarnishing the name of the family and blah, blah, blah. And people, all my family were calling me from Israel, from everywhere. Don't do it. Don't do it. I'm like, it's too late. I'm getting divorced. This is done. You guys don't live with him. Right. I wonder how you would live if you did live with him. You know what I mean? And that was my,

[00:07:13] my salvation is to just shut down everybody around me. Everybody does it their own way, but the strength came in my silence, not in my voice. Right. Well, you know, we've talked about this on the podcast about how sometimes the people that we would like to count on the most to honor us and to support us are the people that are causing a lot of the problem for us. And unfortunately, sometimes that means cutting people out of your life for a small amount of

[00:07:42] time or sometimes a longer amount of time. And sometimes it means ending those relationships permanently. Um, if there's no reconciliation going on. Absolutely. So then you got, you got out. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, it's okay. I was just going to say, God loves me. God loves us just the way we are with all our faults and all our things. We need to stop thinking that somebody's going to punish us. We punish ourselves. And that is, that's, what's got to stop. Uh, and to your

[00:08:11] point is that the people that are around us are supposed to protect us and lift us up. And if they're there to shame us and guilt us into what, you know, staying, sticking around and dealing with the, with the, with the, with the harm, uh, yeah, it's easier to just cut them off. Right. Now you, you also made a big pivot. I mean, I know you've done a lot of things in your life. You've, you know, you've got your JD, you've got an MBA, I think if I'm not mistaken, um, you know,

[00:08:39] you've run companies, you've spoken internationally. I think you have over 5,000 stages you've appeared upon. That's fair. That seems to be like a complete 180 from where you were earlier in your life. So how did you move from being that? I, I, I, that person who was going through a lot of challenges to this person that's big and bold and willing to step up. And anytime she gets handed a

[00:09:06] mic, she's ready to go. Well, it wasn't always like that, but, uh, um, you know, the, the sentence, uh, fake it till you make it. Yep. I didn't say fake it till you make it. I just said, just do it. Just Nike, just Nike it. Just do it. Right. The, the, the person inside of me scared, the person inside of me shaking. Every time I got on stage, my legs were shake so much. I thought it

[00:09:34] was seen, but it wasn't seen, but my whole body was shaking. Um, the day my father passed away, I was, I got the call and I was about to get on stage. Yeah. How do you deal with that? Like there's so many other things that are in your life that nobody needs to see. And every time somebody asked me, how do you share that story over and over and over again without crying? Oh, in the beginning, it wasn't like that. I was crying every time I shared my story, it was hard for me to share

[00:10:03] it, but I did it because I needed to get it out of my system. Right. I didn't get, I didn't want to get people's pity or their, uh, you know, um, sob story, sobbing with me or, or empathy or anything like that. All I wanted was to share because I felt that if I would share, it's a bigger vision than me. And that's what brought me to speak at this women's shelter way back after in 2006,

[00:10:30] I believe, um, where I spoke at this women's shelter because my girlfriend asked me to speak. And that's when I shared my story for the first time on a big stage. And when I, one lady came up to me and it was a, it was a women's shelter. So one woman came up to me, many women came up to me and thanked me for sharing and for giving them hope. But one old lady actually showed up and showed me a piece of paper. She said, this is how I was going to kill myself this morning.

[00:10:59] I don't remember driving from my house to the shelter. You see here, it's not where I was going, but I heard you speak and I want to live. I just need you to show me how. So the power of our story and everything that we go through so much bigger than us. Yeah. And I always say to women, because a lot of women say, I don't want to talk about the divorce. I don't want to talk about the bad things that happen in life. I don't talk a lot about my divorce, um, because it's just,

[00:11:26] it, it, it was very private. It was very personal. Um, and it's from, for me, I'm okay with not sharing all the, all the details. And sometimes I hear women say, I don't want to talk about my divorce and I don't have a clue what else I could talk about. So I know this is kind of your area of expertise. And I know we were going to talk, we are going to talk a little bit more about, um, challenges and

[00:11:52] stuff, but there is a way that you can do talks without even, you don't have to talk about your personal stuff. Most of Orly's talks are on business matters, how to speak better, um, you know, how to, how to manage your, uh, mindset, all kinds of phenomenal topics. So Orly, how, if, if a woman sitting here listening and going, yeah, I've got some knowledge I'd like to share, but I don't have a clue how to, how to do this or what to even talk about. Give us a, give us a five minute

[00:12:22] overview of what we should be doing. Absolutely. So I want you to think about everything you've accomplished. I've, I have, I have this exercise that I do at master your message, by the way, master your message is a two day intensive event, only $27 to participate, but it's pretty good at getting you to tell your story. But here's, let me tell you what a speech is. A speech is tell a story, make a point or make a point, then tell a story. It's not your Toastmasters version, but there's nothing wrong with Toastmasters.

[00:12:49] It's good for certain, um, skill sets. But what I am here to tell you is that everything you have been through in your life has a story. Like walking the dog. If you have a dog, you have a story. If you have pets, you have a story. If you have kids, you have a story. If you have a husband, you have a story. I have many stories about my husband. My current husband, adorable. Love him to death. He's my love of my life. And it's still, I could tell you stories like make sense. He cooks.

[00:13:19] Oh my God, I can't lose weight because of him. You know what I mean? Not because of him, please. You know, I'm not blaming him. Believe me. But there's so many things that we can talk about. We can talk about technology. We can talk about a walk in the park. We can talk about so many. You have a car? You have a story. You know how many stories I have just about my car? Literally, right? So at the end of the day, it's not about the story itself. It's the message that would go

[00:13:46] with that story. The impact that that story can make. And that's what we need to talk about. That's why when I told you my story earlier, I didn't tell you that story to impress you or press upon you to do anything. I'm just sharing with you because I realized the day of the shelter that my story is bigger than me. It can make so much more impact. It can help others because in the act of sharing, there's contribution. You never know whose story is, whose life you're going to

[00:14:14] change, right? Right, right. And I love that message. You know, and I know I've heard you say, I've heard other people say too, you don't have to be an expert to have a good story and to really give people some motivation or some inspiration or even a different way of looking at things. You don't have to be an expert, but you do have to actually do the talk. That's the thing, right?

[00:14:41] The thing is that you tell the story sometimes to your best friend, right? How many of us have ever boiled eggs and forgot them on the stove? And then you hear poof! And then you're like, oh crap, I forgot the eggs, right? And then you see they're all over the place, right? I know that I have that happen to me. Many people have had this happen to them. So that's a story. I just made you laugh. Why? Because you can either relate or you can think of a time that you left something on the

[00:15:08] stove and it went poof, right? So there you go. You can imagine. I actually one time when I was living here on the farm and we had those old fashioned stoves with the coil stuff, I left a pot on there, went out and got messing around with the horses and came back in and the pot had actually melted. And there was these little drips of aluminum in the bottom of those. Oh no. And it smelled horrible. But yeah, I mean, we can all relate to something goofy we did. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:15:37] So, and I think one of the things that you really talk about is the fact that there are not a lot of women who are interested in actually getting up and doing public speaking. And I know you have, I don't want to put you on the spot because I didn't tell you we were going to talk about this, but there's some big numbers out there about people, about what the actual market for

[00:16:01] people who want to speak and tell their story. Absolutely. So one thing that people need to know is that there are 64,000 events a day in America alone, Canada and the United States that pay speakers. Women are only 1.9% of all the speakers in the world. And that is a low, low number. Are you kidding? Right? We are in 2026 and it's 1.9 just blows my mind. The industry will spend about

[00:16:31] 118.9 billion dollars this year alone on speakers and events. Look, there's enough opportunity, enough money for any of you. And let's say this, okay? If you have a message and you're passionate about it, it's a good message. If you are a speaker and you're willing to give your message, whether you do it good or bad, if you have that, if you're thinking if you're a bad speaker or a good

[00:17:00] speaker, you're a good speaker. Even if you're passionate about it, you are a good speaker. Which one of the two do you think about that event planners care about? Neither. They care about you showing up on time and finishing on time. So if you thought to yourself, oh my God, I'm not a speaker. I don't want to talk or whatever. There's a lot of money out there for you. 48% of speakers never respond to event planners still today. That makes it crazy to begin with. So if you ever thought

[00:17:29] about it, it's a good thing to, that means, see, if you thought about it, God put that thought in your brain and you should act on it. Yeah. Yeah. And there, you know, and I just want to throw that out here too. Orly works specifically to help speakers get paid gigs. That's her main area of focus. But I've got to say too, you also encourage people to speak where it kind of moves them to speak.

[00:17:55] So if you feel, you know, if you feel that you want to speak to women's shelters, you can go speak. They're not, they're probably not going to pay you, but that doesn't mean your message isn't valued and needed. You might want to speak at your church. You might want to speak at your community center, or, you know, maybe you want to do a presentation for your own office or coworkers. You know, you don't have to get paid speaking gigs, but it's nice to be able to make some money when you're also

[00:18:22] doing this stuff. So, and I think it's a nice, it's a nice side gig for a lot of women at any age, especially, you know, if you go through a divorce and you're single and you're an empty nester and you've got time where you could travel and do things, why not get a paid speaking gig in Bali so you can write off the trip as a business expense, go have a little vacation, come back home. There's

[00:18:46] lots of opportunities here. And, you know, again, this, we're not trying to tell everybody they got to go speak, but if you want to, there's so many opportunities out there. Yeah. And I've seen people do it part-time while they were on a JOB already, they would do it part-time so that they can replace the JOB eventually. So they're building your, they're speaking coaching career couple of years, and then they get to a salary that they can afford on their own. And then why be

[00:19:13] under somebody else making somebody else's dream, you know, grow. Um, the other thing is about, don't think about it. It's, do you make a, do you want to make a difference in the world? And do you want to leave a legacy? Your speaking career or your authorship or your coaching will always leave a legacy. If it's, even if you change one person's life, it doesn't really matter. It's not, it's not only one to many, you can change people's lives just by sharing your story. Yeah. And that, that is so

[00:19:41] true. And it's, you know, it is kind, it's not kind of, it's very nice when people come up after you do a talk and they say, thank you for sharing that. Or I really learned something, or I hadn't thought about that that way. It, it, it, it not only makes you feel good, but I feel like you're giving something back to the world when you do that kind of thing. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, you know, sharing your, your story, like I said, is a contribution to the world. You just never know how it's going to

[00:20:10] evolve. Who is going to come and see you? Who's going to say to you, Oh my God, you saved my life. Uh, it's such a beautiful thing that we do. Um, what do you call it? We, we do it without asking for anything in return. We do it from a place of servitude. You know, uh, sometimes I tell people, I, people, speakers get into this business or coaches get into this business to feed their ego or feed their pocket. I tell you, go ahead and feed your pocket. It's okay. Feeding your ego is not

[00:20:38] going to be good because you're not going to be of service. We're here to serve, not to sell. So at the end of the day, if you come from a place of service, more people will actually want to work with you and pay you for it. So it's a win, win, win. Yeah. And, and this is, I think this is particularly important for women going through divorce because so many times, you know, people think this is a message I can't share or I shouldn't share. And we certainly don't want you sharing any

[00:21:05] details about your divorce that might get you any legal hot water, but for, for other women who are in the process to say, Hey, here's a woman who went through things, whatever they may be. And look at her now she's on stage. She's sharing this. And she gave me some tips and ideas and strategies and motivation to keep going. Um, that's a, you know, that's something that, that's something that is of, like you said, it's a value. It's being of servitude to the people that

[00:21:32] are listening. So. Absolutely. And you know, like I created the mindset mastery coaching certification program, but I coach on that mindset mastery program. I used to coach CEOs and CFOs of fortune 500 and fortune 100 companies because they could not talk to a therapist or a psychiatrist. They couldn't talk to their spouses about what their anxieties are and, and their turmoil is they couldn't talk to the guys on the golf course. They couldn't talk to their, um, their downline in

[00:22:02] their own company, vice presidents, et cetera, because they have to be the gun, the, the, the person that holds it all together. Right. And, and for women who are married, it's the same thing. They hold the house, the kids, the, the, the household and, and the kids and everything else. And they have to keep straight face. It's not easy. I get it. It's very emotional and very draining, uh, physically, emotionally, mentally. Therefore it's important to just take accountability

[00:22:30] for where you are. And then every day, just do something to make it better. Yeah. Yep. Yep. What is it that, that guy that wrote the atomic habits, all you have to do is get 1% better every day, every 1%. Yeah. A little baby step. Yeah. Orly, we have covered a wide range of topics here. Um, what of all the things we talked about, what's the message you want to just remind

[00:22:56] folks of us there as we're winding this down today? Um, you know, because of my nonprofit, uh, you are my light, we are building healing centers for rescued victims of human trafficking, sex and labor slavery, so that we can give them back their God given right to life, freedom, education, and autonomy. And because we do that, our goal in life needs to be to leave a legacy,

[00:23:19] to help the next generation and to move people forward. And so what I would say is if you have a message, somebody is willing to pay for it. That's my tagline and, uh, also my message. Yeah. And I think that's so important. Orly, if people do want to find out more about what you do, or maybe learn more about the whole industry of public speaking, what's the best place to do that?

[00:23:43] So my, my, uh, you can go to my website, meet orlyamore.org or meet orlyamore.com. You can go to either one of those and you can also find me on all social media. Uh, I am Orly Amore, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, go to my channel and definitely subscribe and like and share, et cetera. Thank you. Thank you, Orly. I really appreciate you. And as always, I, I've learned something new here today as

[00:24:13] well. So thank you for sharing all this. Sounds good. Thank you for having me. And thank you everyone for listening to this episode of the D-Shift and don't forget to tune in to the next one. Thanks for listening and supporting the D-Shift podcast. If you would like to attend live trainings by our amazing guests and have a chance to ask questions and get answers

[00:24:38] from our experts, join the D-Shift crew. For more details and to sign up, head on over to www.divorcecoachforwomen and click on the podcast page.