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Get Inspired! Project Boomers with host Toni Reece (radio interview)

January 3, 2011

BARBARA SCHIFFMAN

“We metaphorically sprout wings. We have to take both feet off the ground first for that to happen. We can’t take a leap if one foot is still on the ground where we used to be.” Toni Reece: Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project Boomers. I am so pleased to have Barbara Schiffman today on the Project. Barbara, welcome to the Get Inspired! Project Boomers.

Barbara Schiffman: Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Toni: Thank you. Barbara, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Barbara: Sure. I’m an author, a public speaker, and what I call a Life and Soul Coach. I help people create and maintain life balance and also take leaps of faith to create life breakthroughs from the inside out, and also sometimes the outside in. My website is http://www.yourlifeandsoul.com. Toni: Thank you for being here, Barbara. Let’s go into the first question of the Project. What does inspiration mean to you? Barbara: I love this particular word -- inspiration -- and I like to look words like this up in the dictionary.

There are three things the dictionary says that are meaningful to me about that word which I think are related. First of all, the dictionary says it’s the act of breathing in, of taking a breath -- which is what keeps us alive, of inhaling things. I like to think of that as both literal and as a metaphor of bringing in those things that feed us in some way.

The dictionary also says that it’s the power of exercising and elevating or stimulating influence on the intellect or emotions which helps stimulate the mind, and I think also stimulate the actions we take from that. Third, the dictionary says it’s a supernatural influence, which qualifies people to receive and communicate the truth – or the divine truth, if you want to get a little metaphysical here. It has all those effects of being inspired -- from actually taking in a breath, from taking in what feeds our soul, what feeds our life, and stimulating influences on us to hopefully take action in our lives and make a big difference.

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It encompasses then what I think of as the four Life Elements. I talk about them in what I write and the coaching work I do – the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual – which make up all of our lives. In that process of information, I think it calls us to go further than we have, and do more than we think we can. I know when I’m inspired about things I was resisting, it helps me try something out and maybe get over that resistance.

One of the other things I’ve done for many decades is that I’ve been a script consultant and writing coach here in Hollywood. We’re inspired by movies and TV, by songs, by all those creative things people do to live our lives better. The inspiration that comes in from the outside that we inhale and allow to "feed" us, helps to give us the energy to do more than we think we could or to try things we didn’t know we could do. Then we can see what we can actually do, which is usually inspiring to other people. Toni: So really for you, what inspiration means is to be able to take all of that in and then to do what you do -- work on yourself -- so you can also then showcase that for others. Barbara: Absolutely! I think it’s an escalating, spiral loop.

When we’re inspired, we can then do more in our lives and for ourselves and for other people -- then by example, other people are inspired by us and hopefully do the same in their lives -- which then inspires us and other people. So we keep doing it for each other. Toni: Barbara, how do you put all this inspiration into practice? When you're experiencing it and then you're "exhaling" it and showcasing these as examples -- can you give us an example of how you put this into practice?

Barbara: Certainly. All my life, I’ve been one of those people who learn by experience. In the last few decades of my life at least – I’m 60 this year – I’ve found myself teaching from what I’ve learned.

The way I often teach is, ‘Here’s what worked for me – let’s see how it works for you, or how that leads to something better for you.’

I’ve done this in a lot of areas -- from my work as a Hollywood script consultant, writing coach and career coach, to now moving into life coaching and spiritual coaching. That's what I’ve been doing for the last ten years while also continuing to work with people on developing film and movie stories that inspire people who watch them.

For me, it comes out in my writing, my teaching, and my life. It’s been very powerful when other people have told me how they’re inspired by me as an example, because I don’t always know that I’m doing that! But I think that’s where we each inspire each other -- by being that example in our life. Some of us write it down, teach it or share it in other, more active ways.

One of the things I did this past year was start working on a book with a coach friend of mine, Camille Leon. We entered it into a publishing contest online called “The Next Top Spiritual Author.” That was a big leap of faith for us -- and ironically our book, called "The Exhilaration Effect: Building the Courage to Take Your Leap of Faith" was about taking leaps of faith and the process of doing that. The book ended up in the Top 25 books out of about 3,000 that were entered, so we were in the semifinals! Having seen so many other people take big leaps of faith in their lives and interviewing people – kind of like what you’re doing, which is why what you’re doing inspires me so much – and finding out what they did, bigger and harder things than we were doing or even that we had done in other parts of our lives --really inspired us. Sharing their stories plus the material we had developed by looking at what it takes to make a leap of faith and how there are six stages to it led us to some interesting new discoveries. So we started writing about. Sharing that and other people’s stories was really powerful for us.

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Toni: Congratulations on your success. Barbara: Thank you.

Toni: That’s pretty amazing -- when you take that leap of faith, and it’s that belief without evidence thing that’s going on, and then there it is, isn’t it!?

Barbara: Absolutely. In fact, I’d like to share one anecdote about a friend we interviewed for the book, whose leap of faith has gone further since we interviewed her four or five months ago:

Her name is Riley Weston. She’s a writer and actress here in Hollywood who wanted to move into singing. Her specialty is Country Western music. When we interviewed her for the book, she told about how she was inspired to take some actions from her inner inspiration. That inner calling led to her not only getting selected to sing the National Anthem at a lot of different sports events here in Los Angeles, including for the Anaheim Ducks hockey game I believe, and maybe even for the Lakers -- but also to get a benefactor to create a demo album for her and also to write songs for the first time in her life. Her album now has songs she’s actually written. This week she's moving from L.A. to Nashville to really take a big leap and make her career happen. All the things she’s done along the way have helped her take that bigger leap. Seeing what she's done inspires me to take those bigger leaps in my life as well. Toni: I really like that a lot, that leap of faith. Barbara, what has your greatest life lesson been?

Barbara: I think that things always work out. Sometimes they don’t work out the way we would ideally like them to, but they do always work out in some fashion, even if they’re challenging.

That's something I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older. When we’re 20, we don’t have as much life experience to look back on. So it’s that hindsight aspect of being a Baby Boomer. I can look back now and say, ‘Look at all the things I did. I picked up and moved to Los Angeles when I was 20, with everything in a U-Haul truck’ and I ended up working in the entertainment industry, kind of like Riley’s doing now in moving to Nashville. Everything I’ve done has led to the next thing. Moving out here led me to meet my husband, get married, and raise a daughter. Even the challenges I’ve had – when my parents both got sick about ten years ago and ended up in nursing homes, and I had to take over managing their lives and parenting them – it’s all worked out, even though there were challenges along the way. Learning that’s how things go, and also how the people in our lives and the experiences we have are more important in the long run than the things we have and the money we might have in the bank (which are really important and helpful). But in the end, it’s those memories we’ve created and the ways we’ve helped each other, and the legacies we leave and the things we’re learning -- like you’re discovering in these interviews -- that are really the most important things.

Toni: Where did you find the strength to have the realization that things always work out? You’re right --when you’re younger, it’s like the world is coming to an end; the sky is falling. To have that be your greatest life lesson -- that things always work out -- it’s such a powerful statement. Where did the strength come from to have that realization and just have that be that life lesson?

Barbara: I’m not sure where the strength came from. I’ve always been a very grounded person and very practical. I look at things that are emotional or spiritual or inspirational and see the value in them and the practical applications of them. I think it just came to me one day -- as many of these things tend to do -- that things just always work out. And when it feels like they won’t, being able to look back at how things have gone and all those serendipitous detours and twists and turns of life that we can’t plan have led from one place to another, usually to something that had value, even if it’s not perfect.

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Having a sense that, in hindsight, it has always worked out; again, not always the way we had envisioned or the way we would ideally like, but it’s worked out and things are okay.

Toni: Barbara, how do you correlate “things always work out” with the leap of faith? Barbara: When we take a leap of faith, we don’t have evidence that it’s going to work out -- so we really have to trust. It’s that sense of trusting that they will work out, that there is a safety net there somewhere below us -- or that if we leap, it will appear.

That’s the thing I found the most exciting in interviewing people and looking at my own leaps of faith -- being willing to step off the edge of that cliff, so to speak, even though we can’t see what’s on the other side. But knowing that’s where we’re supposed to go -- or if we're being pushed into it, doing something we don’t necessarily choose, trusting that it’s going to be okay.

Then we metaphorically sprout wings. We have to take both feet off the ground first for that to happen. We can’t take a leap if one foot is still on the ground where we used to be!

Toni: I think that is such an important distinction here that you’ve just made, with things always working out and leap of faith. I just think that’s very powerful. Barbara, what do you want your legacy to be?

Barbara: I’d like to have helped inspire people to take those leaps of faith, and to discover what’s right for them in life. Since a lot of my work focuses on creating breakthroughs where the leap of faith comes in -- and also staying balanced -- those two things work together. We can take those leaps when we are feeling like things will be okay, that we have some sense of balance or influence, or maybe even control in parts of our lives, and then we can do more than we think we can. I see that with my daughter. She’s my best creation, so to speak. She’s 30. She’s an emergency room nurse, married to a great guy who’s also an emergency room nurse. They want to be traveling nurses and help people. She’s always been an adventurous kind of soul, and very independent. Being inspired by her and seeing her as part of my legacy and an example of this is also really important to me. Toni: Barbara, I cannot thank you enough for the very powerful answers you have given for the Get Inspired! Project Boomers. People all around the world are going to learn from these interviews, and that is just so inspiring for me. For meeting you today and having you show up for the Project, we cannot thank you enough, Barbara. Barbara: Thank you for letting people share this and for looking at things as a legacy. Sometimes we’re only looking ahead, and we don’t really look back and say, ‘Wait a minute – what did I learn? What can I share? What really does make a difference?’ I think you’re doing some very powerful and inspiring – using that word – work here, and helping all of us get to share that. Toni: Thank you so much. We will have links to your website and how people can learn more about you at the bottom of the transcript. For today and the Get Inspired! Boomers Project, we thank you, Barbara, for being here.

Barbara: My pleasure!

http://www.yourlifeandsoul.com http://www.ExhilarationEffect.com