Community Archives

Audio- #3 Story from the car- Value

April 24, 2020

These stories from the car are a listening in to one particular word we really want to dive into and today the word is VALUE.

Truthfully, I get hits on things when a word just rumbles in and doesn’t want to leave me.

So this word of value is what I invite us into today.

Even as I say value, it seems kind of mundane. Kind of boring. I have this box of chicken strips and two tubes of ground beef in the back of my car, and I am fortunate enough during this pandemic that the local pub has agreed to place orders on behalf of us islanders to offset the pressure on the general store, but also to keep us from having to go into the city to shop.

That is value.

But I’m also a single mom to three kids and I need to get value for my money. That’s a different kind of value. But it’s always an in and an out. Isn’t it?

Or is it?

Tina Overbury is a core-communications specialist who works with individuals and organizations who feel called. She is a storyteller, performer, and a professional listener who works with narrative and story structure as a vehicle for human connection. Her work is rooted in Myth, Mysticism, and the practice of personal faith. She brings thirty years of collaborative storytelling in theatre, film, marketing, team based selling, and workshop facilitation. She is the founder of Live Your Best Story, a weekend retreat of deep listening held on Bowen Island, BC, Canada and is the voice and story behind TinaOLife, home to Story Stones, TinaO’s online gathering of listening in to sacred stories. Tina is a proud associate of PowHERhouse media where she listens and supports the ‘stories’ of whole and integrated leaders of tomorrow.

If you would like to know more about Tina’s approach to story, click here.

You Matter and So Do I

July 21, 2016

I thought this was about how I matter, and it is, but… so? Yes I’ve read all of the same books that you have and I get it, everything starts with me. Right? Nothing has the juice of connection until there’s a me in the center of my own picture and until we’re rooted in the me that is mine there is no hook that can reach out and in to you authentically.

Oh gawd that word, the A word: authentic.

I bet when those three syllables resurface in another ten years I may like them again, but for now, the A-word feels like it might be part of the problem.

Why?

Because we’ve named it and now it exists like a destination, or a flag if you will. We have a word for the missing it – it’s become the ingredient we’re all hoping will bring us an audience, or a tribe, or inner peace, that our authentic self will lead us to the next step, the next place that will lead us home so we can finally arrive.

We want authenticity now, and thats why there’s all this I-engine revving going on.

Who am I?
What do I want?
Where am I going?
What do I have to offer?

Can you hear it? The I that lives in the My?

What is My purpose?
What is My gift?
Who is My tribe?

And yes… I know, like I really know, because I teach this stuff too and I can spend a lot of time spouting off about this very subject, in fact here’s what I say in Live Your Best Story on Friday night: “You can’t get there from there, you can only get there from here, and tonight, all we are doing is experiencing what it feels like to stand in our here.” These I’s and My’s are all about owning what is HERE, our here, right here, no where else but here. It’s our dot on the page, our own personal Google beacon so we can see ourselves and be seen from space. We do all of this work on our I and our My because we’ve grown into master escape artists. The last thing any of us want to do is actually BE HERE, or even harder, BE HERE TOGETHER.

So we sign up for I courses, Me weekends and My workshops. We begin to get comfortable in our ability to take up space, let our voice me known, and have an opinion. We might even roar a bit. Wooooo that’s risky. We buy into the idea that if we’re not ‘pissing anybody off, we’re not taking any risks either’. We bite into our I am sandwich, and then we keep on eating.

Why then are we still hungry and/or just a little bit sick?

What’s that about?

Because I and Me and My and Mine may be perfect, but it’s not whole. It’s only half of the story right? That would seem logical wouldn’t it? But even that isn’t accurate because I, Me and My is in fact only a third, and if you’re still with me, actually only 1/4 of the whole. Ready?

Here’s what it is:

I
You
little we
BIG WE

Following the top three, we can ask: Does this serve me? Does this serve you? Does this serve us? It’s pretty simple to stand in each of those perspectives and know what to do. It’s even easier when we can recognize that each of us has a default position that we auto-pilot. Clearly, for those of you who have followed me for awhile, know that I have a very strong and habitual “I” position. How do you know that? How many selfies do I take??? Yup… lots. I’m suuuuuuper comfortable in the I position. My back-up pilot is the ‘little we’ position as in, I remember that when I post a ‘selfie’ about me, I do it in service of the ‘little we’ – here’s where I suggest the 4th option, or a 3B if that’s easier…

I call it the big ‘WE’ (and yes I’m totally riffing on David Brook’s idea of the big and little me in his book The Road to Character which I LOVE btw).

You still with me?

See, there’s a difference between the little we and the big we and here it is:

Little we: Your team, your tribe, your community, your audience, your network, your connections.

What is the common denominator here? YOU as in ME, or I, as if we own it, or are the central character.

Here’s the BIG WE: Us, the planet, all, ever-after. What’s the common denominator? ALL, there’s no differentiation between you or me or we. There is no separation, or BOX to put us in because we ARE THE BOX.

as my husband would say: Dynamite BOOOOOOOOM! Kablammo – now what?

I’m working on a book called You Matter and so do I – and this is the theme I’m exploring. I’m taking a look at concepts like:

It doesn’t matter because I already do.
Who am I without words to describe me?
Where does resilience come from?
Finding freedom at the bottom.
What landing in your groove feels like and why.
How detachment might be a form of attachment to the BIG WE.
You matter because you are breathing, because you arrived, because you are here.

You matter and so do I is what I’m working on for delivery to all of you by October 29th 2016. There. It matters because it, as in the story that is coming, can now breathe too.

Big thank you to Meribeth Deen for nailing my thoughts to squiggles on a page. She helps me find words when I can’t see them or hear them yet.

xxT

TinaO is a writer, speaker and the founder of TinaOLife – a hub for all things worth living for, the workshop Live Your Best Story, and her coaching practice: Tall Poppy Living. She’s also a professional network marketer with a decade in the industry and with her Tall Poppy Living for Network Marketers Coaching Program, she teaches: selling isn’t slimey and marketing isn’t make-believe. You can be yourself and be successful in Direct Sales.

A Face, Heart and a Dream

January 8, 2016

Tonight a handful of team members from my network marketing biz are gathering at Xenia Retreat Centre for a Mastermind Retreat away into their business and their lives.

We’ll eat (always). We’ll talk (of course) about how we can live more healthfully and passionately. We’ll dig in (needed) to the areas of our business that are clunky and beg for attention. We’ll get clear about what goals/targets/intentions really matter to us and what we’re willing to truly show up for this year. We’ll sharpen our skills (stretch always) and we’ll take on this live/work balance conundrum that is so personal to each of us. We’ll lift each other up because it’s often easier to see greatness in others before we can see it in ourselves.

It’s just another day at the office – rich and challenging because none of us ‘have’ to go to this work, we choose it instead. Wow, it’s so much easier to procrastinate our way out of that isn’t it? It’s a business of people, as in we get paid when we sell stuff to people and when we nurture and coach people too (which isn’t everybody’s natural skill set and it takes time to learn) – makes it complicated. A lot of us struggle with getting paid when there’s ‘people’ involved! ack! How can that be fair or honest? Here’s the thing I’ve learned over a decade in the industry, it’s actually the most honest work I can do. When there’s a face, a heart, a dream, or a family on the other side of what I do, it is my deep privilege to show up. These are people after-all, not faceless ‘team members and prospects’. Crazyyyy but my best friends have come from this business. These are the people who have walked through personal and professional fires with me and I with them. I don’t need to get paid for that, but wow, what an illogical bonus that I do.

Whatever you do for a living, my wish for every single one of us is that wherever you are Monday to Friday and beyond, that you’re part of a community, you belong, you love and are loved. That’s real wealth.

xxT