 And I'm going to bring you, like, such a perfect show at such a perfect time. We're going to be talking about celebration. We're going to be talking about how you can gift someone, not just running out to a store and buying something, which could be fabulous, by the way. But often, what I know about people is it's a conundrum. Unless you know something somebody really, really, really wants, you can key in on it and gift them with that, often it's a big guessing game. But what if you gave somebody love? And what if you gave them something that was so deeply sentimental, they would never forget it or you for it? Well, my guest today is all about that. And she's going to show us ways to make that happen. And I know I'm going to employ definitely some of her amazing ideas from her amazing book called Say It Now for my family, and maybe for my loved ones. So without further ado, I want to first thank the sponsor of the show, Dr. Dane Heer and Access Consciousness for the brilliant energy healing work they do out in the world. If you are anywhere in the world and are looking for something for change that quickly, go to drdane here, h-e-e-r.com or accessconsciousness.com. They have books. They have products. They have online classes. They have live classes anywhere in the world. And they also have levels and tiers so you can become a facilitator, a healing facilitator for Access Consciousness, which is fantastic. I use all of their modalities, and I highly, highly recommend it. Also, I want to talk about what is the beauty of power without ego? And ego is an interesting word, isn't it, because some people say ego is an acronym for edging God out. Because we don't often associate power with a concept of beauty. Because we usually connect great power in things with nature, great destruction, such as earthquakes and hurricanes and tornadoes and forest fires, all of which we've been seeing. But those are actually very extreme examples of nature. So it's easy to overlook the everyday sort of power such as gravity that holds the planets, the stars, the galaxies, all of that together in this beautiful orbit pattern. And every year, the magnificent power of spring brings a tremendous resurgence of growth and rebirth in the plants and animal kingdoms. Silent, but beautiful. So today, I just urge you that you might look within at the power emerging in your life and recognize the force of your love, your compassion, your strength, your joy, your creativity, your intelligence, and your purpose. Because it's all very truly beautiful. And because all of that is actually connected with the grace and the balance of mother nature herself. So I offer you this thought. Think about today and take with you wherever you go to choose the power of compassion, love, and kindness. I choose the power of compassion, of love, and of kindness. And see how your day is from there. It was Nietzsche who said, the voice of beauty speaks softly. It creeps into the most fully awakened souls. This show, Dare to Dream, has been nominated for two people's podcast choice awards, or two people's choice podcast awards, a finalist. And it's available on over 40 syndicated stations and outlets. So to name a few, you can go to Pandora, you can go to Spotify, iHeart Radio, YouTube, Google, Apple Podcasts, BBS, and more. Go ahead and subscribe. When you're on Spreaker, just subscribe. It'll come right into your box every time a new show is released. And we love that you leave us a review. I do read everything that you leave for me. So my question is, who or what will you celebrate today? My guest is Sherri Blue. She's the founder of Simply Celebrate, dedicated to helping people find creative, intentional, and impactful ways to celebrate life and to express love for family and friends. Are you looking for a unique gift for a friend or a family member or for a milestone occasion like a decade birthday or a golden anniversary or retirement? Do you want to give a client something, yes, truly special to celebrate a success or a goal they've achieved? Is there someone you want to recognize with a gift to make them cry with joy? Well, join us today in this conversation with Sherri. And we're going to find new and unique ways to celebrate the people we love. And to find out more about Sherri, go to SimplyCelebrate.net. And without further ado, I am going to bring the beautiful and the fabulous Sherri on to Dare to Dream. And Sherri, welcome to you. And thanks for joining today. Debbie, that was beautiful. I'm still sort of settling into what you're saying about what of today we live in that love and compassion. That really hit me. Yeah, because it speaks to who you are. It would hit you because it speaks to the essence of your being. And I just want to say to people that when I met you, it was magical. You can't even see all of how she's dressed, but to me as in love. And I was lusting after her shoes. And that's how we actually met at an event. And then when you and I got to know you and I brought you on the show, you do. You live what you teach. So you left me this gorgeous, recorded message. And at the end of your outpouring of love and gratitude and connection, you said, I have a poem for you. And you recited, I believe her name was Ellen Bast. This just gorgeous, perfect, perfect poem. And I sat back and I don't know that I've ever received a message quite like that. Wow. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That is one of the ways that I feel we can all be more connected. So it's a practice for me. And I didn't know you very well, but I did really fall. Like I had this huge crush on you at the event. You're so vivacious. And you have so many qualities of true beauty inside and out. And I wanted to express that to you. And so it is a practice for me to try to say it now. That's why I named the book that. But thank you for receiving it so beautifully. I love that you say, see it now. That's everything. Hear it now. Do it now. Express it now. I've certainly, on a different level, been that way with elderly people who I knew would pass at some point, say everything, no regrets, or just with friends to make sure if I have a gush of love to let that out, it's so important. We really don't know when someone's last day on this planet is going to be. So your business, then, is all about living and loving out loud. Why did you come to that? Why is celebrating who we are and the life we have and the life of others? Why is that so important to you? Thank you. That's actually kind of a big question for me because the short answer is that 30 years ago, I wanted off this planet. All I could hear was how I was the wrong person. I wasn't living the right life. I couldn't live up to anything. I felt like was inside of me. I couldn't be the person I wanted to be. I was in such despair. And what happened was that I, fortunately, was led to a meditation class, which allowed me to find just a tiny moment of light in that darkness. And ever since then, I have been looking for those moments of light and, more importantly, trying to create them for other people. That's a really long story in a short form, but that's what happened for me. That just once again goes to prove what I've said over and over. People's wound becomes their gift. Their mess becomes their message. So you took a very difficult situation and once you were able to heal and become more aligned with life and positivity in the outside, it then became your gift to all of us on the outside. Yes, because the thing is, I thought, you know, and I think you'll appreciate this. Like I thought all that darkness and despair was like this wall closing on me. That's iron wall that was just gonna kill me, really, literally. And one tiny pinprick of light, one tiny pinprick of light, and for me it was that in-breath in the meditation, it changed everything. And I think this is the thing that I most wanna tell people is that it's so simple, right? We don't have to make these huge efforts. They could be a tiny little kindness, a tiny, just like you were saying, like how you express your love to people. And I've seen you do that, you know? You have such enthusiasm. It could be bringing that enthusiasm to a moment. And that's light for people. And what's very interesting to me reading your book is that you also, once you came out the other side, you've created this boyfriend and you refer to him several times in the book and the gifts he gives you, the surprises he gives me, and I thought, that's pretty major. For you to be somebody, I can tell. I mean, some of the stories in here, I'm like, whoever is her friend, how lucky. And all your friends, I hope they're gonna write something here or comment when they listen to this. How lucky are you to have Sherry as a friend? Because man, she's done some major things for birthdays and for milestones and for weddings, but you also created a boyfriend who surprises you. How did you do that? What do you think, surprises? You know, I lucked out, right? And I think like attracts like, right? A lot of times when people meet Ian, they always say that he's kind of the male version of me. And I think we're attracted to one another because he does have a reverence for the moment. He has a true reverence for showing up completely. And I think that that's the first step of all of this. And I know you practice this too, because this is how you are, right? You're, when you're here, you're here. I've seen it. And that's the first step is, can we get here? And not being, you know, on our phones or, you know, distracted, who's texting me? Who's calling me? It's like, right here. Yeah, that's a big pet peeve of mine, actually. It's so fun. One of the things that you and I did together, because I actually did a gift through you, and people can give gifts through you just so they know, is there's something called a love list. And it was a very quick phone call. My best friend was going to have a ritual for her divorce. So in the anniversary, her wedding anniversary, and she's going through a divorce and she was bereft about that date. She's so brilliantly decided, let's have some goddesses over. Let's do a ritual. So this doesn't have to be like a long, long kind of night. Let's make it uplifting and intentional. And it's like, what do you bring someone for something like that, Sherry? So you and I did a love list, and then you actually sent it to me, thank God, because I don't have a printer to do what you did. But the booklet that arrived was so stunning. And I was so proud to bring that gift. I felt like a million bucks. I made my friend feel special. I read the whole thing to her in front of everybody, all the things I love about her, all the ways we've laughed and peed in our pants and the way she's amazing out in the world. And when it was done, you know, it was a beautiful night of ritual, I will say. What really made me feel so good and made me appreciate you so much, Sherry, is she shared it with her boyfriend that night. When everybody was gone and they were alone and she was gushing about the evening and the event, she took out your book, our book. And she said, this was the whole night. This made my entire experience. And it's like, oh. Wow. So you and I turned around, what could have been a terrible event for somebody, right? The anniversary of your wedding while you're going through a divorce, but instead we made her feel so loved and seen. Oh, and that's it, Debbie, right? That is everything I want to do. Those two things, right? So it's, first of all, showing someone that we see them and that they are so lovable and so loved for all those things. I wish we had time to read them all right here. But the second thing is that when times are tough, when we're in the dark, which we all are at one time or another, some to varying degrees, but when we're in the dark, how can we be with one another and make that feel a little bit more uplifting, right? How can we be with each other and bring that comfort and the solace and even the laughter in those times, right? Which is what you did for her, you know? And you showed up and I just want to say this because I think this is an important piece too and I think I said this to you after we did this. So we did do a short call and I was frantically catching all of the things, you know, all the stories about her, but that you are someone who pays such close attention to love. And I think this is another thing that is a thing that other people could take away from this. Again, how do we bring presence to our relationship so that we're actually paying attention to even know why we love someone? It was easy for you. It was easy for you to list off, I don't know how many things we had, 70, 80, 100, but that was easy for you to do because you are there with your friends. And I guess this has just got biggest hope for people is that we somehow find our way back from, we find our way back from the distractions and the how many people are liking my post online to, oh my gosh, who's in front of me? Look at this creature in front of me, she's amazing. And to really be there. That's so good. You know, in all of our lives, there's maybe really this many people, maybe this many, real people we're connected with who know us, who we engage in at an authentic level and they with us who we call at a moment's notice, they have our back, we'll laugh with them, we'll cry with them. Outside of that, right? Not so much. I mean, it's just a lot of fluff. And you know, I always laugh at my 5,000 friends on Facebook and I have to delete, you know, people constantly to let in new friends, but I don't really know the majority of the people out there. They don't engage with me. So it is true to see who is right in front of you who are already engaged in your life and take that breath to just express, this is what it means to do this journey with you and this is how you change all of who I am and your enormous contribution. It's amazing, this process that you offer and such light at a time when people could look out and say, oh, politics are dark, the world is dark. It's not, there's Sherry and there's say it now, right? A lot of this stuff, by the way, is either cheap or free. So you can do it rock someone's world. I already know I'm gonna use one of these. Let's talk about the holidays and how they could be more joyful. Gifts can be really overwhelming. Gifts can be a whole shebang like, oh, what am I gonna get? Where am I gonna go? Are they gonna like it? Is it just gonna be more stuff? My brother and sister-in-law are literally shutting down their estate right now as we speak. In upper upstate New York, they are moving on purpose to simplify things into a rather grand townhouse, but still it's not gonna be the home they were in. And I know I can't buy them something that's gonna be like more clutter. So less overwhelm, but still a genuine expression. What are some things you recommend that we can do? Ah, well, okay, so we've already talked about the love list, which, you know, all-time favorite gift. And I just wanted to add a few things that the way that we did it was I added some photographs and made it into a little booklet. But I just also wanted to tell people that you could list all the reasons you love someone and put them on little slips of paper and put them in a jar with little fairy lights or something. You can put them in fortune cookies. So I wanted to say there's lots of ways to present the love list. But another great gift, and that's one of my favorites, it doesn't cost anything. And it's a great way to use these phones that are sometimes a distraction, but they're also a great tool, which is to interview someone. Say someone has other children, or especially if they have elderly parents, that you could interview these people they love, you know, and get them telling stories. And I have all kinds of prompts on my website and questions you can ask people for these interviews. But especially, again, with children or elderly parents because things are gonna change pretty quickly on either of those ends of life. And I have interviews with my father-in-law who passed away about five years ago that means the world to me to hear his voice, sharing stories, you know, sharing what he loves about our family. And the same thing I have interviews that my son's dad did with him when he was four, that little squeaky baby boy voice that's no longer there. And so these are things, you know, you could also interview someone's best friend, you know. So it doesn't have to be exactly just from you, but you could interview people. The other things I love to do, especially like what you're talking about, can you hear me okay? I hear you perfect, yes. I was hearing some feedback, I just wanna make sure. Another thing that I love to do, especially at the holidays because people can get so caught up in like, oh, it's so busy, I have all this stuff to do, there's so much. I like to offer a gift called like the gift of the month. And it can be a gift of the month. Gift of the month. So like back to my father-in-law, he loved sweets. And he had more than enough stuff in his life, but he loved sweets. So we gave him a gift certificate that said, every month we were gonna send him a homemade something, you know, that he could look forward to. He also lived by himself, his wife had passed away. So that gave him a package and we'd always include a few photographs. But we would send him a homemade baked good. You could send someone a book, you know, say they love fiction, you know, send them a book and as a special treat, you could have the same book yourself and then you guys could talk about it. Or it could be something like music, you know, or it could be a letter. It doesn't matter really, like you have to, you know, just think about what that person loves. But for one thing, it cuts down on the amount of stress that we're dealing with right now at the holidays. The other thing is it gives you that ongoing connection, which is one of the things I'm always looking for, you know, so every month you're thinking of them, you're sending them something in the mail, which few people get anything fun in the mail anymore. And it can be anything, you know, maybe you're an artist and you could do a little doodle or a little tiny oil painting or whatever, you know. You know, and there's also ways, I'm thinking as you're saying that Sherry, that there's ways for people to say, that's a little much for me every month, but I like the every month idea. And I'm thinking, oh yeah, there's a wine of the month, there's lots of clubs and you could prepay and then it's just auto-sent to someone for a year. I know there's flour of the month and you can pay in advance. I'm sure there must be like a chocolate of the month or something. I'm sure there's a kale of the month somewhere, right? You know what would be amazing and anyone who wants to send me a gift coffee of the month, because I love coffee. I'm just thinking that I have to write these things down because that is such a really lovely idea, the gift that keeps on giving. And I even like the intimacy, if you do have the time and the connection with somebody to share a book and then you get to have that kind of level conversation between you two. Right, so and I think all the ways you're thinking are also sort of like, they're countless, right? But we have to like put ourself in the mindset of the person we're giving to. So you already said, oh, you know, we're moving away, they're downsizing. They don't want to receive anything material, right? So then you're already putting yourself in their mindset and then you think, you know, some people love something like a handwritten letter like my mother, that's it. If you send her handwritten letter every month, she's happy as clam. Other people might want like a bottle of wine that they can have for a special occasion like you're saying. So when we think about who they are, they get that. So this part of the gift is also that they're getting this person's paying attention to me, you know? It's they're seeing me. Yeah, yeah. And the constant drip every month of being thought of kindness goes so far. You don't know, you could walk in your house and it could have been a meh kind of day and all of a sudden there's the box and like, oh my God, just even seeing the box can elicit beautiful feelings and turn everything around. So yeah, that's pretty yummy. And then I know you have something Sherry called like the new Black Friday, the new Cyber Monday. What is the Sherry take on that? Yes, we just had the new Black Friday. So I don't have anything against gifts, right? I don't, I don't, it gets material gifts, you know? I don't want to let everything, there's nothing. It's a beautiful thing, like you said, if you know what someone wants and, but I do have, I'm so worked over the last number of years, we used to have Thanksgiving and it was a whole weekend with people we loved, right? We'd visit friends and family and we'd just be in our pajamas and hang out and play games and cards and all weekend. And then something called Black Friday happened and they started drawing everybody out of their houses on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. And then it seeped into Thursday, right? Oh, the sales are starting at 8 p.m. on Thursday. Then it was noon on Thursday. I really feel like that holiday Thanksgiving is for us to be with people we love. Who knows when you have so little of it? So I created the Black Friday, the new Black Friday. The new Black. To encourage people to stay home on Friday and I have a free call when I walk people kind of like I did with you. I walk people through making love lists. So that they have a free, wonderful connecting gift and it's a fun to do in community. We had a great time or at least I did when I was with you. Yeah. But when you're with a group of people and Susie's talking about her mom and, you know, Jane is talking about her best friend and somebody else is making one for their grandma. You fall in love with all these people, right? We're on the phone together and I'm falling in love with all of their people and it's everybody leaves with a gift that they can give someone. Do you have a lot of men who follow you or engage with you? You know some. I do admit it's mostly women. I do have though, there are some men who follow along and who make these kinds of gifts and it's wonderful but it does tend to be mostly women. Yeah. Well, I want the men to hear how much this would mean to us and I'm being for real. It is so meaningful. You know, women, like we have that disconnect where respect is important to you in general if you're more male energy and for us it's more about the feeling side but just so you can hear, Sherry, if you wanna blow your lady's mind, if you did this, again, maybe free or inexpensive on your end but it would like rock our world forever to get a Sherry gift, a Sherry inspired gift. Well, Anne, oh, I'm sorry Debbie. Yes, no, good. Well, Anne just brought up, I mean, two things. The first time I was on Reinvention Radio with Steve Olscher, you know, our mutual friend he talked about, he called himself, can I swear on your show? Yeah, totally, swear. Yeah, at least he was swearing so I think I can. I think he called himself like an inconsiderate bastard when it comes to gifts. And I was like, Steve, God, Steve. And I ended up working with him afterwards to create what I call a celebration book for his wife. So his children and himself, they all told me what they loved about her, right? Unbelievable gift. And a similar thing just recently, I was talking to someone, same thing. He's like, my wife is always complaining, I don't give her romantic gifts. And I'm like, do you have 20 minutes? And I just, right? I just interviewed him, wrote down. I think we had like 50 things. It was the best ever. Right. And I just want, yeah, I think you're right. Like, so for men, it's, you know, and I'm happy to help, right? Like, that's partly why I started doing these conversations with people where I do it for them because it's so easy. And it'll go a long way, that kind of romance. It goes such a long way. I hope we're gonna not so much convert but maybe some man who's out there listening right now will take 20, 30 minutes. And let me explain to you the bennies for you. For us gals, what happens is you get what you want. Trust me, this is a win, win, win, win, win all the way around. What you want is a woman who's soft. You want someone who's feminine. You want somebody who trusts you and depends on you and sees you as the hunky-chunky stud muffin you are. And believe me, if we're with you, that's what we feel. We see you as that. And you'll get nooky. I'm telling you, kind of just melts our heart like you become our hero in the biggest way. Romance goes so far. And sadly, most men, they have this trifecta which is flowers, candy, and a dinner out, which is cool, but, you know, lather rinsed repeat, it becomes null and void. And really, and I'll tell you, my boyfriend knows, you know, he can't get me candy. I can't eat sugar. And sadly, I'm allergic. So, you know, that's not big on my world. And yeah, it's like, what's different? How can you express from your heart? What does it mean for you day in and day out to be in this relationship? And since I can see even Scott Carson is listening, I'm gonna ask him to up the ante first. And then he's gonna check back in with Sherry and I and let us know. Yes, I'm calling you out, darling Scott. Yeah, I love what Scott said about it. It's always a good night when someone pees their pants. Oh, Scott. He gets it. He totally gets it. It's a damn fine night when we laugh that hard. So yeah, let's go there. Let's do that. And I bet Scott is actually a really romantic guy. That's my feeling, pretty sensitive. He is an awesome girlfriend. So there. So yes, we love you, Scott. And we love you men and we want you to love us too. We wanna have that like major reciprocal situation. So we're gonna take a very quick break, but I do wanna just reference the book again, because if you don't have your copy, I recommend it. Like I said, I have earmarked pages in here. I mean, it's, I know I'm gonna go back and do these. I know I'm gonna go back and I'm going to have the experience of some of these. And I wanna go through some of these with Sherry to give you a couple of examples. So during our quick break, what I want to tell you about is the fabulous class that's coming up that right now is at its best price it's gonna be till the class opens. So if you're interested in being interviewed and dear Lord, if you are in business, you must wanna be receiving exposure and visibility for yourself and your business, it's everything. I teach the ultimate visibility formula in 60 days or less, frankly in six weeks or less, you will be interviewed on podcasts, you will start getting results. So I teach you the entire system, what to send to the shows, where the shows are, how to get a yes, what to do when you're on the show. I don't just send you out to the shows called, you will be privately coached by me. Everybody in the class gets along, it's amazing who I attract to these classes. So if you're attracted, if you feel the call, you know that you're supposed to be there. Everybody gets along really well, tons of accountability. We've got our own private Facebook group where we interact and we share the interviews that people are on, that's really fun for us to listen to each other. And what happens on the backend? How do you develop those influential relationships and what to do to move your career forward to actually get those results, fill the workshops, sell the books, how to get clients, how to have your community find you. The ultimate visibility formula is at debbie.net slash visibility. There are payment plans right now, it's $1,000 off and I ain't kidding, just for a couple more weeks and then that's rolling back to the regular price. And then also when you register today, you receive a free media strategy session with me. So it's a $500 value, my gift to you. So there's tons of Benny's in this class and you get 17 pages of shows and contacts that are warm leads, they are real leads. And of course you submit yourself while you're in the class and get all that support. So you will have a media kit, you will have a pitch letter, you will have everything, so you're good to go. And you'll be saving $50,000 unless because you really won't need to hire a publicity agent. I will handle that for you and show you how or if you wanna bring your team and have them participate in the class, we have people do that as well. This class has been done several times and it's so successful and I love seeing my students fly and I ideally appreciate everybody who comes because it is your time to get your message out there, your business and really use PR, it's so simple. So thanks in advance for joining us there. So if you're coming back to Dare to Dream, this is the podcast, we are on 40 outlets. You can subscribe and also please leave us a five-star review, we love you for it and we do read everything that you send. So I am speaking with the amazing Sherri and then her website is simply celebrate.net. So Sherri, I wanna peek behind the curtains a bit. You're Sherri the queen of celebration, most awesome best-selling gifts from the heart. So how do you celebrate? How do you celebrate even deeper than this? What don't we know about you and how can you show up to celebrate you and the people you love? And I'd love to start with you, what do you do for you? I love that, thank you because that's so important, right? Sometimes we're so focused on celebrating other people that we forget to celebrate ourselves and I'll tell you what I love to do for myself and I'm gonna do it in a couple of weeks is there's a little cabin about an hour from here with no internet and no phone service, just a little one-room cabin and I take myself there every quarter and I take my favorite food and I take some inspirational books and I take music I love. Mostly I just reflect, I don't respond to anything in the outside world because I can't. And I allow myself to dream and to hear myself and I always take some sort of bubbly something so I love to have a little- You need to drink or to bathe in? To drink. We need both. Because one of the things that I do when I first get there, I do a meditation for an hour, an hour long meditation I do and then I toast and I toast to all of the things that I love in my life. And it's a real celebration, I really feel them. So anything that's happened in the last quarter I really try to reflect upon and I make a recording of it so that I have it for myself again to celebrate ongoing but it's such a special thing for me. It's what I do. And you come back wholly different from that experience? I do. I always tell people this and I encourage people all the time. 24 hours can make a huge difference. I feel like everything gets realigned because I'm aligned again with life. I'm listening to, am I living my life? Is this my life I'm living or am I being too influenced by others around me? Am I true to myself? Am I honest and aligned and full of integrity? Yeah, it totally changes me. And I don't think everybody knows you're actually one of Brendan Burchard's coaches. I'm on his team and I am trained by him to be a coach. Yes. Tell me, tell me more. I'm fascinated because I don't know this aspect of you but I know of this aspect of you. Well, and actually it's very much related to what I just said because they're called certified high performance coaches are the people and I'm trained as one and high performance in his language and in this language means living our best lives. This means relationships, our spirituality, our playfulness, our humor as well as our work of course but it's really about being fully engaged and finding the joy in all aspects of our lives. So it's very much aligned with who I am and also with my simply celebrate work and I'm actually using this coaching in, I wanna take people on these one-on-one retreats kind of like how I do for myself and it would incorporate this kind of coaching but also a lot of celebration and play and delight. And so that is I'm bringing all these worlds together. So I'm glad you asked that. Yeah, and I wanna know more. So I know this is super weird out there because like everybody's been to a Brendan Burchard workshop, I have never. So I'm a total virgin, non-knowing blank slate. What are some of the tenants that you guys teach that are really important to have a successful life in business? That's awesome. Well, there are two things that you'll hear all the time at Brendan events and I love them. One is bring the joy. So walk in a room and I'm responsible for bringing the joy. So when I walk into a room and I suspect you do this, even though you don't even know this tenant but I think you do this too. You walk in a room and instead of looking around and see what can I get, what can I give? How can I surprise somebody in this room? How can I delight somebody in this room? What could I do to really show up for someone? So that's the whole bring the joy is huge. How do we bring our enthusiasm? How do we bring energy even when we're exhausted? So a lot of the coaching is centered on that like finding these tools and practices to give ourselves the energy, give ourselves that positive attitude, even when it's hard. The other one is honor the struggle, which I also really love and honoring the struggle is not pretending that it's not difficult or challenging, acknowledging it and really looking for how do I honor this in myself? Again, to me it's directly connected to celebration because I believe we can celebrate things that other people don't really think. Like we can celebrate when we quote unquote fail. We can celebrate when we send off that book proposal and we get rejection after rejection because we can really honor what we're doing. We can honor our participation and our engagement and our showing up for our lives. So those are two that have really profoundly impacted me. That is very thought provoking. So honor the joy and bring the joy, be the one to lead that pack when you walk in a room it's incumbent on you, bring it. I love that, bring the light. And then also honor the struggle. I like that there's no denial that in life there are the ups and downs, there are the attempts, the fails, and you know, till we get there and that it's okay to just be with what is and even honor what is, but you're doing a twist there which is to even find the celebration in that that's still we're showing up. We're contributing, we're participating. We are doing something to try to move the needle. Yes. And you know, two things. One is it reminds me of your friend and her ritual, right? So we can get divorced and we can really, you know be alone by ourselves and cry. And that's one way to do it. We can also call in the people we love and create something that honors where we are. Not that it's, you know not that we're saying like, oh yay, good. But we're saying, you know, I'm here and how can I bring some joy to something that's really hard? And the other thing that I was thinking, I forgot already, which was, oh I know that for me it's really important that celebration is a process, not an outcome, and that we celebrate our process. So again, I want to go back to like, it's wonderful when we accomplish something and everybody celebrates else and we celebrate us. But I think it's really important to celebrate along the way. So I'm celebrating that, I came up with, you know, this isn't me but someone might say like, I'm celebrating that today I came up with a name for my podcast that I want to start in six months. You know, now I'm celebrating. Inquiring minds want to know. But you know what I mean? So to celebrate the steps and to not make it about the outcome because we don't have any control over the outcome. This is so beautiful. There is a quote from Jose Eduardo Aguilusa which is what life expects of us is that we celebrate. Oh, I've never heard that. Isn't that amazing? I'm thinking about, I coach book writing. I do many things out in the world. The ultimate visibility formula for the interviews. I've got a company that takes books to guaranteed bestseller. And then I've got the book coaching. And the reason why I'm reflecting on what you're saying it is a process, celebrate within the process. Writing a book is not easy. It's not easy. And I love my clients and I see them making huge strides in what they're doing. And I also with deep compassion and empathy understand what they're going through. The light's not quite on at the end of the tunnel. And I never considered what you're saying. And I think I'm gonna build this in which is that we find moments maybe every couple of months while we're working together that they celebrate. Oh. How might they celebrate? How could we set something up? Oh, I've done this for friends. And I've done it a lot. I love people writing books. I love authors. So for instance, one of the things I've done with friends is when they finish a chapter, you know, hey, let's go out to breakfast and toast with our coffee mugs. Doesn't have to be a big thing. It's the acknowledgement of it. We're having them read it to me. So maybe some of your authors they've just finished a manuscript and they're about to, you know or maybe they finished the book proposal. And so people read a little section out loud so they hear it. Oh yeah. And celebrate. We do that. It's huge. It's a game changer. So yeah. And things I've done with people too are, you know, to mock up the book cover if they don't have a book cover to just celebrate the idea of the book. But it's so, I think I'm glad you brought that example up because there's a tough road especially if we're trying, you know we're trying to sell a book. We all know that, you know and it can be so the more that we can stay connected to the message of our books and to have others stay connected and to celebrate the message of the book. And I have this thing called live in the dream. And so someone has a book that they want to publish and I encourage people to live as if you're that published author now. And that's the way to celebrate it. Get on our Facebook live and talk about the message in your book. I think it's a life. Live it. This is beautiful. I'm gonna definitely start to incorporate this so, so, so important. And so I wanna go through a couple of these cause now that just jazzed me up about the idea. I was even thinking, you know we do the reading cause that's actually part of the process. If you can't hear your book you don't ever know what you have and we don't always have to wait till the first draft is done. So yes, that's very powerful. It'll be fun to have some bubbly off to the side. So when our hour session is up it's like, let's toast, you know or something maybe, you know much like you with your poem. Maybe you have a poem to read to them to celebrate them. Beautiful. Yeah, cause that was really, really cool. I actually read that to one of my classes and gave you credit and I was like, where do you hear this? Oh. I think that's the way I always tell Ellen Bass about the poet. I tell her all the time how much I use that poem. I love it. Oh, that's so nice, you know her. Well, it's one of the things, you know I like to express gratitude. I think this is another way that we can celebrate. So I've actually gotten to know a number of poets because I love their work and I'll just write to them and say and I'll particularly say like, you know I love this poem, her this and this and this I read it to friends just so they know, you know cause you know, we don't always know when people are out there, you know sharing our message. So that's a wonderful celebration too to really offer to other people is to write and let them know when something has touched you. That's nice. That's lovely. I've actually, I'll just say as an aside I did that once with an author whose book was blowing my mind and I would, this is over 12 years ago on radio, I would talk about his book and I would also do videos. God, social media was so not prevalent back then but YouTube was and I would do YouTube videos about his book and just take sections of it and talk about it. The dude was in Australia. He was like, you know, a God to me because he was so brilliant and inspirational. I wouldn't know. I got a Twitter message from him that he was following my YouTube videos about his book and he actually became a friend. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, you know, however many miles from here we'd go off for lunch and he would go to my mastermind meetings with me and he came on when I was teaching a book writing group. I had him come on as one of the experts that I interviewed for my class and it's like, it's very true what you say. You don't know. I can even say being in radio and podcast with all honesty, my numbers are like this and the amount of people are like that who write to me. Now they do write because I don't want to belittle any of you who take the time because you do take the time to let me know how this show impacts you and I love you for it. I love when you reflect on the guests. That's meaningful. My point is I have huge listener numbers and a small amount who actually take the time to write. You have no idea how you can rock someone's world when you take a minute and you don't know the possibility of developing a relationship with an influencer. That's so true. We love to hear from you. There's actually a poet whose quote is on the front of that book and that's how I got to know her. I sent her a love letter for one of her poems. Wow, look at that, that is so cool. Poet and author of the Red Suitcase. Another beautiful poet, yes. Naomi Nye. Well, let's go through. We have just a little bit of time but I want to sort of bullet point a few gifts so they get the idea of the impact of this book. So I just highlighted a few. Make a love list joy jar with fairy lights. Couple hours, 10 bucks and you can create a love list to light up their life. Say a little bit about that. Yes, and I actually have a very short five minute video that I share with people that shows how to do it. It's so simple. So you just make the love list and you can have 10, 20 things. You can also invite other people. So sometimes I've made joy jars. Like if it were for you Debbie, I would get 10 of your closest friends to all contribute and we put all of them in the jar, cost like $5 for the jar, a couple of bucks for the lights and it's a wonderful gift because there's that sort of satisfaction of, oh my goodness, one more, one more. And you're saying that like on a tiny slip of paper, somebody would write, I love you because or what I love about you is. Exactly. That's exactly. I'm making pee in my pants. Yeah. You're right. Right, that's right. Okay, awesome. Joyful, this was great. Joyful, jury duty and other miserable musts. Oh my God, I love this. Yes. So this harkens back. I have a phrase that, you know, celebrating in the dark. You know, we've referred to this several times. So there are a lot of hard things in life. And when someone we know is going through something, sometimes it's hard to know what to do. And jury duty is just a tiny one, but we're also, I also mentioned like chemotherapy, for instance, how do we show up for someone and be by their side to make something, you know, maybe chemotherapy is not going to be fun, but jury duty, we can make fun, you know, we can make something just feel brighter for someone by planning, you know, some, first of all, by offering to be by their side, which is huge, but then we bring surprises, you know, and I talk about that in the book. And daydream vacation, someone who's obsessed with a place that's local or far away, but you don't have the time or the euros to take that person there right now. What about the daydream vacation? Yeah, I don't know if people can see, but that was a picture of a little piggy bank that my bow Ian made for me. He's wearing a gondoliers cap so that we could begin saving up for a trip to Italy. So maybe we couldn't afford Italy at the moment, but he made that piggy bank and put some money in as a way to start planning it. And the fun thing about that is that, you know, you find ways then to live it. We just recently came back from the Medetian in Las Vegas as another way to sort of cement like our trip to, you know, Italy. Oh, that's great. Yeah. You can find ways or, you know, you take someone to an Italian restaurant. I mean, you can find ways to start to live into that vacation and then you're even putting money in, you know, when you can, so that you are, it's a daydream vacation, but it actually becomes real. So this is Dare to Dream, Sherry. What are you next, Dare to Dream? What are your future dreams or goals? Oh, I love that. I have a special passion. I don't know if you know this, but on my birthday, I write letters to strangers, love letters to strangers. So people who follow me and simply celebrate will tell me about someone who is grieving or sick or lost or lonely, and I send them a love letter. And this has become a huge passion for me. And it is a way that I'm also pushing into how do we love more? How do we love in new ways? And so I really want to move into this world more of opening up into and inviting other people in to reaching out to strangers, reaching out to people who are, you know, in the dark as we've been talking about. And another poet that I just became friends with because I reached out to her were talking about collaborating on something. So that's where I'm going next, I think. Do you hear back from these people? Well, most of them are sent anonymously, which is what I love. Wow. Sometimes I will send them on behalf of someone. Like maybe you have a friend whose child died and you want me to write them a letter on your behalf. And then once in a while, I feel like I just heard back from an elderly gentleman, his wife had died this year and he was one of the people I sent a letter to. And I sent it on behalf of his daughter. She wanted it to come from her. And I got the card from him. I mean, you can only imagine, he just said that was the most beautiful letter I've ever received. I keep it in my pocket. I read it over and over. Yeah. So most of them I love that I just send out and I, you know, you just kind of like are like, I hope that it, I hope it brings light. You know, wherever there is your spiritual bank account, I know you have a million karma points gathering interest because what a thing to do on your own birthday. But I also understand that service really is its own reward. I mean, that we receive so much when we give at that level. That is it, right? I mean, that's the, if there's one message that I have, it's that, you know, when I went from being suicidal to living this life, the reason is because of that secret that when we give, we're the first recipient. There's no way around it. You know, there's no way around when we're loving, we're filled with love. Yeah. And it's everything to me. Yeah. What do you do then to keep yourself grounded? Do you have a daily practice or ritual that you perform? I do. Well, I meditate. I love meditation. As well, you may know this, but I have a recording and listening practice that I learned from my Zen teacher that we make recordings for ourselves. Like when I mentioned a celebration recording, it might also be like, hey honey, you know, good morning. And today you've got this thing going on. And I really want to tell you that, you know, I'm here with you and, you know, all you have to do is be present. And I'll make myself sort of coaching recordings. And they, they help me to stay connected to what's important. You, so you make a recording and do you play them back to yourself that day? Or is it a future recording for yourself? Both. So some of them I might make because I need them that day. Some of them I listened to over and over. Some I've had since 2010, you know, so I, and I'm still listening to them, but they just remind me, you know, for instance, one of them that I listen to all the time, just it reminds me that I'm going to die and everyone I love is going to die and that I want to show up as much as I can today because we just don't know. And that may sound morbid to some people, but to me it's the reminder you got today. You know, you woke up, what are you going to do? And so that fuels me. Wow, powerful, everything, my dear, besides reminding people that her website is simply celebrate.net. Sherry, what would you like to say here at the end? Oh, you know, I just want to remind people that it can be so simple to celebrate ourselves or to celebrate somebody else, like not to make it a big deal. Don't wait until it's perfect. Say something, send a letter, make a call, send a text with one thing you love about someone. It can take half a minute. That's what I would love to say. Yeah, that's what I'm happy to hear actually. This is fun. I feel like we're dancing at this end of this. Yeah, let's rock and roll. Sherry, what a great reminder for all of us I want to thank you so much for sharing your brilliance on the show but your light every day out into the world. And just being so unique and honestly at a time when this could not be more iconic to be this in the midst of a lot of people who actually need this level of light. Thank you so much. And right back at ya, right back at ya, the minute I saw you, you know, you just radiate joy and love just like you started the show, you know? I know that's what you practice. And it means something. It means something. So folks do get her book, please. Here we go, say it now. And I'm gonna be referring back to all my earmarked parts so that I can absolutely enact some of these because I just love this. And I actually miss having the time to do this and be this. And I think this is really important. So as much as I love receiving romance, I love giving too. I love rocking someone's world. And for Sherry, I want to end today's show with this quote from Oprah Winfrey, which is, the more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you, my love. And tune in next week on Dare to Dream. I'm gonna have a nine-year-old guest, my friend, Neva Rekla, she is an entrepreneur, a best-selling author and a speaker. She got her own business cards at the age of two. She's a rainbow child and she is beyond the fabulous. You're going to want to hear, trust me, the adults will learn a lot as well as children. Subscribe to this number one transformation conversation, Dare to Dream podcast. And remember, the secret of success is having the courage to begin in the first place. Thanks.