 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough. Welcome and thank you for joining Sister Power. Sister Power's vision is that women everywhere were learned to live as sisters, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge. This afternoon, our Sister Power VIP guest is the lovely Robin Sherrod. Robin is an ordained and licensed evangelist. She is a founder of Empower to Prosper. Empower to Prosper Purpose is to educate, empower, and inspire others to fulfill their destiny. This accomplished through coaching, facilitation, training, and inspirational motivational speaking. Empower to Prosper provides professional training and group coaching to corporate non-profit and faith-based entities. Clients have included Department of the Army and Navy, Army chaplain programs, and United States Veterans Initiative in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has recently launched the Think Pink Love Your Life campaign as it means to bring further awareness to the importance of breast cancer and women wellness screenings as well as being a survivor herself. Welcome, Robin. Well, thank you, Sharon. Thank you so much for having me on Sister Power. I am just thankful to be able to come and to share and to be on such a wonderful platform encouraging and empowering women. Thank you. Well, just tell us a little bit more about yourself. Well, I am retired military. I am retired Army of 22 years. I've been able to travel across the globe and to do many great and wonderful things. I'm also, as you mentioned, an ordained and licensed evangelist. And I am an empowerment coach. People ask me, what's the difference between an empowerment coach and a life coach? Life coaching is wonderful and they're great pioneers in the field of life coaching. But my calling, I feel, as an empowerment coach is to work with someone and to find out what they already have nested on the inside of them and to just give them some tools to be able to bring that out. And so that's what I do if I can give an example. Please do. Okay. An example, I was working with a young lady and we were discussing some things in a form. And I asked her, I said, well, do you have a card or do you have electronic means of providing me your information? And she said, well, no, I don't have a card. And I said, well, why not? And she said, because I'm currently working in this one position and I may be moving to another position. So I figured I shouldn't make any cards. I said, you missed my point. My point was not where you worked. I didn't want a card based on where you worked. I want a card based on what you do. Ooh. And then she stopped and she just looked at me and she said, can we talk further? I said, sure. So I met with her and I just began to explore with her the gifts and talents that already lie within her and to help her to be able to bring those gifts and talents forward. And not to make a card based on a company that you work for but make a card based on who you are as an individual. And so she felt very empowered just by that little interaction that we had together and it helped her to be able to move forward in what she really wanted to do but she was stuck at one particular point. So that's just one example of what I can do for my clients and for people that I meet in terms of empowerment coaching. Well, I'm glad you brought that out because I think we, I, overlooked to give our wonderful title of this episode, Attitude, Gratitude, is part of it. But again, tell us our title, Attitude of Gratitude, the power that lies within us. Yes, yes. That's our title for this episode. And what I'd like what you brought out that you were immediately empowering this woman and you were motivating her and educating on how she can move forward with her life. So that's your calling for right now. One of your callings. One of the callings, yes. Great. Well, we're eager to hear more about Think Pink, Love Your Life campaign. Please share a winner why you started this organization. Okay, I started it. It was based off of October of 2015. Things in my life changed drastically. I had went to a doctor's appointment and on my way out the door, the doctor spoke to me and she said, when was the last time you had a mammogram? And I said, oh, in July of this past year, this was October, in mind you of 2015. She said, well, let's just do another one. And I did not go into the office for that. But I said, well, it's not even six months yet. Do I need to have another mammogram? And she said, yes, let's just go ahead and have it completed. And so I did. And I found out that I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. I did not have a lump. I had no physical symptoms whatsoever. Based on the fact that I have very dense breast tissue, it was hiding itself. Triple negative. Triple negative breast cancer. Break that down to us. Well, triple negative breast cancer is where there is no targeted hormonal treatments for it. So you have to go through the whole gamut of chemotherapy. And so it kills, this particular type of chemo will of course kill off every cell in your body. So I experienced the hair loss. I experienced my nails turning extremely dark. Every area of my body where I had nail, my feet included turned dark. There was just many things that happened in the progress of time. And so I had to have, because of the aggressiveness of the illness, I had to have chemotherapy first. And then I had the operation. And because of the propensity for a return and a more aggressive return, then I elected to have a bilateral mastectomy. So I had that done and completed. And during that time period, when I was in the hospital doing my recovery is when think pink, love your life was brought to me in the hospital room at that particular time. And it's to raise awareness for women to take the time. We take so much time with other things in our lives. We take time for our children, our spouses, our work. And oftentimes we put ourselves on a back burner. So think pink is just raising awareness for women to make sure you get your wellness checks because the best protection oftentimes is early detection, which was in my case. If I had waited six months, my outcome would have been very different. So that's how think pink love your life came about. And look at you now, God is good. Yes, he is. Oh my goodness, what a story. And I'd love your title, Empower to Prosper. What is your mission statement? Well, my mission statement as you shared is to educate, to inspire and to encourage men and women to live life and fulfill their destiny and to enlarge their position in life. Not to see life as a box to be lived, go to work every day, do ABC and D, but you have gifts. Each one of us have wonderful gifts and talents that's nestled on the inside of us. And those gifts and talents are there so that we can share them with the world. And so that's what Empower to Prosper is about. And so we do it again in different forms, in different ways to bring about that awareness and to bring about that education. That's wonderful. One of the things, three words that my mother instilled to me at a very young age is appreciation, gratitude and attitude. Talk a little bit about the power of gratitude. The power of gratitude, Sharon, it began to really resonate with me. As I mentioned about the breast cancer diagnosis and then the surgery, I had to have a subsequent surgery after that. And the surgery was scheduled to be about eight hours in length. Had done all of the pre-checks, everything was thumbs up, excellent care of doctors and staff. However, the surgery had some major complications and I ended up being in the surgical procedure for 24 hours, for 24 hours. It went from eight hours. The physician told you eight hours. Eight hours. And it went to 24 hours the entire day. How many was on the staff, physicians? How many physicians were? In that particular, my understanding in the room, at that particular time I had about four, about four doctors that was there during the time of the surgery. And again, major complications that happened, microscopic surgery. And it took 24 hours for them to bring me out initially when I came out of the surgery. I was in the recovery room and they discovered that I had a blood clot. So they had to take me back in for an additional four hours of surgery. And that's when things went drastically wrong. I actually died on the table and they had to bring me back. My kidneys failed, my liver failed, everything. I was gone. And during that time period, I hadn't experienced with God. And people asked me the question, were you able to see your body looking from above? And I said, no, I was so far. It was so many more dimensions above that that I experienced for myself. And a few things very quickly of what I learned through that experience. I said, sometimes we get so caught up in making sure we cross every T and dot every I. But during my experience, what was shared with me, with my time away, with the Lord, that he really looks at a few things. One of them is our love. How do we love? First of all, how do we love him? And then how do we love our brother and our sister? And how do we love mankind? Secondly was our stewardship. What are we doing with the resources that he has given us? How are we honoring him in that? And then our gifts and our talents. You know, the gifts that he has given unto us. Because he said, you know, I extend it, but I gave gifts unto man, I gave gifts unto woman. And what are we doing with those gifts? What are we doing with those talents? And like the gift that you have, the gift to bring women together, the gift to empower women, to have this platform. It's just wonderful. And so those were the things during my transition. I could hear, I could see, I could feel, but I did not have a bodily form. So I could see my son, what their life would be like without me. I could see people that I loved doing this transition time. And I was so ready to go. I was so ready to say, okay, it was so peaceful at a point. I was like, I'm so ready to leave here and go on to the other side. And an angelic being came and said, no, you must go back. Because if you go through those doors, you're going to see God's glory. And no man has seen my glory and lived to tell about it. So you must go back and you must share your experience. Now there are going to be some that's going to believe you. There's going to be some that's going to doubt. There's going to be some that are not going to believe. But that's not for your concern. Your concern is to go and to spread the message and to let others know that there is life after this life. So let's live as such. You know, and I am so touched. I want Ray to bring up a clip about suggestions for increasing gratitude in your life. And go through this with us. This is such an amazing story that you're sharing with us. Sure, sure, sure. So when we look at having an attitude of gratitude, there's a quote that I really, has really resonated with me. And it's called, the quote is gratitude is vitamin for the soul. This is by Immanuel Dagger. And it resonates with me because when we look at, of course vitamin, our bodies and our makeup, you know, vitamins are essential nutrients that we have within our bodies. And how gratitude is an essential nutrient for the soul. But it's fueled by our attitude. It is fueled by our attitude. And so sometimes like with our bodies, we have to have supplements. We get a vitamin supplement that we take to enhance what's already there. So that's what gratitude is. Gratitude is already inside of us. But sometimes it just needs to be enhanced. It needs to be brought forward. Regardless of the situation that you find yourself in, am I saying that we ignore those bad situations and bad circumstances that we have? Absolutely not, absolutely not. But gratitude gives us the strength to be able to cope with it. Just another example, when I was in the hospital, 24 hour surgery, when I was in a coma for 12 days, when I came out of the coma, I was only able to move my eyes and my index finger. I was totally paralyzed. I was totally paralyzed. Those were, I could not swallow on my own. I could not speak. My short-term memory had been affected. And of course I could not move. And during those times when rehabilitation therapy would come in, occupational therapy, they would come in and try to work with me, I found myself that when I was not at my best, I didn't have a good day. Although they were working with me, they would lift my arms, they would do things, but my mind was like, it's just the way my life is going to be. It's just my new normal that I will be paralyzed or I won't have my capacity to think anymore. And then when I shifted my focus to being grateful for the fact that I could breathe, the fact that I could see, the fact that I could move my little pinky finger, when I began to think about the positive and those great things that, you know, just through that, then I began to tell my finger, my second finger, I want you to move, you will move, you will move. I visualized myself walking. I visualized myself talking. I visualized not being fed because my mother was there and she had to feed me. And my friend was also there, a very good friend of mine and she also had to feed me as well. So I visualized myself holding my spoon and holding my fork and as I began to do that and press through, I began to start feeling emotions, you know, in my body. It took months for me to get back to full capacity and I still have on my left side, I still have an area on my body that I have no feeling. This is an amazing story and if people don't believe in miracles, stay tuned. We're gonna take a short break and we're gonna come back to this wonderful story of gratitude, thank you, my clinic. This is Think Tech Hawaii, Raising Public Awareness. I had no clue. Greetings, I'm Stephen Phillip Katz, the long time host of Shrinkwrap Hawaii. Think Tech is important to me because without Think Tech I never would have had a chance to realize my dream of having a show of talking with other therapists, finding out what they're doing and sharing it with the world at large. Now, for the first time ever, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign to raise $40,000. Give thanks to Think Tech. We'll run only during the month of November and you can help. Please donate what you can so that Think Tech Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like mine. I've already made my donation and I look forward to yours. Please send in your tax-deductible contribution by going to this website www.thanksforthinktech.causevox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Think Tech Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, thank you for your generosity. Welcome back to Sister Par with our VIP guest, Robin Sherard. And tell us again, you've had, you have such an amazing story to share in the title of our episode. It's attitude of gratitude, the power that lies within. You know, again, people ask me, they say, how was it, how is it that you were able to maintain your strength through everything, through all the adversity and the trials and the tribulations? And I share with them, first of all, it's my faith in God. It is my faith in God for knowing that He is a very present help in the time of trouble. And then also my attitude, of which He has given to each and every one of us, and it depends upon us as to what we do with that. But when I start to see the positive changes with my attitude in terms of my healing and my recovery, because I was still paralyzed, I still couldn't move, but I was able to shift my attitude. So I still had power. And so, you know, for whoever that's going through something right now, and you may seem like and it may feel like that your world is just falling apart, you have no control over anything, you do have control. You have control of how you handle what is being tossed or what is being thrown or what is being put before you. You do have that power and having that attitude of gratitude, which is that power to last within. You're getting us ready for 2018. You know, I think these are wonderful tools that you're sharing with us. And part of what coaches do is ask questions that expand, deepen, reveal and shift. Give us some examples that would jumpstart our life for 2018. Okay, great. Thank you for asking that question, Sharon, you know, in November, of course, many celebrated as the month of Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving is not about a day. It's about a lifestyle. It's about a health style because when we change the way we think, how we think, we change it to something more positive. Then again, it has physical effects upon us. Our immune systems, it is more generated. We have more stamina and endurance. But to continue to answer your question in terms of attitude and gratitude and some practical applications, one of the things that I would like to share is to having a gratitude journal. A gratitude journal is, does not necessarily have to be something that's hard copy, but for those that would like to have something hard copy, you can for those that are very tech savvy if you want to have this journal on your phone, you can. There are different apps and downloads that you can do, but one of the exercises is called Hunt for the Good Stuff. And this is through Martin Seligman, who is the father, if you will, of positive psychology. And I was trained in this area of resiliency. And one of the modules and one of the teachings is referring to Hunt for the Good Stuff. So Hunt for the Good Stuff is when you actually stop and take a moment and think about your day and jot down three things that happened that was positive for your day. Whether it's I woke up this morning or I had my favorite cup of coffee, my coffee was good this morning or that nice little muffin or you know, bagel or whatever was great today. All the way to I had a wonderful brief and I did great, you know, I got five stars on it, whatever that may be, there's no limits. So take the limits off of it and just write down three things. Every day if you can and reflect upon that and then go back and take a look at it. And if you get those down points and down times in your life, which we do sometimes, sometimes we have the mountain high experiences and sometimes we have those little valley low experiences. So having that gratitude journal and taking that out and pulling it and then looking at it, what counter the negativity bias. Negativity bias is that the first place we often go to is the negative. And when we hunt for the good stuff, when we journal, when we write those things down then we're building that optimism. We're building, we're seeing the glasses have full, we're seeing the glasses have full instead of it being, you know, empty. Sure. Well, you've answered my next question. People may ask why is gratitude so important? And so we'll move on to the next phase and it's all about showing up. I hear that right often. It's all about showing up. That's when the magic happens. The power is in the asking. How do you train and counsel people to ask for what they want? You know, that's, you would think that it would be easy for people to really ask for what they want. But they do, they find it hard to do. So one of the two- Especially women. Exactly, especially women. Especially women. Now we don't have a problem telling our children, you know, what to do. You know, go do this, go do that or whatever. But when it comes to term and being assertive, you know, sometimes in that regard. But when it comes down to asking for what we want. So I asked the question. I said, do you feel that you're worth it? Are you worth it? Are you worth it? So it's about knowing your self-worth. It's about knowing your self-worth. But also I find sometimes that some of my clients and people that I interact with, they don't see themselves as being worthy. So how to start there? How to start with them saying positive affirmations about themselves and what they desire and what they want. And then I have them to speak it forth. Okay, and I have them to look at themselves in the mirror and I have them to speak it forth. And then I also, I have them ask them about their faith-based. If they're faith-based, then I want them to pray about it. I want them to ask God to give them the strength and the wisdom to be able to ask and not look at it as anything being selfish. But look at it as that, you know, this is, I'm worth this. I'm important. But this, definitely, this sister power is gonna need a part two and a part three. And we're just almost out of time. But Robin, I read you are currently pursuing your doctorate degree and pastoral community counseling with Argosy University. Yeah. Citizens in Parang, Hawaii will like to donate a scholarship to Argosy University in the amount of $5,000. Oh my goodness, thank you. Absolutely, this is for you. Thank you. I wish it was more. Thank you, Bill. So very welcome and thank you so much for coming in and empowering us. And I wanna thank the audience for your time and spending part of your time with us. Oceans of Aloha, peace and love.