Kitchen Confessions - The Start of Something Good
Stories make the world go around - and do I have stories for you!
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.” ~Brandon Sanderson
I started my entrepreneurial career as a photographer.
I worked at a bank out of college, then moved into government accounting and auditing. Oh, the red tape! I grew bored and agitated quickly - I wasn’t cut out for a life “inside” the machine.
My husband loved being behind the camera, and was quite good at it. He “bumped” into a well-known wedding and photography photographer at a meeting, and the rest, as they say, is history. We jumped on that bandwagon, and studied under the best in the business.
And we excelled! We specialized in engagement portraits and weddings, and were willing to travel anywhere a client wanted us to go. We excelled because we quickly discovered we weren’t photographers; we were storytellers.
Instead of handing clients a book of proofs and letting them pick which images they wanted, we crafted “storybooks” from the 2,000-3,000 images we took. Two, three, four-volume sets, carefully pieced together to tell the story of a bride and groom’s day.
We zoomed to the top of the industry. I started speaking. I wrote books. I crafted one of the first “photo business infoproducts” and started a whole new division of our business.
A lot has happened over the past three decades. We've morphed and changed. We’ve started and sold many businesses.
Looking back now, I’ve gained a ton of skills through all of our twists and turns. But the one skill that tops that list might surprise you. I believe it’s being a storyteller.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” ~Joan Didion
We all have stories we sell ourselves
When you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you’re always accumulating ideas. And I will tell you, wedding photography is HARD.
People sell it as an easy way to make a few bucks, but it’s really one of the most challenging jobs you can take. You’re dealing with a bride and groom in a very emotional state. They wear black and white - opposite ends of the light spectrum, which makes it difficult to photograph. You have to be a therapist and a counselor, dealing with all the family and friends in attendance. You’re the scheduler to keep the entire event on track.
It’s thrilling and exhilarating, too. We would have guests come up to us, telling us how great the photographs were. Mind you, they hadn’t seen one. But it was the show - the story we were crafting as we moved through the day. We were storytellers. We were a big part of the “magic” being created, and we knew how to do it well.
Stories.
You learn everything through stories. We all tell them. We all believe them. They influence every aspect of our lives.
“You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.” ~Margaret Atwood
Stories from every angle
The thing about life is you’re influenced in so many ways. I like to think of it as a puzzle. The average person lives around 82 years. That’s about 30,000 days. Or 30,000 puzzle pieces carefully fitted together to create YOU.
No two puzzles will ever be alike. Because every day, everything you learn, impacts how that puzzle comes together.
When my father died at the age of 54, it was an “explosion” in my life. It sent me on a whirlwind, trying to piece together why a 54-year-old man could suddenly die of a massive heart attack.
For three decades, it’s been my “hobby.”
A few years after I lost my dad, my daughter declared she was vegetarian … at the age of three. She stated she would never again eat meat. I laughed; figured it was a phase.
She wasn’t joking.
When I finally listened and believed, it sent me down another rabbit hole that, combined with what I was learning from my father, pushed me even more into understanding how good food and great health come together.
That’s how I’ve pieced together my current plant-based lifestyle. I’m here after three decades of learning. Three decades of research. Three decades of exploring how good food and great health work.
And I guess, somewhere along this path, the storyteller came back out. Because I discovered SO MANY stories that prevent us from being better at navigating good food and great health.
SO MANY stories!
“Stories are memory aids, instruction manuals and moral compasses.” ~Aleks Krotoski
Adding in another chapter
Last year, another piece of the puzzle came together.
See, three decades ago, just two years after losing my dad, my mom had a massive stroke. It didn’t kill her. It weakened her. She lived with chronic health conditions for three decades.
Through A LOT of caregiving last year, we lost her at Thanksgiving. A lot of sitting in hospitals and navigating doctors’ appointments. A lot of decisions. A lot of waiting.
It motivated me. I received a nutritional coaching certificate in December. I started Substack last year. To take my belief in Good Food and Great Health to another level.
Somewhere along the way, the storyteller in me kicked in once again. Because we all tell stories. We believe them. They influence our lives.
So I thought: What if I started talking about the stories we tell? And how they influence our choices around Good Food and Great Health? What it truly takes to change the stories inside, so that we can move closer to Gorgeous Wellth?
(If you’re new here, I believe Good Food + Great Health = Gorgeous Wellth.)
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This is something we all deserve, yet we’re sold so many stories from so many outside sources.
So let's talk about them.
I’ve started a new series. On YouTube. I call it Kitchen Confessions. I hope you’ll watch.
And if you have any “kitchen confessions,” be sure to leave them in the comments. I’m planning a whole series of Kitchen Confessions in the coming months. If you give me your stories, I may touch on yours soon.
