Hidden In Plain View, Lessons Learned with Eileen McDargh pt 1

Has anyone ever inspired you to create a more fulfilling and successful life for yourself? As a leader in your business and in your community, what are the questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis? What are the questions that keep you up at night? I am your host, Betty Collins. I am a CPA. I'm a business owner, and I partner with other women, other business owners who want to have remarkable results for themselves and for their business and their community. And I am here to help inspire you to take positive steps forward for a better life. So over the next 12 episodes and kind of this season, we're going to focus on lessons learned. We're going to you navigate maybe similar situations that you're in. And you don't have to go through what they've gone through. And I hope to challenge you that you have lessons learned in your journey that other women need to hear.

Never underestimate that part of your life and that story because it will have impact. In my opinion, we're obligated to share those life lessons. In my opinion, we have a responsibility to each other, woman to woman or Women to men. But I really believe what we've learned in our lessons over our journey are impactful, and they need to be part of how you give back and how you help others. So today I have an interesting guest and and she is awesome. I met her. She was highly recommended as a speaker for a conference. And Brady Ware has a women's initiative as most of you know, and we have an annual conference every year.

And Eileen McDargh was our keynote speaker last year, knocked it out of the park. People just loved her. And she has such a great story, and she has such insight, and she's written books. I'm gonna let her do her own bio because you you always tell your own story better. I don't wanna read that. But, she just has a great, great, has had just a great career, wonderful with inspiring women and people around her and organizations. So we're gonna talk with her today. One of the books that got, me really just loved was Gifts From The Mountain.

And she'll explain a little bit about this book, but it was just a cool end of the the art in this book is so inspiring as well. But gifts from the mountain has a great story behind it. I'll let her tell it. And then she also has this book called Your Resiliency GPS. Just great books, great reads with a lot of insight in them. So So I think you're gonna enjoy what she has to say. And this year, as I came into 2024, I came in a little, what's the Ware, maybe bruised in Ware. I had decided for some reason, I just want my world to be different, to run for public office in Gahanna, Ohio.

And it was a cool experience, actually. It was really as much as I hated losing, well, oh, I came in last, but okay. It was it was a great experience, and what I realized from that is I needed to embrace the loss. I needed to learn from the loss. It wasn't about whether I got to the seed or not, but the journey of of trying to get to the seed taught me a lot of things. And so then I said, hey. We're gonna do things on lessons learned this year. And what's great is so many people learn lessons, and they kinda keep it close to the chest.

I don't wanna do that. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you will have an easier time that other people will go, oh, if she can do this and get through it, I certainly can. And what she has to say may be help me. Right? Not it's not even about an election, but it's about the times we try things and go out there and put ourselves out there, and we might fall. We might trip. Okay. And if we help others along the way with those lessons learned, we're we're a better world. We're a better place.

And so that kinda got me started with, man, who could talk about the lessons that they've learned? Because as women to women, we need to share those. Not because you don't need to learn a lesson. Trust me. I needed to learn this lesson running for an election. I needed to learn that you embrace loss and you Betty back and you don't just say yes or no quickly the next time. And so it for me, it has just been that. And, you know, Eileen came and spoke at, the Brady Ware Women Conference. Very rarely do I have a speaker show up at 7 o'clock, help with the the with the venue, talk with every vendor, interact the whole day, and, by the way, paid for a guest to come and be at the conference.

That was her, and but then it didn't end. We still kinda texted and and, you know, we had such a great connection. And then she's decided to send me these books and the best lemon cake I've ever had. It was $20 of shipping cost because and it was like she had pulled it out of the oven, put it in there, and told the guys, get this over to Ohio. It was fabulous. So we so you're gonna enjoy her today, and she's had some really cool lessons that she's learned, especially when we talk about gifts from the mountain. Betty I'm not gonna I'm not gonna steal your thunder. So, Eileen, with that, tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm from Ohio. You're from California. We're just empowering women though with with 2 completely different backgrounds. But talk a little bit about you for a minute.

Okay. Well, first off, I was born in Denver, Colorado.

Okay.

And spent most of my growing up until I was almost 30, 29 in on the East Coast, Georgia, and then Florida, most of the time in Florida. Graduated from the University of Florida. I taught school at the Florida Georgia border, and it was quite an experience, a very rural rural community, and then Ware director of marketing for Amelia Island Plantation there off the coast and got divorced. Surprise. Surprise. And, and when your soon to be ex husband is the district attorney for the county, you don't stay. You go. You don't stay on an island either, and bless her heart, my sister opened up her 1 bedroom apartment with a husband, German shepherd, and a cat, and you can come and live with us, which I did.

Drove from Florida all the way out to California, slept on their sofa, said I'll cook and I'll clean in exchange for this, and that that was how I got to California.

Okay.

And then, you know, it's interesting how life has this pattern. There was a man who came into Amelia Island Plantation the last year and a half that I was there, as an interim general manager to work this property out of a chapter 11 bankruptcy, and, lo and behold he lives in Orange County, California, and we connected, And let me put it this way, we will be married 44 years on May 18th.

Love it, love it.

We have celebrated our month arrears. May 18th, by the way, 1980 was when Mount Saint Helens erupted. We didn't want to do it. We're not a Tar He's into it. But we have we have celebrated every 18th of a month for now almost 44 years.

That's wonderful.

By the way, for all of us, if you wanna do something, celebrate monthly. And what it does, particularly in a relationship and in marriage, it says, you can stay. You have one more month. Stay one more Women. You know, initially initially, Betty, it was, you know, go out to dinner, you know, have a nice cup, Ware, whatever. Now it's who can remember? It's the 18th of the Women, and it says first, happy anniversary. And he go, so now we try to beat each other just by saying it. Anyway, bottom line is that once once I got out to California, I worked for a national health care company for 1 year and then a PR firm handling primarily their multinational accounts and got to the place where if I wrote another press release I was gonna throw up.

So that was it and so I started out on my own, you know, in the area of communications, which is what I which is what I know. And the speaking that you you refer to, and I thank you very much, I was asked to, did a couple courses for our local Collins, and one of the, one of the program directors from a hotel out in Palm Desert contacted me and said would you come and speak to it Ware the Steel Service Center Institute out of Cleveland, Ohio.

Okay.

And they were bringing their executives into the desert. And would you come and speak on this topic? And I said, oh, why, Ware. And then they said, what will you charge? Charge I mean, when you work for a little college, you don't make anything. We had just gotten married. We had you know, I adopted just 3 kids. I'm going, oh, I got so I said, $750. And she said, I'll I'll I'll get back

to you. That. Yeah. No.

She said, I was like, whoop. She called, you know, 2 days later and said, you're on. And I knew that I needed to speak to the executive director of Steel Service Center Institute. Called the guy, and, I needed some background information. And then he said, we'll mail you a check for $1500. What? 7 7.50. What do you mean 750? Oh, no. No.

No. Deposit. Deposit. Called the meeting planner in the desert and said, what's going on? Eileen, we always mark up outside vendors. A 100%. So I learned 2 lessons there, Betty. Number 1, no one would ever say what I am worth other than me. Or 2, they were willing to pay $1500.

And, the rest is they'd say, yes, history, they they brought me back a couple of times. They gave my name to the Cochran Brass Institute, the blah blah blah whatever. And so I've been doing this for a heck of a long time, keynoting, team facilitation, coaching. So that's that's what's kept me out of trouble and fed the family.

Yeah. Well, I can tell you when you were at the Brady word conference, she started out with some some high energy music, high energy, but I will tell you when she told her story, there was not a dry eye in the place. So I would encourage you if you're looking for a great keynote, you're looking for someone to come in and motivate the troops. This is it. This is it. So how I got, as Eileen and I have stayed in contact since that conference, and I talked to a little bit about, you know, the election and winning and losing and lessons learned. She had sent to me this book, Gifts from the Mountain. And before we get into our theme a little bit more, because I I'm calling it lessons learned.

She's got a better a better title. Talk a little bit about, gifts from the mountain, how that came about.

Well, first off, I I love when you talked about the fact that you lost that election and how you came into 2024 bruised. And you also said, so what have I learned in this? So you could sit in this great big funk and stay there. You know, woe was made for us, or do something about it. And so this skish in the mountain, when I married Bill, little did I know I had an outdoor guy as a husband, and, the family started backpacking. And this was one backpacking trek where instead of having our oldest daughter, who is strong, strong, you know, she and Bill would carry the heavy stuff, and I had my little backpack with whatever would go, and we'd go out, by the way, for 2 weeks at a time up into the Sierras. And Bill is the kind of guy that if the John Muir Trail went left, he he thinks we should go right. So we're pushwack them. On this one track, it was horrible.

Holly wasn't there. It was just Bill and me. We lost the trail. We are scrambling over rocks. We are in snow fields, and I had two thoughts. Either I'm gonna kill them Mhmm. Or or I have to discover what are the lessons that I can learn from this. And along the way I would see things, and I had a little notepad, and I would write down, Oh, there's a lesson here.

Oh, there's a lesson here. And that's where that book came from.

Right. I loved it. I read it, and I've read it several times because it's so easy to read, but it's very insightful. And those lessons you're talking about are they were gifts from being on that mountain. When you decided to go rogue, get go off the path and have an adventure, which is the first lesson learned. But, it was just really we talked a lot about that, and then you sent me the resiliency book as well. But you really, came up with a title that I love when we started talking about what could we do with Eileen. And by the way, the lucky thing for the audience is we're gonna do this in 2 part because there's a lot there to talk about.

But you said to me, what about hidden in plain view? And, man, I just I wrote that on my desk. I have it on the sticky because it's like, what am I not seeing? Right. And you talk about, you know, because I even said this with my with my lessons learned from the election. Hindsight is really easy. I can go back and dissect it all. Right? But the trick is how you turn hindsight in into Inspiring an award winning author. Check her out. We'll talk where you can find her when we get done with this session.

But, so let's go with some things. So why would we even look at our mistakes? You know, because that can be very defeating. So talk a little bit about why we look at the lessons, why we look at, you know, the gifts from the mountain.

Well, first off, let's let's, reframe that word mistake.

Okay.

And now, by the way, when I talk out loud to you, Betty, I'm talking out loud to myself. And sometimes I'm good at this, and sometimes I stink. Okay. Eileen, read your book. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Again. Read it again.

When we say mistakes is that should never have happened, and so what I Ware I when I screw up, which I do, Ware times than I'd like to think, I, I had to go back and say, So what did I what did I where what was my lesson? So instead of calling it a mistake, say, where is my teacher? How is this my teacher? And so there's a lot of teachers, and they Ware not necessarily 2 legged, you know, that that we can that we can learn from. And, so I think first it's reframing. Reframing what we say things. And also sometimes it's, it's possible that what we what we where we think we screwed up, it puts us in a different place than we ever thought we'd be. And that in of itself is, that in of itself is a lesson. So now right now, I'm going to clear something because so here's a lesson learned.

Okay.

I don't know if you heard that little ding if it

got cut.

So I apologize.

No worries.

Betty me just tell our listeners if in fact we keep that little ding is that there was a possibility that I would have another call. I did not silence it. My lesson, my teacher, is that when I get on these calls, I silence my phone. I no longer have Bluetooth going into my ears. I thought I was cool, but I forgot about those things. So that was a lesson. Mhmm. When we do this for part 2, I'll make sure we don't have those those calendar dings on.

No worries. No worries. We we get rid of those dings, but we'll leave that in. So but, you know, you talk about, the power of reframing. You know? Talk about that a little bit to the audience and that it's a growth skill.

It it is a growth skill, and sometimes Ware better at this than others. So if you think beyond reframing, and that's actually what I did with Gifts From The Mountain, because I could have kept saying, This is horrible, terrible. Betty I hope we get out of this alive, which actually was one of the thoughts that I had.

You probably said that.

I probably probably did. I mean, obviously, I'm sitting here right now, so we got out of it alive. But the reframing is if you think if you hold up a picture actually have a picture that I sometimes use if it's a if we were doing this live with a video, and on one side, it looks like it's a horse. You turn it another way, and it becomes a frog. Same picture, but when you turn it another Ware, you see the frog. Ware, what reframing does is to say, oh, what if I looked at this a different way? Sometimes, in fact, if you become a third party, in other words, you would say to yourself, Betty. So, Betty, what are you saying here, Betty? It's like there's another person outside of you. So I would say, Eileen, what what lesson was that? How could you look at that differently? And it's, it's it it was fascinating.

This this Christmas, we had a COVID Christmas. I had my my family down. My daughter and her her family came down from Oregon. They come every every other year. Everybody had COVID. Bill and I didn't. They ended up being quarantined in my other daughter's house. I never saw them.

I just finally finished. I had food for 11 people for 4 days that we finally finished eating because we couldn't come together. So the reframing and I actually wrote about this. I said, here's the way to reframe it. They said terrible, horrible, yes, and we really wanted to be with each other. Mhmm. How many families do you know Ware they don't wanna be with each other? They have to put up with, oh my god. I have to see my sister.

I hate my sister. Blah blah. So the reframing was what this underscores is our tremendous disappointment because we really love each other, and we really want to be with each other.

Right. That's awesome. What a great way to to talk. I mean, to I mean, I like the whole reframe this. Right? Because in your in your mind, you saw now your family totally different. Like, you couldn't be with them. You but you really wanted to be with them. And that was the insight.

You know? That, man, I have the family to be with. I know my family is 45. Actually, we're getting ready to have 46 when we get together, and, it's the year of COVID. We chose to do a slideshow PowerPoint and then talk about the good old days, you know, and we just made the best of it. And the last slide was my dad who loved Christmas, and it was very emotional. We we just sat and Ware, he's the reason we're even on this call right now. 45 of us. Right? So reframing, I mean, what a great way.

And and to the audience, I mean, it is a growth skill. You will grow through that. And, yes, now you got you had enough food for for January Ware. Right?

But that's that's the other side. Right? But So so the nephew that came down from Tahoe had sent in advance a honey baked ham. And I already had a honey baked ham. Okay. It's still in the freezer, Betty.

Well, when I come to California, we can have the honey baked ham out.

Yes, you can. Well, actually, you have to come before Easter, because I've decided now we're going to have East if I could say Eastmas. It's Easter and Christmas together.

There you go.

And I can't get, I can't get my family up in Oregon, but I can get the ones that are down in Solana Beach. I'll get my sister to come down with her husband and pick the dog. You know? So we're gonna have Christmas dinner at Easter.

Yes. And we're

going She gets to make cheese grits, because that's our Christmas tradition.

And you've reframed it beautifully. So all good. But let's talk about something that really you know, we don't wanna say mistakes because I kinda like that. But there was a there was definitely some things in your life that you're you're gonna share with us that actually is very personal, but you're gonna share those with us and you you reframe them. And one was divorce and recovery and the other was job loss and talent found. Let's talk about those things so that we can bring it so people can really hear as you've written books and you've done these things and you teach on this, but it's been real for you in your life.

Mhmm.

And divorce is never easy, but recovery is awesome. So

Well, first off, when you're the gentleman that you're divorcing is a prominent citizen within an Ware, he since he since passed away, It is a it's a hard decision, and I can remember I I would I go would go to this one priest for counseling because I was raised Catholic and divorce is not something that a Catholic do easily or at all. And he recommended it was it it's an association for divorced and separated Catholics, and he recommended a book to me, and the title was Choose Life. And it's from a biblical saying that says choose life that you might live. And I realized that by staying in a relationship that was not working, that was not right, that for many reasons, which I I choose not to go into, but that I needed to choose life so that I might live. And that that alone, that reframing, I know when I got in my car and I drove west, it was as if this tremendous weight with each mile was getting lighter and lighter. So that when I came with no job, you know, but I did have a sister, you know, and I had a place to live. I was choosing life so that I might live, and it whatever whatever opens up is what opens up. So that was, that was one of the hard things.

But that's how I got through that. Choose life that you might.

And you basically reframe. That's what you're talking about.

Yeah. You know?

I I've been through the same thing, and I kinda chose the same thing. If there's no joy, what's the point? You know?

Ware it ego? Yep. Is it ego? So What Interesting. I I I wanna underscore the word that you use, joy. Happy is transitory. Joy is internal. And even in the midst of what looks like unhappiness, because happiness can be fleeting, Ware is the resident thing that gives you joy? And, you know, Betty talking to you gives me joy. Being with the women from Brady Ware, oh my god, it gave me joy. I I had my that was my high school friend and college roommate that I brought in to the conference.

And I went back to Cincinnati with her and spent 2 days. Well, my flights were all canceled, and I needed to get home. But reframing it said, you know what? What gives me great joy is being with Carol. And I'll walk her dog, and I'll listen to the birds, and I'll look at all those trees because it was June and they were in green, green, which we don't have in Southern California. And it was that that, Ware was an unhappiness that I couldn't go back to my where I came from, but there was such joy in being with her in that place at that time.

You know, we've talked about Women of the some of the things about your divorce where he would talk to you in certain ways or he would, you know, treat you in certain manners. And it was that was kind of that hidden in plain view thing. You saw it later, and it was always there. I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit more about that or you've gotten personal enough. I'm good. But it was it was a relationship where it was it Ware hidden in plain view, all the things of all the red flags, you know, all the things. And then, obviously, you were able to go and apply your gift from the mountains book before you wrote it and say, these are the gifts that I got. The you know, just even the peaceful drive from Florida to to California and the release of all that, that's pretty substantial.

You know, it is. And and, look, my mom my mom is the one that saw things and oh, mom, I start. She said, Why does he never call you Eileen? Why does he always call you baby? And I thought, Oh, isn't that sweet? She said, you have a name. Yeah. It's kind of like I I have a Collins, and he never calls his Ware. He always says my wife. My wife. He never gives her a name.

He never says Maria. He never says Maria. But for me, it was Brady. So I was like this China doll to dress up like a little baby doll, and this Brady, and he would introduce me to people as baby. Our friends called me baby, and I accepted it because, oh, isn't that sweet? Instead of, that's pretty dysfunctional. So

But it was hidden in plain view. Right?

That's that's, you know, that's really that's that's exactly it. I had I had beautiful clothes. I had jewelry. I had things that you would put on a doll baby. But the love, the deep acceptance of me as a human being with value other than something to be dressed up, that was not in his capacity to do. A good man, but not a man for me.

Well, sometimes as we are going through these lessons learned and you're trying to you're in scenarios that aren't working Ware. And sometimes, unfortunately, it is hidden in plain view and you just there's a time and season you will see it. Right? But then when you see it, man, you've gotta reframe it. It's you gotta look at it as a gift, and you've gotta go on. Is that a good summary of all that?

You know, I think it is. And here's the other deal. Had I not been on that island, Amelia Island, It's 3 miles wide and 12 miles long. That's all it is. And this man that came in to to work the the property out of this Chapter 11 bankruptcy is the man that now I've been married to for 44 years, had The most credible human being I mean, just if I could clone him, Betty, I'd never work a day in my life. I could sell him for a lot of money. But so so what at face value looked, oh, this was bad. Thank you.

Thank you that I was there. Thank and that gave me Bill.

Right. Well, let's talk about the other thing that's fun, job loss, but talent found. Let's talk about that. Lessons learned, gifts from the mountains. Now we're gonna go from job loss to, hey, we found some talent that you, you know.

Well, that's really well, actually, I when I left those two jobs and by the way, the lessons learned, I and I worked for I worked for women both times. 1 was the vice president, and the other one, it was her own company. And I learned how not to lead. It was it was the first one was incredibly dysfunctional. And when I finally walked away I thought wow Betty did I learn something there because you don't necessarily learn from people doing things well you learn from people doing things wrong. And a second one, it was all about how much money can this organization bring in. Doesn't matter if the client is a match or not. We'll take their money.

Mhmm.

I could never do that. And so when I left, and here Bill and I are married, He has 3 kids. He had come out, you know, and didn't you know, he was trying to do a consult. I had no money. I think I had a $1,000 in the back, and I had an old Camaro. That was it. And what I discovered when you said talent found, I never honored the fact that I was a really good wordsmith. I never honored the fact that I'm a really good teacher.

I knew that when I was at the rural school, you know, at the Florida Georgia border, but now I'm with adults, and surely I don't have anything to give. And lo and behold, I am good at this, but I never acknowledged that. I never had an opportunity, a stage, if you will, both figuratively as well as literally, for which to use those gifts and an ability to I discovered I'm funny. I I love I love to laugh. I love to get people to laugh. I do that when I'm, you know, when I'm, when I'm running down the street, and I see people Women I'll, you know, whatever. And we smile at each other. And nowadays with this the amount of dysfunction that's going on in our nation and the world and the hatred, I think the ability to smile at people, just acknowledge that they exist because we live now in this little, you know, social media bubble is really an important gift.

Yeah. Ware and really, when you look at you know, you you took your job loss, and you're like, oh my goodness. These Ware fits. And we do this in our careers. It's over. It's like, no. You have 40, 50 years to work your entire life. You have plenty of time to to really look at hindsight to see what was maybe hidden in plain view to find a different talent.

I know for myself as a CPA, I was in a small firm. I did my deal, loved everything about it, and then I came to Brady Ware with kind of fight kicking and screaming a little bit with it. And right there in my site was a tremendous amount of opportunity, and and I couldn't and didn't see it. My husband said, you are gonna go back in that office and go up 15 floors, and you're gonna be Betty Collins, and you're gonna seize your moment. Sometimes it takes the other peep people in your life. They're seeing it. Like your mom, she's talking to you. She's seeing what isn't obvious to you, same for for me.

So I can't emphasize enough. Let's take the word mistake out. Let's talk about lessons learned. Let's let's really focus and lean into the refaming free framing, excuse me, because it's a growth skill and growth is always good, especially when you go back to hindsight and look and, like, man, look how I came through those times.

Yeah. And everyone can do that.

Yes.

Like, I remember I was facilitating 1 group, and we were talking about change. I said, I want you to go back and think of something Ware was a significant change for you, and now you're sitting here. Tell me what help how did you get through it? And people hadn't gone back and re reframed the change. Also, they said, well, I well, I did this. Well, I did that. Well, I did this. And they never until we had that conversation, they never looked at the power that they had to move them from point a to point b in this what at face value looked like a negative event. And then I said, and the truth of the matter is you still have that skill with you.

Yeah. You lose it. Right.

Well, now that you talk about negativity, let's talk about negativity. Because one of the things we talk about, you know, how can we help others who are going through maybe what we've already gone through? You're or you're trying to help them see, you know, what's hidden in plain view, or you're trying to get them to to reframe and grow. You know, we get pretty caught up in negativity and it's a spiral. Right? And it just can take us down because of the mistakes that we haven't said these are lessons learned. We haven't got there yet. Right? So so how do we help people get out of the negativity so they can even see what's in plain view? What they can even look at hindsight and not go, you know, get exhausted, exasperated of it.

You know that that's a difficult question because there are some people who I almost think they've got a negativity gene.

Mhmm. Absolutely.

We have a friend, God rest his soul, but honestly this guy if you said the sky is blue, he'd say, no, but no, but it's really gray over there. Just look at that little piece of gray over there. Or I remember going into, a church with I have an aunt that could be very, very negative. And you're sitting in church in the pew, and I'm thinking, Oh, isn't that beautiful? The sun is coming through all those stained glass windows. She says, Oh, that's terrible. The sun is in my eyes. Look at she couldn't look at the beauty that was coming in through the multicolored windows. It was how bad this is.

So I think number 1, we have to say that you you can't save everybody. No. You know? So there's some job. And and the line is, there appears to be a difference of opinion. Mhmm. I see it a different way.

Let's agree to disagree.

That but that's true. But when it when it came

to negativity, you're you know, Ware you talk about gifts from the mountain and you're out there with your husband and all of a sudden, we're gonna go off on a different path because we love adventure, and we're gonna do without our adult children who can help carry things, and we're gonna have a great time. At some point, you took that negativity, and you said, I'm getting paper and pencil out. Talk of you know, talk about that because that I mean, you could Ware really just been miserable. I would have been miserable trying to go, I don't wanna walk anymore. I'm exhausted. I need running water. I need you know, I would have thought of everything under the sun. You chose to take a pen and paper out.

So talk about that, and then talk about one of the things with that you really when you had that pen and paper out in the midst of a very bad situation. Talk about that a little bit to the audience.

Well, by the way and we did almost run out of water.

Yeah. You were there.

Barely got down to where we could get some water and refill stuff. And that's that's the one thing you could run out of food, but you do not Ware to run out of water. So that's that's such an interesting question. And with that paper piece of paper, I would take something up well, I'll give you an example. When you're climbing up, you're conscious of every foot, where it goes, how you know, it's Ware. You're bending forward. Where I would fall is when we were going downhill. And I would fall going downhill because downhill is harder than uphill because we take it for granted.

You know, I wouldn't see I it's called scree, which are these little pieces of rock. My boot would hit scree and I'd go Ware go down down the hill. And that's when it also they talk about it and I said, oh my god. Downhill is more dangerous than uphill. And when you think about that, if if you are climbing the corporate ladder, it's one thing when you get to the top of the mountain, but there's something on the other side, and it's more dangerous because we become cocky. We know it all. We're not as careful as we were, and that's what happened to me. So that Ware, like, one of those lessons where I said, oh, Eileen, downhill is more dangerous than uphill.

Women we were looking for Inspiring to put in, we had we carry ramen with us. Right? Easy to fix Women, you can boil the water. And I saw these green shoots, and I said, you know, I think those are wild onions. And as I was digging them up, and they were wild onions, and that we could cut them up and put them in the ramen, I realized that how many times when your something looks dull and boring, do we not look for what's the spice that I could add to this? What's something else that's here? And so that's one of the lessons is to watch for wild onions. What are the things that I can add to this? So it wasn't that I, just things would happen, and I would I would see it. I'd go, oh, wow. Okay. And then when I got back at home and got into my office and started writing, I thought these these are things we can all use, and I think the hidden in plain view is to me the magic of metaphor.

Mhmm. Metaphor is a huge teacher. Every teacher, good teacher, and I don't care whether you're talking about Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, it doesn't matter. When they wanted to give lessons, they used a metaphor. Mhmm. It was always metaphor. And so metaphors are powerful things. So you look at one thing and say, oh, what else might that be?

Right. Right. Well, I think, you know, I'm gonna recap a little bit and we're gonna continue on. But Betty I look at the theme today, lessons learned, hidden in plain view. And I love how you're sharing with, hey, reframe it. Grow is a result of that. Secondly, take your mistakes and quit calling them mistakes even though they are use a better word. Right? And if the negativity that you can get into and not see hindsight and not take it takes away that hit what's hidden in plain view, Get a notebook out and start writing.

Mhmm. Is that

a good way to say it? Because you were able to really capture so many things. Because I can tell you right now, if it would have been me, I would have been going, I didn't come here to dig onions. That would have been me. I wouldn't have said, look at the spice we can have now in the Roman noodles because, honey, you took a detour and and we're stuck out here. We need water. But, you know, those are things in our in dealing with lessons learned this year that I really want to be able to share with people and to get get it out there. I would highly recommend that you that you, check out Eileen. Where can we reach you, Eileen? What's your website's, you know, it has your books on it and, of course, you speak, but what are the?

So if they could spell my name, which you're gonna use in the podcast, all I have to do is www.eileenmakdar dotcom, or they can also do the resiliency group. Reason I say Eileen Makdar is sometimes that's easier to spell than resiliency.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Both both places will get there. My books are up there. They're also on Amazon.

Okay.

Whatever whatever, you know, whatever works for you, it's there.

Well, I

can tell

you if you need something good to read that has a lot to it, but yet you don't feel like you have to read it 3 times to understand it, these are the books for you, and you're gonna get in there. And as you're going through and journeying where you need some help with with some mistakes that need to be lessons that you're gonna then tell someone one day, this is a place that you can find it. We're gonna wind down today, and we're gonna have part 2 Ware we're gonna talk about some more fun things on hidden in plain view, lessons learned with Betty Collins with Inspiring Women. More about Inspiring Women can be found on BradyWare.com, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Thank you for listening.