0:00

You're listening to Hellcats hope episode # 27.

0:09

Welcome to Hell Cats Hope the podcast to find humor healing and hope come along with Hellcat as she explores ways to help you overcome adversity and find your own inner Hellcat.

0:23

Yes. Hellcat is her legal middle name and hope is her game bringing hope to others by showing what's possible.

0:29

Here is your host, law school,

0:31

grad, motivational speaker, author and certified life and smoking cessation coach,

0:36

Laurie Hellcat bamford. Hello Friends.

0:44

Welcome Back Episode 27.

0:48

It has been a hot minute since I recorded a podcast.

0:53

So I asked for your forgiveness and thank you guys for being here today.

0:59

I kind of have a sort of a good excuse um for my app since the last few months,

1:05

which is the topic of today's episode.

1:08

My Ted X talk experience.

1:12

Yes, so about six months ago would have been in october of 2021.

1:19

I applied for a Ted X event at the University of Central Oklahoma here in Edmond Oklahoma,

1:26

my hometown. You had to submit a video application with the five minute limit and provide them an outline about the talk that you wanted to give for their topic,

1:36

which was resilient, thriving admits to adversity.

1:40

Was there topic. And so I submitted a five minute video application as well as an outline of what I thought would be applicable to their topic of resilience and I speak on resilience quite a bit to the different speaking engagements that I have and I just felt like it would fit in perfectly.

1:59

I needed to thank two people. One Katrina Shockley.

2:03

She's the one that sent me the link to apply for the event.

2:06

Otherwise I don't know that I would have seen it.

2:09

And secondly, I want to thank john a calf,

2:11

Jon Acuff is an author and speaker and I have taken several of his courses.

2:16

You can find out more about him at Jon Acuff dot me,

2:20

J O N A C U F F.

2:22

I will put his link in the show notes I was taking at that time in october of 2021.

2:29

I was in the middle of one of his courses entitled full potential and he was teaching us how to make small changes,

2:37

do small things to build consistency and to get into your momentum zone and reach your full potential.

2:45

And so I have, I've had on my list for a long time to do a ted talk or a ted X talk.

2:51

Most talks begin at the ted X level.

2:54

I kind of think of it as the junior varsity of getting to the ted stage.

2:59

So that is where I started.

3:01

And it had been an item on my bucket list for a long time.

3:04

What Jonah cup teaches in reaching your full potential is that you have all of these things that you want to do.

3:10

But maybe they're in a chaos zone or an apathy zone or a practice zone and so doing his course,

3:18

really focused me in my mind and my spirit to really look at what I was doing and where I wanted to put forth my effort and for me that is speaking,

3:29

I love to speak, I'd love to speak to groups and to just hopefully send a message out there that helps companies and organizations to help their people feel confident and to have hope in their everyday decision making.

3:45

So I'm taking john's course right back last fall and this was an item on there and I got the email from my friend Katrina and that together with um the encouragement through Jon Acuff.

3:58

I thought you know what, I'm just gonna do it,

4:00

I did not expect to get picked but I thought I'm not ever gonna make it if I don't start applying and learning more about it.

4:06

One of the things I was doing as a result of john Jacobs full potential course is I was Reading 10 pages of a success book every day.

4:15

So for 90 days, one of the items that I selected to do every day was to read 10 pages of a success book.

4:22

And one of the success books that I was reading was on becoming a paid speaker and I was reading more about ted talks and ted events.

4:32

And so that really helps me as well is to learn how a ted talk works what they are looking for,

4:40

what is the through line, what is my message that I want to share with other people,

4:45

how can I communicate that message effectively and clear to really reach people that I need to read.

4:52

So I wanted to give to thanks first before I um share some more information about my TTX experience and that was Katrina Shockley.

5:02

Thank you so much friend. And of course john Acuff and there are countless others that I can thank throughout all of this,

5:09

my friend Laurie, my husband reg I mean I have had so much support from friends and family these last six months and leading up to the event just really encouraging me and cheering me on.

5:22

I can't tell you how much all of that has meant to me.

5:26

Um also Chris san and Tanya,

5:28

you guys have just been amazing, so thank you so much.

5:32

Um it really was a great event now if you don't know what Ted is and you're like what in the heck is she talking about?

5:38

Maybe you've heard, you know, thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

5:41

You know, people say that all the time when they kind of get on a soapbox about something and this is where it comes from.

5:47

So you can go to ted dot com to check out more of it.

5:50

But basically Ted T E D.

5:52

It's a non profit and they are devoted to spreading ideas usually in the form of short,

5:59

powerful memorized talks That are 18 minutes or less.

6:04

UT TED began in 1980 for as a conference where technology,

6:08

entertainment and design converged and today it covers almost all topics from science to business,

6:16

to global issues, and more than 100 languages.

6:19

So that's where the Ted comes from,

6:22

T E D. Technology, entertainment and design.

6:25

But their point, especially through their independently run Ted X events,

6:29

is to help share ideas in communities around the world.

6:33

I'll share with you their mission statement from their website.

6:36

So it says our mission is to spread ideas.

6:40

Ted is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.

6:47

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes,

6:51

lives and ultimately, the world on ted dot com.

6:56

We're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other,

7:05

both online and at Ted and Ted X events around the world all year long.

7:11

So I thought that was pretty cool. So,

7:14

again, you can find out more about ted talks and Ted events at Ted dot com.

7:20

Alright, so after I learned that I was selected,

7:24

it would have been in october and november of 2020.

7:28

The next six months were consumed with drafting this talk,

7:33

memorizing it, redrafting it,

7:36

just really honing that through line in that message and that idea worth sharing.

7:43

And so I'm going to recreate the speech here for you.

7:47

It may come out a little bit different than what Ted produces,

7:51

but This is what I presented to TED X on April 14 and I just love the entire process.

7:58

It was very difficult, it wasn't as if you just show up and give a speech,

8:03

it was nothing like what I do in my speaking business,

8:06

it was just very different and very challenging.

8:08

But I loved every second of the journey just going through and really thinking about what is the idea that I want to share,

8:15

How do I want to tell the story.

8:18

And so I spent several months drafting it,

8:20

memorizing it, listening to it on my way to work.

8:23

I have a 45 minute commute to work and back.

8:27

And so I recorded what I thought the speech that I was going to give and I listened to it every day and then it's just a way to memorize it.

8:35

And then at the end of March I put together a focus group of some very dear close friends of mine that I knew would give me constructive feedback.

8:46

Now my husband reg was not invited.

8:48

He specifically was excluded because again,

8:51

I was looking for constructive feedback and he is my number one fan and such a lovely man that I know at that he would have said it's perfect,

9:01

don't change anything. So he was not invited,

9:04

but I did invite some had about eight or 10 very close dear friends of mine and they provided some amazing feedback.

9:12

It was really great to do that because in that moment I realized that I was really in my head too much about the speech about the talk.

9:19

I was making it more of a dissertation or a presentation instead of a talk with more personal stories about my own resilience.

9:29

And so I pretty much revamped the entire second half of my talk to provide more specific personal examples,

9:38

personal stories of my own resilience.

9:41

And so that's what I came up with and I think it made it much more personal and I think a much more powerful talk that I was able to give.

9:51

So I'm super grateful you guys know who you are that were there.

9:56

And I really appreciate the feedback that you were able to give me.

10:00

I came up with the title to my talk is called Hellcat Living the Dream,

10:05

and my description of it is this there are a few pat answers we use merely out of habit when someone asks,

10:12

hey, how are you doing? One of those habitual responses is the number one killer of confidence and ultimately hope in that it dismisses and diminishes our stories of resilience.

10:23

Hellcat will take you on a journey through her stories of resilience and show how you can speak,

10:29

think and use your stories of resilience to build confidence and hope for the future.

10:35

One thought at a time. And this is how the talk was described in the program for Ted X.

10:42

Alright, so enough of me blabbing about what Ted is and what my experience has been the last six months now.

10:49

I'm just going to present to you the talk that I gave On April 14 that hopefully will be distributed worldwide.

10:57

Uh That is I have been asked that question a lot.

10:59

When will it be available? I asked the I.

11:02

T. Crew, the film crew and they said it takes a few months because they do some high tech editing of these presentations and there were nine speakers that day and so we all have to listen to our ted talk and watch the video and approve it.

11:19

And then they upload it and then ted X takes whatever time they need to review them before they upload them.

11:26

So it could be a few months before the video presentation is ready.

11:30

And so that is why I wanted to do this podcast just so that I could get the speech out in verbal form um for people who it might find it helpful.

11:42

So that is what I'm doing here today in this episode.

11:47

Alright, so sit back, relax and I hope you enjoy this presentation of my TED X speech that was given at TED XUC.

11:57

O on April 14,

11:59

2022. Yes. Hellcat is my legal middle name and like many good stories start.

12:07

I was at a bar, it was in 2010 and I was down in Dallas Texas celebrating a friend's birthday dancing the night away.

12:15

It was that evening that I learned you can change your name on facebook to whatever you want.

12:22

All of my friends that evening were doing it and I succumb to the peer pressure and I wanted to do the same.

12:29

We were in a place called the vixen lounge and I thought lori the vixen.

12:35

No, that's just silly. So I pulled up the thesaurus on my smartphone.

12:40

I typed in the word vixen and the name Hellcat came up and it meant formidable woman not to be messed with.

12:48

It's also a World War two plane. I thought,

12:51

yeah, Hellcat, I like it. And so I changed it that evening on facebook just as a joke.

12:58

Now at that time I was 100 and £20 heavier than what my doctor wanted me to be.

13:05

I was smoking up to two packs of cigarettes a day and at the age of 40 I was taking nine pills a day related to being prediabetic and having high blood pressure,

13:17

high cholesterol, high triglycerides and gout.

13:21

My doctor took me aside and he said, listen,

13:24

if you don't make some changes, you're not going to see your kids grow up At that time.

13:29

My son was eight and my daughter was four that got my attention.

13:33

So I began to look around and wonder what what can I do to improve my health.

13:38

And I noticed that many of my friends were runners and I thought,

13:41

huh? Running, how hard can that be right now?

13:45

Mind you, I was not a runner in high school but I signed me and the kids up for a one mile fed rin at their school.

13:53

I show up on race day, I have on just regular old slip on sneakers,

13:57

regular sweatpants, regular bra,

14:00

not an inch of spandex on this body.

14:03

I get up to the start line, the race gun goes off and I began to run and I can run for 15 seconds.

14:10

It was terrible. I was mortified.

14:12

I thought I was going to die. I was coming out of my shoes,

14:15

my pants were falling down, everything was falling down and I had to walk the rest of that one mile fun run.

14:23

But I vowed in that moment I was going to figure this out.

14:27

I downloaded a couch to five k ap and little by little over eight weeks,

14:32

it was teaching me to run a little bit further each time.

14:36

Pretty soon I could run for 20 seconds,

14:39

30 seconds, 40 seconds before I knew it.

14:41

I was running an entire minute before I knew it,

14:44

I was running an entire mile on october 9th,

14:48

2011, I quit smoking and since that time I have completed two full marathons,

14:54

five half marathons, 4,

14:56

200 mile Ragno relays and countless other races.

15:01

I've lost £100 over this 12 year journey a couple of times and I'm off all of those medications.

15:10

I began to use this concept of hellcat in motivational speaking and teaching to help other people who were on their journeys in that we all have an inner Hellcat.

15:21

You just got to learn how to tap into it.

15:25

Well, a few years into that facebook, shut down my account.

15:28

I couldn't believe it. I've never even been in facebook jail.

15:31

So I contacted facebook and I said, what facebook,

15:34

why? Why did you shut down my account? Don't do that to someone in my generation.

15:38

This is how we stay socially connected at all times.

15:41

And facebook responded Mam Hill cat is not your legal middle name.

15:47

Well, I'm a lawyer and under the law,

15:50

you can change your name to whatever you want as long as it's not intended to hinder or defraud creditors,

15:56

you pay a filing fee, you file a petition,

15:58

you publish it, an illegal newspaper, you set it for hearing and you show up at court.

16:03

I did all those things. I show up before the judge and he says,

16:06

wait a minute. You want to change your name to Hellcat.

16:10

I said yes, your honor. And I proceeded to tell him the entire story that I've shared with you here today and he stops me and he signs the order and says,

16:19

that's different, have a nice day.

16:21

He hands me that order. I get the heck out of there.

16:24

I take a picture of the order. I send it to facebook and I said facebook please put my name back.

16:30

This is now my legal middle name facebook said well ma'am this could take a few weeks.

16:37

I said I have a court order.

16:40

Now I imagine the workers at facebook are sitting around their cubicles saying we've gotta whack a doodle online.

16:46

Three let's get this taken care of today and they did.

16:50

And that is how I am legally known as the Hellcat.

16:54

Now I do not tell this story to impress but impress.

16:58

The point that will become important as we discuss our stories of resiliency.

17:04

It matters how we speak about them,

17:06

how we think about them and what we're going to do with them Now I don't imagine that you've ever had to legally change your name or even thought of it.

17:17

But I bet you have found yourself in this situation either at work or school or out in general public.

17:23

You asked someone or someone asked you hey how are you doing?

17:26

How's it going? There are a few pat answers that we use simply out of habit.

17:32

Here's one of them. Hey how's it going?

17:35

Well I can't complain. It wouldn't do any good anyway Or how about this one.

17:40

Hey How are you doing? How's it going?

17:43

Ho better than I deserve.

17:46

I have a colleague at work and every time I ask him how he's doing.

17:50

he gives me the same answer. I'm living the dream.

17:54

I actually kinda like that one.

17:56

There is one response that I have used simply out of habit without thinking without intention to the following question of how I'm doing.

18:07

Oh I'm just faking it till I make it.

18:10

I've even used this phrase to give myself a little internal pep talk.

18:14

Just fake it till you make it sister. What I want to offer to you today is that this seemingly simple phrase fake it till you make it is the number one killer of confidence and ultimately hope because it diminishes and dismisses our stories and moments of resilience.

18:32

Those moments where we have faced adversity and got to the other side.

18:37

Why is fake it till you make it the number one killer of confidence and hope.

18:41

Well it's not true unless there's some cloned version of yourself walking around.

18:47

You aren't faking anything, You are facing it.

18:49

You're doing it, you're showing up. Are you showing up perfectly?

18:54

No, because we're human. You don't need to show up perfectly to be genuine.

18:59

You are genuine in your actions because you were doing them.

19:03

It's important that we pay attention how we describe our circumstances and our success,

19:08

especially our resilience. It matters how we speak about it.

19:12

It also matters how we think about it.

19:16

Social psychologist dr amy Cuddy presented a ted talk in june of 2000 and 12.

19:22

It has had over 64 million views.

19:25

Dr Katie's premise that our body language shapes who we are,

19:30

created a storm of people all over the world posing as wonder woman in their offices,

19:36

bedrooms and bathroom stalls.

19:38

I want to build upon dr Cuddy's premise here today.

19:42

In that yes power posing is effective.

19:46

That power thinking even more.

19:49

So you see our thoughts create and generate feelings and emotions in our body that drive our actions to do or not do something.

19:59

It's our thoughts alone that drive that feeling or emotion to either continue on power forward or to quit.

20:08

I want to offer to you today that you have more access to your stories of resilience in your mind and how you think about them,

20:17

then you may be limited posing as wonder woman in a bathroom stall.

20:22

Use your stories of resilience and when you do I offer that you're tapping into the reality that is your resilience.

20:32

So how we speak about our resilience matters,

20:34

how we think about it Now,

20:37

what do we do with our stories of resilience in observations of myself and others?

20:43

I've noticed three ways that we typically respond to our stories of resilience.

20:47

On one hand, we may say no big deal.

20:52

I didn't die over it. We dismiss it at the other end of that spectrum.

20:58

We may engage and blame with a victim mentality.

21:02

Can you believe they did this to me. Can you believe this happened?

21:05

We engage in despair what I want to offer you instead of dismissing your resilience or engaging in despair about it.

21:12

You find that sweet spot of ownership somewhere in the middle where you say yes,

21:18

I did that. You own it and you let it drive you forward.

21:25

We all have stories of resilience.

21:28

Some are much more painful than others.

21:30

Summer mild annoyances.

21:33

Others are moments that we could have never,

21:36

ever even prepared ourselves for.

21:39

I'd like to take some of my stories of resilience,

21:41

like the one I told you earlier, the story of my name.

21:44

Hellcat. When facebook shut down my account in that moment,

21:47

I could have just said, oh whatever,

21:49

it's no big deal. It was just a joke. Go ahead facebook.

21:52

You can take it at the other end of that spectrum,

21:55

I could have ranted and raved on facebook about what an injustice has been done.

22:01

But instead of dismissing that moment or engaging in despair,

22:05

I found that sweet spot of ownership somewhere in the middle where I said,

22:08

wait a minute This matters.

22:10

This is important. I've been using this name for years and it's helping others.

22:15

It's helping me and I let it drive myself forward.

22:19

I have other stories of resilience.

22:21

You know, growing up, one of 11 Children,

22:23

yes, 11 kids, six girls,

22:25

five boys. I was the third oldest.

22:28

And while growing up in this large family of course had many,

22:32

many blessings. It also had its challenges.

22:35

This was at a time in the 80s during the oil bust in Texas.

22:39

My father had lost his job and was working at any fast food job he could find.

22:43

My mother had to go back to work and as a result it became the responsibility and the expectation of the older kids to help raise and take care of the younger kids.

22:55

As a result I missed a lot of school.

22:57

We moved a lot and I was a C student at best but I knew that I wanted something different.

23:04

I knew that I wanted to go to college. I knew I wanted to go to law school and back then you had to take the A.

23:11

C. T. And the S. A. T. The college entrance exams to get into college and I bombed them miserably I scored very low and so I sat there and looked at it as a C.

23:23

Student at best with pretty low test scores.

23:28

I started to tell myself this story that I must be dumb.

23:32

I don't think I'm smart enough for this.

23:34

I'm I don't think I'm smart enough for college and law school But I was accepted to midwestern State University in Wichita falls Texas.

23:43

I received an outstanding education and a degree in political science and English writing,

23:49

graduating in the top 25% of my class then it was time for law school and another entrance exam.

23:55

Yes the L. S. A. T. And you guessed it.

23:59

I bombed that one too. I had to go through a grueling three month summer program that was 10 times harder than the three years of law school.

24:06

Just to get into law school. I graduated from Oklahoma City University School of Law in the top 13% of my class.

24:15

And on law review, you see these standardized tests,

24:18

they don't measure work ethic, they don't measure intelligence and they sure as heck don't measure resilience.

24:25

When I think about my stories resilience throughout my life,

24:29

whether it's about my education or quitting smoking or running.

24:34

Or more recently in 2018 when we lost our father to complications from diabetes,

24:42

high blood pressure, heart disease and kidney disease.

24:45

I I remember and naturally so during this moment saying I can't do this,

24:51

I don't know how I'm going to get through this,

24:55

I don't know how I'm going to make it.

24:58

But I remembered my other stories of resilience and I got to the other side.

25:05

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, you gain strength,

25:08

courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face and do the thing you think you cannot do.

25:19

I want to encourage you today to use your stories of resilience and build upon them to give yourself confidence and hope.

25:29

You know, two weeks ago today I had presented this talk to a focus group of friends to get constructive feedback to make this talk the best it could be.

25:40

And that evening I shared with them the stone that I have and I told them that I look at my stories of resilience as a stone,

25:49

one building upon the other upon the next,

25:52

upon the next. And at the end of that evening I put that stone in my pocket and I got in my car to drive home and within a few miles of my house,

26:01

another driver blew past a stop sign,

26:04

hit my car, going every bit of 50 miles an hour,

26:06

spun me 100 and 80 degrees and knocked me over onto the driver's side of my car.

26:12

I was trapped in that seat belt for what seemed like an eternity before the firefighters were able to bust through my son ruth and pull me to safety.

26:22

One of the firefighters found that stone that was in my pocket thrown away from the wreckage.

26:28

He handed it to my husband and said,

26:31

I think this belongs to your wife For 14 days.

26:36

I've had to practice what I preach about our stories of resilience.

26:42

There have been so many moments where I've said,

26:44

I can't do this.

26:46

I don't know how I'm gonna get through this pain,

26:49

this trauma. I can't do this.

26:53

But I remember that young girl who thought she was too dumb to go to college.

26:59

I remembered that young woman who thought she would never be able to quit smoking.

27:04

I remember that runner who thought she would never be able to run longer than 15 seconds and I remembered that daughter who thought that the grief from losing her father would consume her.

27:16

I got on the other side of that and I'll get on the other side of this to you.

27:21

Use your stories of resilience to build confidence and hope one thought at a time,

27:28

one stone at a time and now when I'm asked how I'm doing,

27:35

I hope you will join me and will never, ever again say,

27:38

oh, I'm just faking it till I make it.

27:41

No, I know what I'll say and I'll actually mean it.

27:46

Hey, Hellcat, how's it going? I'm living the dream.

27:52

Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to Hellcats Hope.

27:59

And if you like what you heard, please subscribe to book me as a speaker for your next event.

28:04

Work, one on one as a coach or find more information on my upcoming book.

28:08

Please go to what the hell cat dot com.

28:10

Thanks for listening. Okay,