Depression, Drugs, Desperation & Divine Purpose; Today’s the day you decide to take control of your life with Kellan Fluckiger

Hey, welcome back. No problem, parents. This episode was actually recorded in December of 2021, and I lost the recording. Now, the best excuse I have is that I've been battling COVID for, I don't know, six weeks or so at the time, and I just had a really foggy brain.

But excuses are like, you know what? Everybody has one, right? And so what I'm just going to do instead is say, I am so sorry to Mr. Kellen Flukinger.

like I was looking everywhere for this and it just came to me a couple of weeks ago looking for something else. I found the recording. I was so excited and as I started listening to the recording we had glitches in the audio and I was like no. I was able to piecemeal enough of the hour-long recording together to make a 30-minute recording for you a 30-minute interview with Kellen because you just need to hear I mean bits and pieces of his story and then be sure to head into the show notes, click on his website, check out his books and his information. The guy has lived many lives and he's endured so much. So today we're going to talk about depression, drugs, desperation, and ultimately finding your divine purpose. Today's the day you decide to take control of your life. So whether this is for you parents and you're feeling like I'm done,

I just have no more to give, or you have a teen or young adult who's ready to throw in the towel, please listen to the episode. And if nothing else, be sure to click on the link in the show notes and reach out to Kellen. As a coach and a keynote speaker, Kellen's masterful approach helps people get past old stories, change beliefs, and create a life that seemed impossible. I'm so happy to welcome him to the show today and to have been able to air this episode. Before we do get into the episode, I want to share with you that Dr. JJ Kelly, you know I'm a big fan of hers, especially for your teens and young adults. She has come out with another couple of books. So if you haven't already gotten her Holy S-H-I-T series. And if you have kids in the car, they're like, I know what that means, mom. She's done it again with two new books. The first is Holy Shit, What Do Women Want?

This is the young gentleman's guide to creating love and partnership. So hey, if you've got some young adults out there and they don't know what the heck they're doing with the women in their life, check this book out. She's going to help you increase your emotional intelligence, define your values, engage in behaviors that match your values, learn about how to create love and build a partnership with a woman that you choose. Life is tough enough and you don't have to lone wolf your life any longer. So read the holy shit what do women want book to build and keep the kind of romantic partnership that makes all of life just a little bit sweeter. And her fifth book is holy shit so this is anger. So whether you tend to express your anger and it just comes flying out or you stuff it all down and then blow up later, holding on to anger can lead to all sorts of physical symptoms. So what is all this anger really about anyway? Well, Dr. JJ is going to answer that in her book, Holy Shit. So this is anger, a guide to honestly assess and effectively manage explosive and implosive anger without toxic positivity. If you haven't been following Dr. JJ on Instagram, I highly encourage you do that. We've got links in the show notes. She is one of my favorite resources, especially for teens and young adults. She offers courses through her Get Real program, which is an emotional skills training program, which is based on dialectical behavioral

therapy, and it's done right. Not all therapists are created equal and not everyone does DBT correctly. Dr. Kelly makes learning this complex set of concepts and skills just fun and funny.

And so your teens and young adults are going to laugh themselves right into healthy. It's a totally different approach. If you've got a teen or young adult that has tried therapy, has been through it for years, you've done all the different things and nothing's working, quit beating your head against the wall. Try a new approach. Dr. JJ is the real deal. She has a heart of gold and is just wildly successful. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

Hey there, parents. Did you know there's a way to transform your kids' behavior? That's right. I'm a parenting coach and strategist, and we're going to seek first to understand why your kids are behaving the way they are so we can really go deeper with your own behaviors and what is happening in your relationship with your kiddos from the inside out to take the actions and steps necessary to problem solve and transform your parenting so that you can become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. I promise you there is a solution for your parenting problems. Hey there, I'm Jackie Finnaman and after 30 years and more than 50,000 hours of working with countless kids and families, ranging from the severe behaviors that required out-of-home placement to the, ah, she just doesn't listen to me anymore behaviors.

There is a solution when you, the parent, feel confident, when you don't feel the need to rescue your kids and you aren't losing your cool and yelling all the time, your kids' behavior improves and your kids trust you. They trust that no matter what they're going through, you are gonna help them get through it. No Problem Parenting supports and teaches parents how to be the best leader and advocate for your child. If you feel like no matter how nice you are or how strict you are, your kiddos are still struggling, it's time to get off the struggle bus and become the confident leader your kids craving to be. Join me on this journey of behavioral strategies and resources so that you can feel empowered as a parent again and turn your everyday parenting problems into no problem.

All right. So hello, Kellen. Welcome to the show. You are a wealth of knowledge and experience.

We're going to get into all kinds of things, but first and foremost, just thank you so much for being here. Well, thank you. And I want to honor you. Like our existence adds carbon dioxide to the world, but every one of us, we add something else and we get a choice about that. And I have a little phrase called add good to the world and to choose to do that with our energy, our essence, and our beingness. And in our pre-discussion, I've learned a bit about you that lets me know some of the beautiful ways that you are choosing to add good to the world, including this podcast.

And I honor you for that. Well, thank you so much. I received that. That's very nice of you.

It's a great way to start the conversation off. And, you know, really what I'd like to, this is going to go a lot of places, I can tell already. So hang on to your seats, folks. You have persevered and been so resilient, Kellen.

I know a little bit about your story. Coming through decades of depression, addictions, life-threatening illness, and even a near-death experience, you have become the ultimate catalyst and you actually are helping to motivate people, melt barriers, move mountains, and mobilize superpowers to achieve their true desires. And I know you said that your mission is really to help 10 million people discover, develop, and deliver or manifest their divine nature and gifts. So I'm just going to have you start wherever you want to start about your story and how you got to where you are right now.

So the first thing is you read all that. There's lots of big words, you know, immobilize superpowers and things like that. The first thing I want to do is to emphasize all those words and say that they're not too big, they're not extravagant, and they're the hardcore absolute truth. That's the first thing I want to say in case somebody heard all that stuff and it went over their head in one ear and out the other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever marketing hype. It's not. Each one of us was built to be fantastic, to be amazing, to change the world and do good in our area. No, we're not all going to climb Mount Everest, journey to the South Pole, make $20 million, but every one of us has a divine purpose here in the world. And we live in joy and excitement when we understand that, we give into those yearnings that we all feel,

and we allow ourselves to be in that place. So I started in a regular average kind of home, was born in California, San Francisco Bay Area, grew up with two parents. And from the outside, it would have looked okay. My mom got married very young and she was a fanatic about religion and behavior and the discipline that she used to ensure compliance today would be felony child abuse. And I would have been removed from the home. At the time, the only thing I knew is you can't talk to anyone. It's wrong to tell anyone what goes on in the house. And on top of that, counselors or other kinds of people are godless pigs, and their only function is to take you away from God. So I spent my whole life, literally, I remember experimenting with drugs at the age of 13,

not as a result of peer pressure, but because I needed to escape. I learned to be a pathological liar to protect myself. And I remember in high school, getting dressed last in the locker room because I didn't want anybody to see I was black and blue. And so, you know, that kind of thing.

And my mom changed over time. And the earlier three kids that she had, my sister got it as bad as I did. It ruined her. She's had a lot of struggles in her own life, bless her heart.

And she's the only one that read tightrope and got it. My younger brother was four years younger, and he was the youngest of the top three. And then there were three that were close together after that, those three younger kids, my mom grew up somehow, and they didn't have any of that experience. They don't even believe what I wrote in the book. They've argued with me and it's been negatively received. Anyway, bottom line is, I came away from that experience believing to the core of my soul that there was something wrong with me. I was broken. I was fundamentally flawed.

I was not good enough and I never would be. But my mom, because she was on the side of God, she was right. So everything that was really wrong was really with me. And I spent my whole life from the time I was left home at 17, at 13, till I was 52. And I had 52, and I had a divine intervention, which I'll tell you about later, trying to get my mother's approval. And the way I thought I could do it was to get, make more money, make money and be important. And so I made a lot of money. And I had high ranking positions in executive this, that and the other. I've testified before Congress. And if you Google my name, there's a zillion hits and all kinds of stuff for my executive career. But I was a broken, loveless, soulless person. I remember saying to myself regularly, I don't feel anything. I can be whoever I need to be, like a method actor with an alias or a legend. I can be that and I'm damn good at it. But I have no idea who I am when the lights go out. I don't even know who I am. And so to numb that pain, I turned to drugs and alcohol.

I was married and divorced three times. I attracted broken people, but I didn't understand any of this at the time. One woman was raised by an alcoholic stepdad and she never got any help. And another lady, her mom committed suicide when she was 12 and she was lied about it until she was 21. And they had their own issues, but I didn't know any, like what? I did what I knew how to do and made money and whatever. And so the relationships were not very successful over the long haul. And I felt like I didn't know how to behave. I didn't ever talk to any of them.

You know, I felt like everything was conditional. So I had to keep everything in myself because I was afraid to be honest and open. And so that resulted in, you know, stints in rehab, secret, you know, places they send executives to that nobody knows about. And I had bodyguards at one point because of the positions that I held and, you know, all that kind of stuff.

so it easily be movie fodder on on one side it looks like wow and on the other side say whoa behind the scenes right right and i want to interrupt here real quick uh you talked about tightrope and i want to just let everybody know that that's your first book or at least one of the 15 that you've written tightrope of depression my journey from darkness despair and death to light, love, and life. You talked about at age 13, you just stopped talking. Well, I, my mom, you know, we were supposed to keep a journal and she kept a diary all of her life and stuff, but it wasn't private. So I lied in there. I never wrote anything that mattered because there was no such thing as privacy in our house. And so, you know, it was just another place to lie,

another place to pretend, another place to write something that seemed like it was good. And I was blessed with a really good memory so i never got caught i i literally was a poster child for like how can someone not get you know what i mean like living duplicitous multiple multi-threaded lives wherever i needed to be however i needed to be how was that to constantly have to fake it like you you talked about how like from the outside maybe people thought everything was fine I did. I got scholarships. I was in, you know, I was did music. I was talented in music and I wanted to be a musician. That wasn't OK because musicians are alcoholics, drug addicts and unfaithful to their spouses. And I ended up being my mother's worst nightmare. But that was not OK, which is what I really wanted to do. And it was just living. I just thought that's what life was.

you just are supposed to do this. And so you do what you're supposed to do. And understanding and doing what you wanted to do never was even on the table. Was there a time that you had to prove to other people then that you were struggling because like maybe they wouldn't believe it?

That happened. So you're going to, you, your listeners aren't going to believe this. That period was like my life was in stasis for 40 years. So from 13 to 53, I didn't do anything except ride that roller coaster. I was married and divorced three times. I had periods of trying to be good and get my approval of my mom and get back in the family. I was kicked out of the Christmas card list. I call that it's a joke. For example, what it meant was my brother got married.

My family was musical, very musical. But the idea of doing a professional is bad because they're bad people. And because they were musical at the reception, wedding reception, our family did, you know, musical stuff in the community, rest homes, schools, all that kind of stuff. We sang multiple part harmonies, played instruments, the whole thing. Okay. Yeah. Except for I, I was a bad boy. So I couldn't participate in the music program at my brother's wedding reception because I was not okay. I mean, that sort of exclusionary stuff, ultimate absolute control, and then me buying into it because I didn't understand. So your question was, when did that break? When did the cycle break? And the answer is God had different ideas. I had ruined my life so badly. I was 52. It was August of 2007. I was single again for the third time. I had four of my 10 children were teenagers and living with me. Some were older and gone and married already.

I was a $3,000 a week cocaine addict. I was making so much money that that was lunch money. And that was August of 2007. I got home on a Friday night and was going to go on binge for the weekend. And who knows where I would have gone or been, even though I had four kids at home, they were old enough to take care of themselves. And I had more money than I knew what to do with, everything was handled. And I got ready to go out and I had to turn on the television. Now, that doesn't sound like anything, except I realized I didn't know how to turn it on.

I had put the biggest, you know, the electronic store came in and put the biggest thing they had, the great, you know, because you make all this money, you have to have all this crap, right? Realized I didn't know how to turn on my own TV because I didn't watch TV. I just had to have the stuff. So I asked one of my daughters who was 16 at the time to turn the TV on. She turned on, threw the remote at me and stomped out of the room. It landed on a program that I'd never heard of, but that's not weird because I'd never heard of any of them because I didn't watch TV. And it was called Intervention, which is a reality TV show about people who stage interventions for their relatives who are busted. Okay. I lot. Okay. And the protagonist was a high ranking executive with a cocaine problem. Go figure, right? So I watched about 10 minutes and I said,

screw this, I'm not watching it. I turned it off and went and did some other stuff for a few minutes, getting ready to go out. And I felt absolutely compelled to turn the TV back on. So I turned it back on. This is something I knew how. I turned on the television and that program started over at the beginning, in the middle of the hour. And no, I don't have a DVR. And no, it isn't on the schedule. And no, it can't do that. But it did. It scared me bad enough that I watched the episode.

It went really badly. The guy refused help, stomped out, yelled at his family and was over. So but it scared me bad enough that I didn't go out. I went to bed. When I went to bed, I went to hell. What I mean by that is something happened and my whole life paraded before my eyes, not fast, not flashed, very gradually, just not in a negative accusatory way, but just a review of all of the pain, suffering, sorrow, sadness that had been part of my 52 years.

And I have never felt so horrific. The agony of watching that thing was, we don't have language to describe it. At the end of some period of time, there was a voice that said, it is enough. And it was not an angry voice. It simply said, it is enough. I woke up and it was five o'clock Saturday afternoon. So some nearly 18 hours had passed. I got up. I realized that I had been invited to change my life. So I threw away a thousand dollars worth of stuff that I had.

I realized that I was going to have to quit the job contracts I had. I mean, millions of dollars in contracts, but that I had to drastically change something. So I went from 3000 bucks a week to zero in one day. That was it. Throw it away. Never touched it again. We're done. Yeah. I didn't do anything. That's it. I threw it away. I said, I'm done with this crap. If God wants something that bad when I'm 52, all right, we're doing this. That was only the first half. See, that was getting sober. The second half happened two weeks later because of the positions I had. I also used to get a lot of free stuff you know i guess it would have been bribes if i'd been amenable to that but tickets and box seats and expensive this that and the other all kinds of stuff right one thing i got was a pair of tickets to uh a yo-yo ma concert at the premier venue in the city i was in now if you know classical music you know who yo-yo ma is and if you don't you don't but he's like yeah right the highlight of all things classical yeah so i went to see and there were fabulous seats right in the middle of the auditorium and it's electrifying. But before I went, I had two tickets. Like I'm single again for the third time. What am I going to do this other ticket? I don't want to waste the ticket. So I asked people in the groups that work for me, I says, who likes classical music? And some lady in one of the groups said, well, I do. And I said, well, have I ever

given you anything before? No. So I gave her this ticket and we met at the venue and halfway through the show, it was electrifying, but I had this feeling. I'm two weeks, stone cold, sober. I had this feeling come over me and i recognized it from two weeks before like oh crap this isn't this is otherworldly and this voice said to me you need to marry this woman and i said you're insane i said i've screwed that up three times with some other half-baked things in between that's not happening yeah i obviously don't know how to do this so later that night we were backstage because of course they were backstage passes to boot a voice came back said comma and you need to tell her tonight. And I argued like mad because, you know, she could have sued me,

called the cops, you know, got right and harassment and whatever, because she worked in one of my groups. I didn't know her very well, but I could have done anything. It went about like you would have expected. Are you out of your mind? She didn't she didn't call the cops or do anything.

And within two weeks, she had her own set of experiences and she quit the job. I walked away from all those contracts and we walked off into the sunset together. And that's 14 years ago. You are kidding me.

And her name is Joy. Like, you can't make this stuff up. I know. It can be like people listening might be like, what the heck is going on?

People have got to go read your books. it's amazing and there are miracles here on earth. I'm a believer. I totally believe. Hello World, my company was started because of a song and a goldfinch. And there's, you can hear all about that story on episode 32. But Kellen, it's just, it is remarkable. And when we are open and willing to pay attention to the signs that God puts in our path, we allow that miracle to happen. So thank you for sharing that story because, you know. Well, that was the other half because the The sober was one thing, but I still had 40 years of depression.

I'd still never talked to a sober. So she was that. She was the angel that was sent to help me begin to learn how to have a relationship, to learn what it meant to have a friend, to be able to talk to someone. She found some counselors.

Like everybody in the office knew I was a drug addict. I mean, they didn't know, but they knew because of rumors and stuff. And so I've asked her a bunch of times, like, what on earth possessed you to walk away from a very successful? She was a project manager, a lot of good career and walk off into the sunset with a loser.

Like, what were you thinking? And she said, you know, I don't know, except for I just knew to the core of my soul that it was right. And so she went to work finding counselors. She'd look them up and look up their creds.

My favorite one she found was a 75-year-old long-haired PhD forensic psychologist that was a biker and ex-drug addict. Also, he was the best counselor I ever talked to. I went through a dozen. first two years, I didn't even know how to tell the truth in a session. Right. So that was the two pieces of the divine intervention. And the reason it's important is here's the message from that. I don't care where you've been. I don't care what's happened to you. I don't care how long it's been minus 40 years. I don't care what it takes. Walk away from millions of dollars.

It is never too late to make a change, to make a big impact, to figure out what you want to be and to walk into that opportunity, no matter where you are or what has happened, never too late. I love that. Thank you for saying that. I can think of many people who may want to disagree with you or who are so into their trauma or depression or chip on their shoulder that they've been wronged or they've been scarred or they've been dealt a bad hand that may want to disagree with you. And, you know, hopefully in their time, they will have had the time and the experience or the opportunity to throw those beliefs out the window. What would you say to the people out there who are blaming others or just feeling like that there's something wrong with them, that they weren't good enough or they were broken? What would you say to those,

those kiddos and adults? There's nothing you can't fix. And maybe you were wrong. Maybe you had the most horrific, awful thing and everything that I've said is nothing compared to what happened to you. I don't know. But what I do know is today, you are right now where you are.

All the monstrous things that have happened to you have happened. And today is the day you get to decide if you continue to give those horrible things power. Or you say, I refuse to continue to allow that awful experience, or that abusive person, or that person that didn't want me and threw me away for adoption. I refuse to give them any more power. I don't know exactly what I have to do. But I choose to take back the levers of control of my life. And I'm going to decide what happens from this time forward. I choose to live in happiness. I choose to be happy. I don't care what you did to me. You don't get to make me mad, sad, hurt or busted anymore. Screw you. I'm taking my power here now to create a life of joy. And it doesn't include hating you anymore.

You've had enough rent-free space in my head. How did you get to the point where you could forgive? Maybe it wasn't forgiveness. I'm not sure. Your mother, did you cut ties altogether? Do you still have a relationship? What did that look like? So there's all kinds of possibilities. You can cut ties. You can kick them out of your life. You can do whatever you want. And I'm not judging any of those. What I know is that I have come to a place of absolute and complete forgiveness.

I have a morning ritual. And one of the things I say in the morning ritual is I am forgiveness. I hold no anger, bitterness, or judgment toward anyone for anything, including myself. And that is a liberating thing. So forgiveness has nothing to do with what they did or didn't do.

And it has nothing to do with what they are or are not doing today. Forgiveness is an act of compassion for yourself. I don't know what my mother thinks about what she did or didn't do. I know she changed how she raised the other ones. I talked to her about what happened a few times, and she doesn't remember and denies things. And I don't even hold that. Every person's on their own journey. And I don't really know. And if I hold on to judgment and anger, two things happen. One, I actually don't know what I'm talking about because I don't know what went on or what's going on in her life. But the most important of the two things is any amount of anger, bitterness, or judgment that I hold on to gets in my way of loving and being all that I can be today,

because it occupies space on my emotional table. It's a pile of ink on my landscape. Now, you guys can't see the background that I have. It's a beautiful blue sunset sky. And if I had a big blot of ink on there, that would be whatever anger I'm carrying, including anger for myself.

I have 10 children. Half of them don't talk to me yet because of the addictions and the divorces. And I've ended up being everybody's bad guy. And the fact that some of them don't talk to me I blame myself for all that which is left over from my old stuff. It's all my fault if I had just done this, that, and the other, everything would have been better. Well, first of all, I actually don't know that. And second of all, the best, I'm going to slow down. And when I slow down, then you know I think it's important. The best that you can do is to simply be love for yourself, for the things you're doing, and the people you're living with, serving, touching and blessing today. And when the time and space is right on the journey of someone else,

and their hearts are in a place where they're ready to change, then those things will happen. And so I have nothing but love and hope for all of those situations, because to have anything else would be an element in depression, destruction, and an impediment for my ability to serve you here now. So you're patiently waiting for your children who aren't speaking to you to giving them the freedom to decide that on their own if and when they are ready to.

Part of my little saying is I live each day as a beacon of light, a vessel of love, in a conduit of power with nothing to prove and everything to give. I fearlessly and joyfully imagine and create to add good to the world. I believe, and I know, I don't believe, I know that doing that will give the maximum opportunity for those things to take place. Well, and I didn't think we'd go there. I guess I didn't know that part about your story either.

What do you feel like, because now I'm onto your kids, because of course, you know, my specialty is to help parents to help their kids. So if as a parent, you've messed up or you've gone astray, or you've done some things that you regretting or you're sorry for, in your experience, what can you do as a parent of all those things? Or what have you done? So I have done all that I knew and know to do, writing letters, making apology. You know, I understand the feeling of abandonment. I understand the feeling of pain for several of them.

I know what it feels like because their birth mother did abandon them, gave them up for adoption to another woman. Well, and actually you abandoned them as well. Right. And in a form, in a sense.

Oh, of course I did. Yeah. Even though I was there when the other mother adopted him and took him. Right, right. You abandoned them out of your own drug addiction and being gone all the time with work and into other things.

So, yeah, it's maybe a different form. Absolutely. So trying the best I can to acknowledge that without forcing things. I'm curious. Some people would have been turned off by the thought of God, having been raised in such a strict guilt and shame upbringing.

So how did you make your way back to God? Was it that aha moment? No, I never doubted that there was God. I just knew that something was very wrong with the way things were going.

Like this is busted. When I started to get away from that, it never was about God. God didn't do any of this. This was the behavior of an individual.

My dad was gone a lot of work too. And so he participated some in the discipline, but nowhere near to the degree that my mom did. And I always thought my mom was abusive of my dad. I didn't really, I rarely saw her hit him, but just the way she talked and, you know, belittling and just all kinds of stuff.

And even as an adult, when I'd go back, I'd hear her talk to him. It just made me mad how she would treat him and, you know, that kind of stuff. But one of the things I've learned, and I used to be, and my rapid speaking may be like this, but I'm extremely patient. I did not used to be.

I used to be do it everything now, do it my way. And that served me well in a type A, hard driven, success oriented, this, that and the other. And I got all kinds of success. But I'll live that way now. I only do one thing. Like I get up in the morning and I look for, I have a sign on my wall. I never look for clients. I look for people to love, opportunities to serve and problems to solve. And that keeps me happy. It keeps me busy and keeps my business just doing just right.

Well, and I'm going to get into that before we wrap up. I want you to be able to share what you do, but you never really lost sight of God. I felt like I wasn't good enough, like that there was God and there was good and there must be some plan somehow somewhere. But I sure can't cut it. And it played into the whole I'm not good enough.

So it's out there somewhere, but not for me because I can't do this. I'm not OK. So I'm sure some people, somebody somewhere is going to enjoy whatever that is. but it's not me. You talk about near-death experience. That happened three years ago.

My wife and I went on a cruise, and we hadn't been on a cruise before, and so we went on this cruise, 10-day cruise in the Baltic Sea. At the end, I got sick in Oslo on Monday. Tuesday, we came home, still sick. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, went by. I thought I had a horrific flu.

By Friday, it was so bad, I realized I had to go to the doctor. So I went to a walk-in clinic, and they told me I had to go to the ER. And so I did. I realized, and I don't want to take too long to tell the story, pretty soon I had, you know, I crashed, code green, blue, red, black, whatever it is in the hospital, and they took me to the intensive care.

They put me in biological isolation, and it's a room alone in double lock isolation doors the whole nine yards because they didn't know what I had. What it turned out is I had a fatal illness necrotizing MRSA, MRSA in both lungs and in my bloodstream. And they told me the 10-day mortality rate of what I had was 100%. Not like 2% or 3% like COVID, 100%.

So my heart stopped. I was in a coma for weeks. During that time, I had three conversations with God at the door between life and eternity. And that, of course, turned into a couple of books, one of them called No Surprise, Meeting God at the Door, Conversations, Choices, and Commitments of a Near-Death Experience.

So when I say I only do one thing, I mean, I chose to stay. I chose to be here. And the only reason I'm here is to help people figure out who they really are and to have the courage and compassion to live into that. No matter what they've been through.

You're a divine being, whether you want to live there or not. You have gifts and talents, whether you want to use them or not. So when people finally get tired of feeling and ignoring the yearning to do something more, to be something more, when they get tired of living constrained by the stories of nobody knows the trouble I've seen but Jesus, when they get tired of living in those chains, then they start looking for help.

They look online for self-help and motivation and depression and other things. and sometimes I get the opportunity to chat with people and my questions are, you know, what is it that you really want? And usually the first answers are really flip more money, more time, more freedom. Yeah. Okay. That's great. But what do you really want? Why, why is that important to you? What will that do? And eventually if people are willing, we'll get to some core feelings about those innate things, just who I am. I just yearn for this and the other, And those are good. And then the next question is simple. It's like, okay, you can have that.

What are you willing to do to get there? Lots of times without thinking, people say, I'll do anything. And then the answer comes, okay, good. Why don't we start with this, this, and this? And the answer's often, oh, crap, I didn't know. Okay. So let's think about what you're actually willing to do to change your life, to possess your divine gifts and talents, to manifest your best self to the world, because there is a path from where you stand today to where you want to go. There is a road. Are you willing to walk? Are you willing to give up some stories, to change some habits, to let go of some grudges, to forgive some wrongs, to forgive yourself, to create a connection between you and the divine so that you can hear the messages and the encouragement? Because if you want to stay married to your excuses and stories, you're allowed to do that. But you know where that road goes because you're living that in a groundhog day. So if you're ready to do something different, then we can do that. I love it. I'm so glad I met you and you have changed your old stories. And so to get a hold of you, people can go to your website, kellenfluckiger.com. I have that link in the show notes in case somebody doesn't know how to spell it, but I'm sure you're pretty easy to find. You're there for anyone who wants to reach out to do some one-on-one coaching. You also do speaking, you're a keynote speaker.

I just appreciate you sharing and being so open and vulnerable with your story and coming to speak to my audience today. I want to end by honoring you and your effort, both as a professional and as a person who's taken on the work of doing a podcast and other forms of outreach to help kids, to help parents, to help people understand that wherever they are, doesn't have to stay there. the story of today is not written until you write it and your efforts, your heart, your passion shows, and you are choosing in that way to add good to the world. And I love that.

Thank you. All right, there you have it. Parents, another resource that's accessible to you right from the comfort of your home. Hey guys, if you're enjoying this podcast, do me a quick favor and leave us a review of the show. And if you're feeling super generous, take a screenshot of this episode and share it on your social media with your friends and family. And be sure to tag and follow us at No Problem Parents. Doing so helps us help more families.