Edna's Evolution: From Imposter Syndrome to Empowered Speaker

Imagine facing imposter syndrome, childhood trauma, and a life-altering accident, then transforming all these adversities into a path of resilience, motivation, and personal growth. This is the incredible journey of our guest, Edna, an inspiring motivational speaker and author and a true testament to the power of determination. Edna's story, which encompasses early motherhood, overcoming adversity, and commitment to self-improvement, embodies how one can turn life's challenges into opportunities for solutions and growth.

In this conversation, Edna lifts the veil on her experiences with imposter syndrome and her struggle to connect with her true self. She unveils how, through years of introspection, counseling, and self-love, she managed to remove the façade she had worn her entire life. The tale of her journey into motivational speaking, inspired by Shirley Chisholm's campaign and guided by her church pastor, is nothing short of inspiring.

Moreover, Edna opens up about her path to recovery and forgiveness following a life-altering car accident. She details how she tackled the ensuing trauma and physical injuries, thus turning a seemingly insurmountable hurdle into a path of personal evolution and forgiveness. We also reflect on the power of gratitude and the importance of self-care, with Edna sharing how these practices have positively transformed her life. Get ready for a deep and riveting conversation with Edna that will inspire you and offer valuable insights on overcoming adversity, embracing authenticity, and harnessing inner strength.

Colorado’s best business coach, Baz Porter, has a new mindset strategy mentoring service to help you unlock new heights of growth, prosperity, happiness, and success. Book your first meeting with the coaching visionary at https://www.ramsbybaz.com/

Transcript

Baz Porter: 0:04

Good day to my lovely people, fellow entrepreneurs and through the ass of personal development. Welcome to another episode of Rise from the ashes podcast. My guest today is a legend in her own right. Her name is Edna. Their name, edna, is very close to my heart, as it was my grandmother's name, and I reached out to her LinkedIn because I felt that she had a really inspiring and impactful story to share. And, for those people who have listened for a while now, you know I love entrepreneurial stories of overcoming adversity into success but, more importantly, inspiring our next generation. I don't ever introduce anybody, because the best person to introduce them is themselves. Edna, please introduce yourself to our listeners and our worldwide guests.

Edna White: 1:04

Thank you. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. Well, I am. I don't know how I can sum it all up, you know, because sometimes we have so many experiences, but I could say I am a change agent. That's what I could say that everything that I do, or have ever done, is something that has to do with change and making a place better than when I bought it, you know, when I received it. So I can say that you know it's. You know, I could talk all day about me, but I don't like to do that because I guess my work will kind of speak for me. So that's where I am in life is like I'm a change agent.

Baz Porter: 1:45

So let's dive a bit deeper into this, because I know there's many people like you that don't like speaking about themselves, so I'm going to prize it out of you.

Edna White: 1:57

How do?

Baz Porter: 1:57

you show up for other people. You said you're a life coach. You're a lot more than that.

Edna White: 2:05

I am a motivational speaker, I am an author, I'm a mom of three wonderful adult children. I'm also a grandma of four grandkids right now wishing there were more, but they're not and I'm a sibling and a daughter. I and a lot of the things that I do, especially around motivational speaking, is self improvement. I'm also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse from the age of five to 15. So I have survived through that and I call myself a surviving thriver, because every day is something different, I change and I learn about myself, so every day is something different than I'm learning to improve on.

Baz Porter: 2:56

What was your main lesson when you became a mother and you went from where you were a single ish life, very little responsibility to having a living, breathing human being you had to look after.

Edna White: 3:14

Well it was very tough because I had my child when I was young, my first, my oldest son. When I was young, I knew nothing about sex I mean, when I say nothing, I mean oblivious, and I didn't even know I was pregnant. That's how bad it was. Yeah, yeah, my mom didn't teach us anything and when I became a parent, I was always very I loved to love to read, so I always excelled in school. So I had my son was like going through so much. Everything is like how am I going to do this? How am I going to do that? How you know, you're thinking about these things like how are we going to make this work? I got to live on my own. Am I going to live on my own Is? Is, you know, the father of my child going to help me? All these questions were going through my head At the same time. Here's this little beautiful face sitting in front of me and so on, up at me expecting me to change his world, and all I could think of is that if I get better, he'll get better. That's all I'm saying is, if I was better, he'll get better.

Edna White: 4:28

So what my plan started to become was I'm going to graduate high school really early, because I had him in high school and of course you know they put you in these classes. When you're in school, you know pregnant women. They put you in a different class altogether. You don't learn as much and yet it's not as wholesome as regular class. So I'm going to graduate early and I'm going to college. Well, I graduated early, went to college and then I said what I'm going to do with myself? I'm going to get the one of the best jobs ever. And you know, I put my mind to it and I started working for it. It's a major company. Graduated in paralegal studies and I said I want one of the best jobs. Well, I did. I got the job and I hated it because it was Fortune 500. I hated it.

Baz Porter: 5:20

You want to share who is with.

Edna White: 5:23

Yes, computer associates, and I hated it. I hated it. I hated the craziness in that behind the scenes. I hated all of it. But it was very stringent, it was very hard, but I wanted something better. That's all I could say is I wanted something better for him. I wanted to show him I'll give him the example of this is what it looks like when you want something better.

Edna White: 5:53

And through all of that, I had a dream of my own was to become a model. I literally joined Vogue, was one of the shortest models in the group and I worked with them until I was about 23 years old and I did some marvelous things, traveled with him, you know, took him with me and traveled. But I always wanted that was always in the back of my mind to whatever you can you thinking of mine or you want to have, you can have. No matter what the circumstance is, you can really work beyond it. It is not an excuse that you can't overcome and I rarely had excuses for myself rarely, you know. I just moved, moving and moving, you know, as if. No, there's got to be a solution. I was always solution oriented, so that's why I wanted to show him is like, even though you make mistakes or you make errors, you can make solutions, you know.

Baz Porter: 6:53

I love that and the story of you know, even though you have a child, that you didn't really understand what you were doing with and the impact of that he was still going forward. I mean, vogue is a big deal. Yeah it is a big deal. You sort of skimmed over it. I was nothing. No, these are the stories I love because you are that person, that is one person that is wanting to get ahead.

Baz Porter: 7:24

Yeah, the story and this is why I do this, purely why I do this, because your story is impactful and needs to be heard. Yeah, if you could. I mean you were a motivational speaker. I mean I've been on stage as well. I'm privileged to do that. I learned lessons that I learned while speaking on any stage, because it wasn't about the speech, it was about the education, the impact. And somebody told me in a very, when I first started out on this crazy journey that I've had you're not a motivator, you're an inspirer, because you're speaking from in spirit and there's and I'm sure you know this there's seven different types of speakers.

Baz Porter: 8:10

There's keynotes, and there's seven of them. I'm one of the rarest ones, which is a walk-in, so I channel everything on stage. I don't remember a goddamn thing. It can be pretty scary. He's a keynote and that's cute. Can you memorize all that? Because I'm an actor. That's what, literally, but what comes through me and how I shift and it isn't just me, I know people who do this.

Baz Porter: 8:45

Very very, very well-known people who do this, and it's so impactful and what you're describing just there is that first stepping stone and lesson in motherhood, in life as well. What adversity did you overcome? What's the biggest adversity you overcame in that transition from being a mother into the next stage of what you're doing and how you're showing up in your life today?

Edna White: 12:12

I think the biggest one was I didn't. The challenge was, and all that I was doing. I Didn't realize. I was depressed and hurting for the whole time.

Baz Porter: 12:24

So my next question for you is what does, what does depression mean for you? This is different for everybody.

Edna White: 12:30

Yeah. So what it was is when I looked back at myself, I always had this. They call it the resting bitch face. Everybody would say how do you look like that? Are you mad at the world? I never recognized it Because I was always living in my head thinking about the next step, you know, or replaying what I did do to make it better. And I was always trying to put on this facade because I Was walking around with shame on and had no idea what shame was, because I was Scared to like be friends with people because they would know that I was abused by my stepdad and my stepdad lived with us, so I was afraid to always like Be friends with people. So, of course, here comes this face, because it's a mask. You don't even realize it.

Edna White: 13:32

And that was the biggest adversity for me to hear somebody say you got this restaurant bitch face like you are mad with the world. Now, mind you, I didn't recognize it and I'm like what are they talking about? And and one day I, you know I was looking in a mirror and I was like walking past the mirror and I saw myself as, oh my gosh, I'm living in my head and I wasn't living in a moment, everything around me was oblivious. I had no idea what, where I was going, where I was walking nothing didn't see a flower, didn't see a bug, didn't see anything. Because I was always in my head and I had to. That was a big challenge for me, because I I was suppressing a lot of anger, um, unforgiveness, sadness. I was very sad but refused to cry. That that's the place, you know, that's the fight, you know, it does that. You know, and I refuse to cry if I, you know I was ashamed, I was, you know, not confident.

Edna White: 14:40

You know, here I am I'm modeling, as it were not confident. I mean, literally, I'm in the room with these beautiful women tall, skinny, you know, that's all to me. I'm five, five and it, you know, and they were like they would come over to me, so you're so pretty. Now, I didn't, I didn't wear a lot of makeup because I guess my skin tone was like I guess, okay, so they, when they did me, was, it wasn't a lot, and there's like you're so pretty and I'm like what are you talking about? Like you're six feet tall, you know your skinny, you know I'm like, you know, I'm Out of the ordinary, you know, but I didn't realize at that time because I wasn't in a moment, because I was always upset, mad and I was depressed.

Edna White: 15:24

I was, I didn't realize it was amongst people. It was an honor, like you just said, it was an honor to be there and I didn't even. It was like a, it was like a moment in time. It was like that because I didn't even realize it, I wasn't in the moment. I didn't even celebrate it because, looking back, I was depressed. I was just moving. I wasn't you know, I wasn't enjoying anything else.

Baz Porter: 15:54

Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable with with with me here. I know some of these things just by looking at you and hearing you. You're going back and you're retrolling these events. I know how hard that can be sometimes. I want to just take a moment just to say thank you and honor that, because it takes courage to go back and recollect some of these events. Thank you, when you were in pot, you described that something very, very common in In this day and age has been now known as imposter syndrome.

Baz Porter: 16:34

Oh it's a buzzword and we all know it is. Yeah, in your own words. How did you overcome that? It that imposter Use, using that mask to hide who you truly were your authenticity?

Edna White: 16:51

It took me years use Under that mask for something else, under that mask or something else. It's years even just finding that out. Once I found that out, I started going, of course, I went to counseling. You know I started going to counseling and that gave me the tools. But Sometimes, as humans or well, let me just say about myself what I did. I wasn't sure about myself and I still had that on, still had that imposter syndrome on. So of course I got involved in you know um Religion. You know I got involved in that and that was. I thought that was gonna take away all of the things that was going on in my life, but it didn't. It just added another Letter of things that I had to take off. But it took years and here's the story that tell everybody I Was in my room and it was my 45th birthday and I don't believe you.

Baz Porter: 17:58

You want 40.

Edna White: 18:01

I was 45 and I was looking in the mirror and I said I asked myself what do you want? That's what I said to myself and I started crying. And I remember just sitting there looking at myself, looking at my just and and it just came to me take everything off. So I had, I had, you know, of course, I had the nails. You know the nails. I had them on, had those on. I had lashes on, I had I had long hair, really long hair. So I said Everything off. So I'm still sitting there and crying and everything. Then I said you know what I'm gonna do it. Okay.

Edna White: 18:44

So I call my nephew up. He's a hairdresser. I said come over and give me a number one. So he's used to me having pictures, you know. Come Nova, you know, okay, she's got this picture. He got his bag and everything and he says a number one. So what do you see? The picture? He says I said no, no, no, the buzzer number one. He's like why? He's like no, really.

Edna White: 19:10

So as I'm, he's sitting there, I'm plucking the nails off, I'm soaking my fingers, you know, I'm putting on like this mask stuff all over me. I have like a two top one. He's. He's just watching me. He's like auntie is everything? Okay, auntie, are you alright? I'm good. I'm putting on, like, the mask on my legs. You know, I'm really going. I'm going in. I don't know what I'm doing. I honestly, this is this. This is just spirit doing this. It literally is because I had no idea. So he starts buzzing. He's a gun, I'm sure. Now I was like, yeah, as he's doing it, I'm looking at it, and it was like I Was, like I was free. Every time the buzzer went across my head, I felt the air rush Like through me and like almost my toes. Literally, it freed me. It, that moment freed me, and it was something special, you know, like for me, because it really like, let me, just let me go.

Edna White: 20:15

So once he left, there was an exercise that my, my psychiatrist just told me to do. She said I, I use it all the time. Every now and again, you have to go, look at yourself in the mirror, so you, after, after he left, I took all my clothes off and looked at myself and she told me to point at every part and look and start to love each part of you. This is my. This is the whole ritual. Doing this is a whole day now.

Edna White: 20:41

So now, you know, I'm having a crying fit because I see stuff that I don't like it like, you know that potato chip or that. But you know something that, oh my god, I put that there. You know, and you have to, you have to come in alignment with it. So you're not put it there. I could take it off, but I still love it because I now know what it is. I know what I did to that, whatever, and you're talking to yourself, you know. So this was the first time at 45. It was I able to really Take that off. And from 45 up until now I've this.

Edna White: 21:19

It took me a long time to grow my natural hair out for again, it's still short, you know, but it takes a long time when you are being your Authentic self. And more than that, I'm learning to be original, because my original self would allow me to just wouldn't even care if I made a mistake. We'd be even careful. Talking to it would be so truthful, so clear, so honest, so uninhibited, that it wouldn't hurt. You know people don't get hurt. You know my friends often tell me, says um, you know, you, the only one I know, could tell anybody anything, and they'd be like, well, did she say, did she throw a sub at me? She would tell me to cut my hair. You know you'd be like, yeah, but I would say, because I really meant it in a good place, because before I didn't mean it in a good place because I wasn't sure where I was coming from. Now I know I'm coming from a place of my original self.

Edna White: 22:15

How I felt when I was five. You know how I felt when I fell off that swing and I was like I hurt myself, bleeding all over, but I got back on. When I got from the hospital, I got right back on. I'm gonna conquer this swing. You know and that's how I feel in the space right now that it didn't matter what was going on, that I had so much belief in myself that it didn't matter if I made it. Umpteen mistakes. I have so many. I have so much belief in myself that, okay, this time gonna make it, or maybe a little bit further. A little bit further, it's like make it. You know, and that's what being my original self means to me now, just just peeling all that off. It took a while.

Baz Porter: 23:01

Well, you just described the story there of discovering authenticity, your true authenticity. Yeah, and, like you said, it's so difficult to face who we truly are. You live in conditions and this everybody knows this. I'm not having a go at any Corporal companies before I get letters and shit like that. It happens. We, we are conditioned in our own ways to be afraid, to not speak, to Think that we are less than we actually are. The most scary thing about this is we allow it.

Baz Porter: 23:47

Yeah, we endorse it Every day. I met a girl yesterday day before, I think, was and she was so scared to even go on a podcast. Yeah, and a fear of being judged. I can't tell you what I said to her on here because it's going out live and I Will be pulled up because explicit things, oh. But I told her, no, a certain certain circumstances, it doesn't matter. No, doesn't matter what people think they're gonna judge anyway. Yeah, you know, and that's a part of society, unfortunately.

Baz Porter: 24:26

Yeah, mentioned Religion and you found a form of belief which is that's what religion essentially is. It's more belief. Doesn't matter what that is. Yeah, people should and understand and respect that. Yeah, the visual thing, but it brings people together on many different and many different ways. What it's been corrupted yeah, I have a range is and it's in the world. Now we look at it in the Middle East. We're intimate in the Middle East. I've been to Iraq and in that area I can't say where I was for all these reasons, but I know the conflicts out there. I've seen what it does. Oh, yeah, and it's terrible.

Baz Porter: 25:14

But out the out, of the other side of that which you were just going into, you discover something about yourself. You discovered that All the BS that everybody else is put on to you yeah, true. Yeah, what? What? Out of what you did in the mirror, which I love exercise, by the way it's. And if you, if you're female and you're listening to this and you are, I, I Stage of your life going. I don't know what I'm doing. Go into the mirror and do exactly what Edna has just done. Yep, I'm not gonna tell you what to do and how to do it. You'll find your own pathway forward. Speaking in there is very, very powerful. Yeah, out of that, did you discover any Rituals or routines that you do every day to support your Set your day up or support your growth? Oh, yeah.

Edna White: 26:17

From that point on, I Look, you would link in looking the mirror, because I would never heard that I was beautiful out of all that I've ever done, never was told I was beautiful. Never was told. I think that one person, one the one young lady that I was with in the modeling Invoke she said that to me when she walked past me. That was the only time never was told and I heard it, but I didn't hear it. If that makes sense and I would, I would. I would do is every morning I would get up and say you are beautiful, you are meant to be here, you are loved. And that started me with stickies everywhere. I had stickies everywhere. I would get up in the morning. On the side of my bed There'll be a lamp, you know, on the side I would have stickies here. Well, okay, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for getting up in the morning. Then I look at the lamp, thank you for those beautiful eyes. I had to, literally from From the bedside to the closet to the bathroom, really praise myself because I've never received that before. So I started that ritual at 45, literally at 45, doing that, and there was stickies everywhere. My kids could tell you they would see these stickies all over. And of course, I tell my kids that.

Edna White: 27:48

You know, my friends always used to tell me when I get my kids dressed for school and I would say you are so beautiful today, you're gonna rock the house, you're gonna be magnificent today. And they were like I am maybe all charged up and leave out. You know, go to school Like you always do that as a kid, because I didn't get that. I didn't get that. I was like, yeah, go to school. You know, yeah, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. But you know, right now everybody says they don't. They're in their 40s now and they're saying, like they'll walk around. I look good today. Huh, like, oh, they're so conceited. That's like no, they gotta praise themselves because you're not gonna do it, you know.

Edna White: 28:28

And so I think my first step was to start to affirm everything for me. That wasn't affirmed for me, because if I waited for somebody to do it, I would have never gotten it to this day. But I started doing it for myself, which was monument, it was so freeing. And, yeah, I was embarrassed about a lot of things. You know, I was like that's embarrassing. That's embarrassing to say that, oh, you're pretty today, you're. You know you look cute, the eyes are gorgeous, you know I would have to talk those things up because they weren't recognizable and I told my friend the other day. I said it's sad when you don't even realize or remember what you look like in your teens. I said I have no idea what I look like in my teens. She's like why? I said I have no idea. If you showed me a picture of it I'd be like, yeah, that is me. But I couldn't recall it. I said because I was not ever told I was beautiful, no matter what I did. No, not at all.

Baz Porter: 29:35

There was a study made newest times but the last one made by Yellen, I think, harvard, and they asked people over 40 years old, could they remember themselves A positive thought or positive statement that they used to tell themselves as a child? And astoundingly, something like 70% were about could not remember positive thought. They had positive situation in the US. This is only the US, globally that they could remember them going through as a child. And then they looked at, did the same group of people and they asked them a different question. They asked them what was a harsh or a viewed negative event? 100% of them remembered what it was.

Edna White: 30:44

It was astoundingly. What the hell? Yes, yes.

Baz Porter: 30:49

That's what I was meaning about the conditioning, how we speak, how we show up for ourselves, absolutely, and I truly believe this, and Russell Bronson says this and a number of other people Entrepreneurs are going to save the goddamn world. Yeah, because we are, as a collectively, the ones who never give up and go on to be successful, regardless. We have a different mentality and we view situations differently and we're constantly learning. I learned from my mentors and I've never stopped learning. How many men is there anybody in your life that you showed up for you, that you class as a mentor or a teacher, somebody that had impact and that catalyst to do what you're doing today? Did you role model anybody or were you sort of guided?

Edna White: 31:47

after being a model and going through that, so when I came to New York I'm originally from Alabama, so when I came from New York I was watching television I was the first television ever, and so on came this woman, shirley Chisholm, and I was walking into the kitchen. I remember so vividly walking into the kitchen and I stopped and I was like mom, who's that? And she says she's running for I think she's running for governor. I said she's running for governor, what's the governor? You know I'm seven, you know what's the governor, you know what. So she's like she explained it to me and then I'm like, look, I'm mesmerized by this woman, mesmerized. She's behind the podium, she's saying some words, she's pointing and she's got this hat on like a pillbox hat and she has, you know, hair is perfectly done. I didn't know it was a wig, but that you know I'm seven. And then she's got the beautiful glasses on with this great suit and behind her was the White House. And I said, mom, I want to be like her. So she was my first ever same-like person that I've ever seen, the kind of I want to be like her. So I started studying everything about her, as when I got older.

Edna White: 33:18

But one woman that really changed my life was this pastor in the church. She was a woman and she was Native American and she was just an amazing person and I was able to be able to sit and talk with her. She had very limited education she was. I think she graduated maybe sixth grade that's the last grade she was in but she was very compassionate for real loving and she was intuitive and I would sit and talk to her about so many things when I was going through and I was young and she always inspired me to say well, I would say to her I'm really stressing out about something.

Edna White: 34:04

She goes you can talk to me, but you need to go see a real doctor. She was so in tune with what others needed because she could have took all the and say, hey, you can talk to me or pray or something, but she was so worldly that she knew and why is she new? And no, this problem here is not solvable. I do this, you need to go do that. And she was one that I really always went to for everything, like anything and everything. I think that was really the only person that really indelibly molded my life. Can you hear me? Sorry?

Baz Porter: 35:05

We all aspire to be somebody and role model somebody else, but it's that journey that helps people like you find your own feet, and when you saw Shalichism on that podium with the White House behind her, even at seven years old, that still has a lasting impact with you today. Absolutely does so. There's always another level and you constantly found your pathway into coaching inspirational speaking On that journey. What was the main obstacle or challenge for you and how did you overcome it?

Edna White: 36:05

Becoming an inspirational speaker.

Baz Porter: 36:07

Yeah.

Edna White: 36:09

Whew, let me tell you about that right there. So I knew I was a speaker way before I knew there was a title for it, if that makes sense. I started speaking in church, of course, and people would ask me to come and teach certain things that I knew. And I knew it, but I didn't know it. And it would be such ease. But as the challenge I had was I was listening to other people, this is the way you do it, this is what you're going to do, this is how you're going to do it. You've got to be qualified this way, you've got to be qualified that way. And, of course, yet again, he goes and passed the central, creeping right back in at this late stage, at this late stage, and I'm going, I'm going to the gamut. So I'm like should I go to get public speaking classes? Should I do this? I'm going through the whole list, like you know how I quantify to the public that I can do this.

Baz Porter: 37:30

So you were looking for validation.

Edna White: 37:32

Yeah, and I had to say wait, and I thought about Tony Robbins and he just popped in my head. Now he had a story that he said when he was starting public speaking he would schedule a schedule was an event and nobody showed up and his wife and his kids, I think, he said, and he would speak like he was speaking to thousands of people. That thought just alone, remembering that story, transition my inspiration, my inspirational speaking, because I knew that. You know, I use my intuition a lot and my story is what brings people in into the like in attention. I don't have to put my hands, I don't have to speak loudly, I just start my story and in the room, quiet Because it was, because the story is my own and I've learned to do that way.

Edna White: 38:36

Before there was any of this, like I wanted to tell my story and tell it from my heart, and I think that's what my challenge was. Do I, like you said, do I script it? Do I? Do I act? I couldn't act. I was making funny faces. I couldn't change that. I had to come into alignment with hey, edna's expressive she's going to make faces, she's going to say things that that's probably not articulated correctly, but you know what? It's all me, it's all my story and I was tricked momentarily to quantify what society said, what a motivational speaker would be or should be, who I should be. I was again faced with that and that was a challenge. Getting over that again, because you know, you know how we say we were. You know, when we're sick, one time we'll take chicken parts, we'll get it again. Well, pasta syndrome and all those syndromes you get, you're susceptible to getting them again. So just to get no.

Baz Porter: 39:47

Well, because you think you've overcome it.

Edna White: 39:51

You're susceptible to it.

Baz Porter: 39:54

I love what you said about Tony Robbins there. I mean, he's one of. I'm privileged to be a partner. And he's very close in his world and the peer group that he has as partners. And you're correct, he he did start many years ago going out to two or three people when he was in a whole hall. Yeah, that's where everybody starts. Remember that. Yeah, it's not about the, the, the amount of people in front of you know about the inspiration talking from your heart. Yeah, because that's the vibration that is is magnetic.

Baz Porter: 40:47

And it's very key you remember that and I love, I do love that story there. When you realized like okay, I'm not that, I'm me, I'm not Tony Robbins. And I've heard many people go, oh, it'd be Tony Robbins, you're not a six foot seven and have what she has, don't be Tony Robbins. And people tell you this Don't be me, be you. Yeah, and he will say as many others do success leaves clothes. Follow the clothes, but don't be or try to copy somebody. Yeah, on your own voice.

Edna White: 41:29

Yeah.

Baz Porter: 41:30

Education never stops. Is there any books or podcast you listen to today? Keeps you that edge on you? You constantly like learning from.

Edna White: 41:47

I'm always reading. So anybody with some kind of good information, knowledge worthy. I love Evan Michael's, his name, I just love him, love him. I'm Tony Robbins, but I often go back to an old book called the Four Agreements, and I'll tell you why because it always Grounds me when I get kind of crazy. It always brings me back.

Edna White: 42:20

I think I don't have a favorite. I don't have a favorite if. If it's talking sense, I'm with it, I'm always listening to it. So I Don't have a favorite. I I try not to, and I'll tell you why Because I have a compulsive nature.

Edna White: 42:45

I have this compulsive nature and Well, and I could say I started following someone, a pastor, and it hurt the person, hurt my heart, and and and it was it for years, you know and I said, I Decided it's like, okay, whatever God kind of brings to me, I'm going to embrace it. Okay, what's the message in it? And I'm gonna go on. But I would never Choose a leader, because then I would be out of my element, the element of being a free bird. Because if I, if I have a Leader, that I wouldn't be a free bird. So I Don't want to be disappointed anymore anymore, like I really don't. It's like what is? What is it the universe wants to tell me? What does God want to tell me? And and God kind of sends that Book, that person, that podcast, whatever it is, I Embrace it, for how or however long it is, so I don't have a favorite.

Baz Porter: 43:47

Okay, no, I just it's just, it's. That's good to know for people who are Wondering about that. Next level, and what you mentioned there Very defensively is listen to yourself. Yeah, and that's key in any, any walk of life, not just entrepreneurship. Whether you're in corporate world, whether you're just starting out, doesn't really matter. Yeah, remember to listen to your guidance. Whether you call it God, spirit, universe, source, it doesn't means. They all different words. I mean the same thing. Sure, yeah, believe me, looking up in Sanskrit, it will tell you they all mean the same. Yeah, but I mean I, I I've always believed in mentors and I've always had coaches. I'm very diligent. Who is a coach? Right, two reasons. One I've been screwed over before, for we all have badly. The second reason is I want somebody that has a map yeah, not the exact stepping stone format To get from a to be, not just in business but in.

Baz Porter: 45:10

Yeah, right, right and so areas of it fitness, in fine Cur, in entrepreneurship, in marketing, sales Right, I want to settle for mediocre, right, I want the best of the best. I want the people, as I said earlier, have done it. Yeah, I've already worn that, you know got the battle scars, they've got the arrows in the back because I want to learn from there. Yeah, they're people, and people view failure as a as it's all over you. Failure as, oh my god, this has happened to me bloody blah. Have you ever perceived to a fail which has actually ended up into a blessing? In sure is. Is there anything that Stands out to you that you share?

Edna White: 46:11

That was like complete catastrophic in life and then, all of a sudden, oh shit, it doesn't matter sure so, um, I had a really bad at car accident and I was coming from church and I am.

Baz Porter: 46:26

Can I point something out there? I know what you just did. I know why you said it. You said I had a bad car accident, Mm-hmm. But actually it was a good car accident. It was. It was. You see what I mean.

Edna White: 46:45

Sorry, I apologize that's okay, it really was. It was a good one. So, um, I was coming home, coming going home from church and At church, so I'm just gonna set it for you. So I was asking a lot of questions and I Didn't know at the time. I was becoming aware of things and I was asking a lot of questions, I was getting no answers and I was getting frustrated. So I was like this doesn't make any sense to me. I need to understand that. You know I want. I was feeling Like them, like the little, like the bird that was getting out of the egg. That was time to come out, like leave, and I was feeling like that. I was. I was feeling very angst and I was asking questions what's it getting it's?

Edna White: 47:30

Driving home, it was about 6 am, maybe six around that time, and so it was New Year's Eve. Driving home, and it was very foggy, I hit a deer With two deers in road and I was only going 30. I hit the first deer and it flew up over my car With flying into the back. I don't know where it went to, and Then I swerved to not hit the bigger one, hit an oncoming car, dislodge from the oncoming car broke my. I heard my wrist break and then, as I dislodge from the car, I swerved again and hit another car and I heard my my ankle break and then Swerved into a pole, hit the pole. The engine of the car came in and landed on my whole right side and crushed my hip bone, my femur, my and my ankle. The airbag came out. I hit my face, broke my nose and I was awake for all of this broke my nose, I saw like red, my eyes were filled with blood and the top of my head was Was kind of. I was kind of pushed down. It had lacerated. All of this. I was a bloody mess and I felt all of it. I was awake for all of it. But in the when I crashed, the guy came out and I was like in and out and the guy came out and says you're gonna be Okay.

Edna White: 49:10

I had a habit of always having the window a little bit cracked and broke, kind of broke the window he would say he was a fired, retired fireman Broke the window. And then I grabbed my phone and called the last person that I called, which was my mother. I Went to the hospital and I was in the hospital Almost had two collapsed lungs. I had to be incubated. I was still talking. Now this is me and my daughter got put her to sleep because she telling you, I'm telling everybody how to handle me, I go over to fast, you know, you know, and they were like she's supposed to be unconscious. Now I didn't know I could. I had collapsed lungs, I had broken my femur was broken, was out my knee and my, the biggest bone in my body, and my hip bone was crushed, like completely was just crushed, and the other one was dislocated. So you tell what I look like? I look like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Edna White: 50:08

Okay, so you know, I, I, it was 43 days in the hospital, at three hospitals, three different surgeries, 43 days and then rehab. I had the most awakening in the state of beating. I was in total pain on morphine you can't even imagine and but I had the most clearest time I've ever had in my whole entire life. So I, you know, I Remember laying in the bed, I remember what happened and I remember laying in the bed, second hospital, and I jumped up and I call my mother, thinking I could talk to my mother on the phone, and she goes, she looked at the number and she, she calls me, needed my that's my minimum name. So she's needed, is this you? She's some a call the hospital now. And you got to calm down.

Edna White: 51:18

I didn't know, I couldn't talk, so I had to remember the entire accident and that I was in the room by myself and All of a sudden, this, this calmness, came over me. I and it kept saying it's going to be different this time. It's going to be different this time. I had no idea what was what was happening and so when I it was several days and months no, several days after, not months, several days after that I call my daughter. She's up to senior.

Edna White: 51:52

So I had to write because I couldn't talk. I said I want you to get everybody I know On this list. I write for you, I want you to get them and bring them here. It's just like, wow, you know, because I had, they gave me 20 percent. 20 percent to die. That's what they told me. My face told my family everybody's getting ready for me to die.

Edna White: 52:12

So I was like, okay, if I'm getting ready to die, I got, get all this stuff off my chest. So I gave her a list of all these people. Right, if I thought, wrong about them, if I anything, anything, anything. She had them lined up at my hospital bed and I'm right now. I can't walk, I'm crying and I'm writing.

Edna White: 52:34

I'm so sorry I said this about. I'm so sorry. I thought this. I'm doing this. I'm my daughter's crying, the people are crying. Right, it was the most real, was the most realest thing I ever done in my life regarding forgiveness and and asking for forgiveness. Ever Apologizing, that would you know. Yeah, I saw myself dying, but I was like, hey, if I'm gonna die, might as well get this over. You know, saying, you know, and let this be the last thing I get off my you know off my plate what I did, that I Was lighter than a, even lighter than having the accident. It was. It was crazy, I can't even explain it, but I was lighter and they were expecting me to die within the next few days because they didn't.

Edna White: 53:31

You know, I had too many blood clots and all the other stuff was going on, and so I'm laying in the bed and I remember my aunt came from down south. They wanted to come see me because I guess they wanted to see me before I pass away. Whatever the kids there was a whole bunch of them around my tape, my bed, and so I remember my leg was hurting really really bad, even with the morphine. I was rubbing it and so they was like you, okay, you want to ask for something? I said no to doctor, came in and he's like you know, and, uh, if you survive this, you're gonna have arthritis, really really bad. And I rubbed my leg. I said nah, no, nah, and he looked at me. He looked at me. I said no. I said because I've experienced too much Goodness right now.

Edna White: 54:18

So everybody, the story that was the best Day of my life because I was set free from all of the worlds, I guess, things that they instituted on me, what I was gonna be, who I was gonna be, was gonna be like I Was totally changed at that point. So I didn't even walk the same. I say where I did, when I was just few days ago. I didn't wear the same clothes, the same. You know the way I did. I didn't look the same way. You know I went through such a dramatic change.

Edna White: 54:51

Everything about me was different, everything, and I had to learn to walk all. It took me eight months to walk. I had to learn how to walk again, meaning I have to learn how to crawl out the bed, and then I'd be too tired and get back into the bed. They grow up a bag another two inches and get back in the bed. That was a daily run for me, like, and then finally get to the step and then be too tired to go down a step, I'd go back to the bed, get back in the bed.

Edna White: 55:22

So everything was minute steps and that's what life taught me to stay in a moment and Appreciate that moment. Just getting out of the bed is like a party, like, yeah, I got a bed today. I was on the floor and I had to scoot around my butt for a few for several months, but I got a bed today. And then I got back in the bed and, mind you, I'm only using one hand. I'm pulling myself up with one arm, and not the arm that I use, but the other arm, like, so I was. I'm left handed, so I was using the right hand. So everything was all I. I Learned to like appreciate my body, my life, everything in just a spark of a moment, and everything was different.

Baz Porter: 56:09

Everything is different. I love that story. It was through adversity, but it was a blissful moment and something you I recognize they want. You just said you had all these expectations and all these yeah unions about other people. Yeah and in the face of imminent, so called the end you faced, you had to face yourself and Accomplish Jesus moment and say look, Funny.

Edna White: 56:46

I didn't think about Jesus at that point. I was like, okay, it's off my chest, I don't know what it is, I'll get it off.

Baz Porter: 56:56

That's another impactful story of you listening to the inner part of yourself. Yeah, the people Somewhat suppress because they know it's right and they know they have to listen to it, but they don't want to because it's the goddamn truth. Yeah, it is going forward from where you are now and being a life coach, just being a coach in general, and then inspirational, motivational speaking. What's the next level for you? What's the next level for the next version of you?

Edna White: 57:32

Next version of actually is happening now, which I didn't think it was going to happen. I am embarking in this podcasting world like I've never, ever, have done before and Became this local opera here on Long Island and I don't even know what happened, but I've, you know I'm. I'm in another place now where I can be more I guess my the word can be Expanded like more out there. So I've Been given a spot or a network for a network Locally to be able to do what I do as a life coach and to provide that service On television. So I'm like totally excited about where this is going to take me. As far as you know, being where I am like, being able to Change the world and let them see, you know what Change looks like, what that you're, it's possible that you could change. It's possible that you can grow, expand and upon your personal you know development of self development. All of that is possible, you know. So I'm excited about that.

Baz Porter: 58:51

So if people want to get hold of you, drop links and share stuff in the blog, because this is going to go on the blog yes, we're around a hundred thousand people ish. And then also the links, and which is the only, I'm only on links In other platforms. Okay, so that we got to everybody on links as well. Where can people reach you? What material do you want them to give access to so they can reach me.

Edna White: 59:22

See what I have Google bull. I googled my name, but by Alexa the other day and I was like, hey, so I am Google bull, it's Edna J White. Just Google me and there, um, you can see the podcast. You can see that I'm also having a couple of workshops coming up in November Thriving in your business and also learning how to forgive yourself and move on out of out of shame, and I love the fact that I'm going to be working with that. I love forgiveness and all of that good stuff, so you'll be able to take part of that. You'll be able to take part of that, um, and I'm looking forward to a retreat that I'm having in Puerto Rico in March. So you know, it's called bag lady and it's going to be tackling all the bags that you have in your life and how to get rid of them and open them up and clean them up. So definitely, you know, look me up, awesome.

Baz Porter: 1:00:22

Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate you Greatly for myself, as always. Please share the podcast, please download it. You never know, you may inspire somebody else. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your time, edna. It's been a privilege. Yes, I truly mean that. Thank you, thank you for myself until next week. My friends Live with purpose and inspire with legacy.