From Trauma to Transformation: The Journey of Self-Forgiveness with Katharine Giovanni

00:00:02 – Dwight Heck
Good day and welcome to give a heck on today’s show. I welcome Katharine Giovanni, a three time award winning, best selling author, speaker, and one of the original founders of the independent concierge industry. Katharine has authored over twelve books, including her latest release, the ultimate path to forgiveness. Unlocking your power. Katharine’s journey from battling stage three breast cancer to navigating a challenging childhood has given her profound insights about resilience and forgiveness. Join us as Katharine shares these invaluable lessons and explores the transformative power of forgiveness. Get ready for a conversation brimming with inspiration and empowerment. I’d like to welcome you to the show. Katharine, thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.

00:00:56 – Katharine Giovanni
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

00:00:58 – Dwight Heck
You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to this conversation or pre conversation before my listeners of the show know that sometimes the best conversations happen before I hit record and I should really start listening to him and record the whole darn thing. But I don’t think my editor would like me too much. He’d have to go through and filter even more than he already has to. But anyway, I appreciate you coming on, Katharine. This is going to be an exciting conversation because learning about your concierge industry, learning about your struggles with breast cancer, learning about just who you are is exciting to me because we all have that origin, that special talent, that knowledge that we’ve cultivated, and a lot of us don’t understand that. We don’t really put a stock in it. And that’s why I created the give a heck podcast was to shine a light on those that don’t have enough, you know, people doing that to them. So I appreciate you coming on. One of the things I focus and start on as I talk to you about a little bit and people that are new to the show, you’ll find out shortly. I focus on a person’s origin stories, things that happen from their childhood to adulthood, good, bad or indifferent, that triggered or made you make specific decisions. Sometimes people don’t realize it till they’re in their twenties and thirties. Oh my goodness. Something that happened to me in my when I was eight or ten really triggered me. So I appreciate it. Kathryn, if you could share with me your origin stories and what key things from your childhood to adulthood to led you to where you’re at currently.

00:02:35 – Katharine Giovanni
Well, the thing I do, I’m a forgiveness coach now and I teach people how to forgive. Everybody says you have to forgive. Nobody teaches you how. And what if you don’t want to. So how did that all start? Well, when I was in the 8th grade, I was living in New York at the time. I’m in North Carolina now, and I was getting bullied in school. My parents were both alcoholics, really quite pickled, and they were getting a horrible divorce. And because of all the stress and all of that, I tried to commit suicide. So I turned into one of those kids, you know who I’m talking about? They’re draped in black. They have one friend. They kind of just float through life. But I was living in New York at the time, and everybody wears black in New York, so I probably. That was probably probably just me being a native New Yorker. But I was angry. I was sick and tired. I was just kind of floating. I was a good student. I always was able to pull it out because I’m a writer. So if the test had an essay on it, I could always blow that out of the water. So I kind of just bobbled through life like a bobblehead until I hit my twenties. And then my mother fell down a flight of stairs, broke her hip, ended up in the hospital. And even my mother couldn’t get a gin and tonic in the hospital, so she sobered up, and she went to rehab. And we spent the next three years closer than sisters. And if somebody asked me, what is the flashpoint of your life? What is that one point in your life where everything changed? This was it. My mother died three years later of breast cancer, and that was the flashpoint, and it killed me. And I kind of spent a year in mourning, but I realized very quickly that if I didn’t change, I was going to die like she did. So as of January, I’ve been sober for 34 years. And when you first get sober and you start drinking, you go into recovery programs and whatnot. You’re told to forgive. Hmm. Okay. And you have to reach out to people and actually talk to these people. I was born shy. Now I am an extroverted introvert now, but back then, yeah, reaching out and talking to somebody left me cold. I was in my twenties, didn’t like it, didn’t want to do it, but I paid it lip service. So I would started to, you know, forgive people. Not really meaning it, but it just kind of got me out of my mold, and my life started to get better. And it wasn’t until probably 20 years later that I actually figured out the formula to forgive. In 2020, my two partners and I, the three of us, figured out exactly how to forgive. And that’s why we’re teaching people how to forgive. Because the way I got through breast cancer, the way I got through everything, was through positivity, gratitude and forgiveness. It’s kind of how I did it. But the flashpoint was when my mom died.

00:05:42 – Dwight Heck
Well, yeah, that would be a big flashpoint. Well, when you talked about the fact of 8th grade divorce suicide at a very young age, you were going through some very character building moments, right? So.

00:05:59 – Katharine Giovanni
Oh, yeah, it was awful. It was dark.

00:06:02 – Dwight Heck
You had to have been, though, because I know we’re going to talk about this, or we can talk about it right now. Resilience. You. You. Was there something or someone that helped you develop the path that you’ve followed for the last, let’s say, 30 years of being resilient and always overcoming those difficult challenges and trials in your life?

00:06:23 – Katharine Giovanni
There was a couple things that happened. Um, one of them might stretch everybody’s brain a little bit, but it is what it is, okay. The reason I was so different is because I used to talk to myself when I was a kid, and I used to answer myself and imagine my surprise when I discovered that not everybody did that. And it didn’t really dawn on me what voices I was hearing. And no, I’m not schizophrenic. No, I don’t have multiple personality disorder. But back in the 1960s and seventies, if you showed even a smidgen of intuition, they slapped you. You’re crazy as a bedbug sticker on your forehead, and they’d give you meds and you’d have to go to a psychiatrist and figure out all these. All these questions. Why? I wasn’t crazy. I was clear audience, which means I just. I knew how to listen. Who was I hearing? It could have been the angels, could have been God. Doesn’t really matter, did it? And so when I was 16, my parents. My father decided that I was kind of a troubled teen. So he sent me to outward bound when I was 16. And it’s this outdoor program where you go canoeing and you go, you know, you go in the woods and you climb mountains and you rappel off cliffs, scared of heights. So that wasn’t my favorite part, but the part that transformed me is they put you in the woods by yourself for three days with no food, no human contact, check on you once a day, but they don’t talk to you. And they had the campsites spread out. I was the only one that didn’t get wet because I put my tent up correctly. Still proud of that 50 years later.

00:07:55 – Dwight Heck
Awesome.

00:07:56 – Katharine Giovanni
I was allowed to bring a pen and paper and, you know, like a journal type of thing. And I’ve always been a good writer, so I used to write questions down, and I used to hear the answers in my mind, and I was. It’s almost like I had conversations for three days, and I realized I didn’t like the person that I. That I was. I didn’t like who she was. I didn’t like what she was saying. I didn’t like the fact she was angry. I didn’t like any of it. So I just decided to change, and I decided to be a. And I still have the journal from way back, but I decided. I wrote it down. I wanted to be a lighthouse. I wanted to show my family how to do it right. So I changed, and I went out after the solo, and all the counselors said, what happened? No camper has ever changed as much as you. And I just couldn’t tell them what I did, because once I figured out what I could do, I didn’t tell anybody. And when I mean anybody, I mean nobody. So I just looked at them and said, I just decided to grow up. And it took me a good 20 years to become the person I wanted to be, because I was a kid. I was 16. It just. I had. I had a little growing to do. Life had to smack me around a little bit. But I didn’t tell anybody about that little bird on my shoulder, which, of course, I wrote about, because I’ve written a lot of books. Until I hit my. Until I hit my forties. I kept it quiet. I didn’t even tell people in the concierge industry, I would get. I would kind of get information for people, and I would mask what I said by looking and say, Dwight, have you ever thought about doing dot, dot, dot? You know, it’ll be great for you. Here’s what you should do. Dot, dot, dot. And when I got really close to somebody and somebody. How could you possibly know that? I’d say, yeah, experience. I didn’t tell anybody. But if you can imagine a Fortune 500 company and everybody being allowed to be intuitive, because everybody on the planet is intuitive, you either see it, hear it, feel it, or know it, and everybody does it. Nobody. There’s nobody not does it. Everybody’s intuitive. Can you imagine, if you allowed people to openly show their intuition, what that would do to a company, how our world might change? Taking these people like me, who were hiding in the closet, trying to hide what they can do so they can quote, fit in and be normal like everybody else.

00:10:19 – Dwight Heck
Oh, absolutely. Like we, like I mentioned earlier, I raised myself to be abnormal. Right? Does, when you talk about intuition, does that tie into, at all being an empath, being somebody that can pick up on people?

00:10:36 – Katharine Giovanni
Because I don’t use the word psychic, and you’ll never hear me say the word psychic unless I’m explaining this concept. Because the word psychic is, with all due respect to anybody who sells used cars, don’t email me. It’s just an example. But it’s like a, it’s like a used car person or a grifter with a crystal ball. You’re really scared they’re just gonna take you and take your money, that kind of thing. So the word psychic has a real bad reputation. I use intuitive. Now, there are people out there who, who walk into a room and it feels off, or they shake somebody’s hand and it just feels wrong, and they know it feels wrong. Then there’s other people that get themselves into a heap of trouble looking dead in the eye and said, I knew I shouldn’t have done this. I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have done this. That’s intuition. That’s the little bird in your shoulder. That’s what I used my entire life, and that’s how I got through. That’s how I became resilient, because I trusted the little bird on my shoulder. That’s why I’m still alive. It saved my life four times, not that I’m counting. That’s why I found the breast cancer just in the nick of time. I trusted that little bird on my shoulder.

00:11:46 – Dwight Heck
I love this conversation. So, intuition, and then I brought up empath, and we talked about being, you know, it’s about awareness. There’s so many people that avoid, I guess some people might call that intuition, like you call talked about somebody being like a bird on your shoulder or whatever. That little, that little voice. That little voice. I studied a man and went to a few of his conferences named by the name of Blair Singer, and he created a system called a little voice management system, which, and this was more than 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago. And he talked about intuition. He talked about awareness. He talked about being somebody that’s honest with yourself, right? Literally communicating with yourself. There’s nothing wrong with it. Like, you talked about being. Being very unique in which you are, where you talk to yourself. I’ve had conversations with myself for many, many years, and I still, to this day, do it. I’ll sit in here. I’ll sit and I’ll be thinking about something. Sometimes the conversation is still between my six inches. But a lot of times I’ll be vocal about it so that my brain hears it differently. Right. So I don’t know if that makes sense.

00:12:57 – Katharine Giovanni
The formal term for what you do is called clairaudient. It’s called clear listening. And the voice sounds just like your own voice in your own mind, but you ask a question and then you get an answer. So as a child, I thought I was just talking to myself. I’d ask a question, I’d get an answer, and it was. And once it occurred to me that not everybody did that, I completely shut up about it. I didn’t turn the, I didn’t turn the gift off. I just didn’t tell anybody. Nobody want to be put into an institution because that’s what they.

00:13:33 – Dwight Heck
Judgmental.

00:13:34 – Katharine Giovanni
They would judge you. It was the seventies. They would have put me away or judged me or sent me someplace I didn’t want to be sent away.

00:13:42 – Dwight Heck
Well, look at, look at young children today. Like, I look at my grandkids and the younger ones will be playing with, like, superheroes, like action figures or cars. And they’re talking to that action figure. Yeah, they’re talking to that figure and they’re being both sides of the conversation, right? And you look at that natural gift of them being able to be expressive, and then society gets a hold of them in school, which I have an issue with, because the school systems, the school systems are very broken. They don’t, I’m not picking on teachers, they’re just doing what they’re told. The programs need to be developed to foster that growth of that natural wonder, not to squelch it, but to teach them gratefulness, gratitude. To teach them that, yes, forgiveness. Or teach them how to use inappropriate. How they inappropriately use the word sorry. Right. And that. That drives me absolutely crazy. I had conversations with my kids still today. I have it. That’s another thing. Again, we’re going to segue off a few different times, and I’m sorry, we can always go back. But when I think of the word forgiveness, and I think of how you people utilize forgiveness and myself included, and the word sorry, how do they tie together? Do you see a commonality? Like, I know there’s a difference between sorry and forgiveness, but how a society confused the two and maybe define them.

00:15:19 – Katharine Giovanni
In your words, I think they have confused the two. I’m sorry, I forgive you. I’m sorry is more free is more for them. I forgive you is more for me. I know that sounds weird. When I forgive, forgiveness to me, means I want you out of my head. That’s bottom line. I want to stop thinking about you. I want to stop obsessing about you. I want you out of my head now. If I forgive you, it doesn’t necessarily mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don’t. And if I forgive you, I’m not giving a pass. It doesn’t mean that you were right. You’re still unforgivable. You’re still wrong. So in my system that I have in the book on a ten scale, with ten being unforgivable dumpster fire and one being the easiest person in the world to forgive, everybody watching and listening to this broadcast right now, everybody’s thinking of their number ten. And that’s what stops people from forgiving, because you’re thinking of that unforgivable dumpster fire, the person that really hurts you the most. Well, in my world, I want you to start with the number ones. I want you to start with the easy ones. Work your way up to the dumpster fire. Why? And you don’t even have to forgive that number ten person. I’m only the only one on the planet that will ever tell you that. Why? Because there’s so many other people, places and things, I did say places and things that you can forgive before you even get to that dumpster fire. There’s so many other people and things. Einstein proved without a shadow of a doubt that energy is neither created nor destroyed, simply transforms into something else. So when you get mad, what do you think happens? It leaves your mouth and it dissipates into the universe. It does not. It hangs in your energy field, and it will stay there until you clear it. So forgiveness is allowing you to clear your energy field so you can pay attention. Let me give you an example that I, that I like to use. If you’re listening to this podcast, hop over to YouTube and watch the demonstration. I’m about to hold a coffee cup right in front of my face. This coffee cup represents anger and bitterness. Now look at my body language when I first get angry. I can manage my anger. I can hold it off to the side. You and I can still have a conversation. I still have, you know, arms available, easy to hold it off to the side. But the longer I hold on to this anger and bitterness, the more it’s going to start to hurt. So now I have to use two hands to hold it up. And it’s starting to get into my brain, and it’s starting to get into the front of my brain and in my conversations with people. And if I still hold on to it now it’s in front of me, I can’t see Dwight at all. It’s all I can think about. It’s all I can talk about. And even if I spin the stories funny, it’s all I’m talking about. So now my friends have gone down. So how do I get the glass to. How do I get rid of the anger? It’s through forgiveness. Forgiveness is selfish. You do it for you. You do not do it for them. It’s all about you.

00:18:24 – Dwight Heck
That’s so powerful. You know, I’m going to add into this as another segue. I believe that every guest I’ve had on coming up on four years has been destined to be my guest, and me destined to be their friend and have a conversation with him. Because a lot of what you’re talking about, I used to always tell my kids, when you forgive somebody, you’re forgiving so that you can let go of it. That’s right. And we can segue into this, too. And I used to always tell them, you know, you don’t necessarily have to go and say such and such, I forgive you because at the end of the day, they most likely aren’t even thinking about you. You’re putting more energy and effort into it than they are, and you just haven’t let go of it. They have a type of personality, not necessarily that they let go of it. They just don’t care. They’re just. They’re just toxic. So you can be somebody that can say, you know what? I forgive this person, and I forgive myself for allowing that negative energy to cloud my judgment, to be that cup in front of my face. Right. And I still talk about that today. I still practice everything that I talk about or that you’ve mentioned, and I will till the day I take my last breath. But at the end of the day, it’s okay. So one of the things you talk about, too, I put in my. I haven’t even looked at my notes, but I know I did because I put all this prep into it is you don’t really believe that you have to forgive somebody, or do you believe that you have to forgive them face to face? Like what? What. What is up with that? Myself, I don’t think you need to. But, hey, I’m open to learning different things.

00:20:02 – Katharine Giovanni
A couple things you talked about energy. I did not pay him to say that, but it’s a perfect segue. Everybody. The special sauce to the whole system is the reason people don’t stay forgiven is because you didn’t forgive the energy. Everything, including this microphone, has energy around it, everything on our planet. So forgiving the energy is going to allow the whole thing to shift. Now, that being said, in my world, you don’t have to talk to these people. You don’t have to. You can do it in the privacy of your own home. You’re forgiving for you. So where they are or are not doesn’t matter. So you could forgive dead people because it doesn’t matter where they are. These people, even if they’re not alive anymore, they’re still alive in your head. And that’s where you want to get them out. So you don’t have to talk to these people. You can do it all in the privacy of your own home. And my process is I forgive the person, the energy around the person, forgive myself, the energy around myself and the whole energy around the whole thing. So let me give you a couple examples. Let’s say you’re driving down the road, you stop at a red light and you look to your left and you see the school you used to go to. And maybe you were bullied in that school and you don’t look at it every day, but today you did. So by the time you get to work, you’re grumpy. And it’s nobody’s at work fault that you’re grumpy, but you just. Your brain went back into the past. So what do you do if you can’t forgive the bully themselves? And it may not be even appropriate for you to do so? Pull out other things in the dumpster. That’s why I call it a dumpster fire. Pick out pieces of the memory. Forgive the school, the energy around the school. Forgive the table, the chair, the bench. Forgive the playground. Forgive the people who stood around and didn’t do anything. And the energy around all these people. Personally, I forgave 1974 the whole year. Just forgave 1974 and the energy around 1974. Why? Because that year was a dumpster fire for me. It was the 8th grade when I tried to commit suicide. And I did pick out the other things in that memory. But then I forgave the whole thing itself. You can forgive anything. You can forgive politicians, you can forgive cities, towns, buildings. If it’s holding a memory, a bad memory in your head, you can forgive it and get it out of your head. So I get asked all the time, say, well, I don’t want to go back to my childhood. It was horrific. I understand that and I’m only asking you to go back a few more times so you can clear it forever. I did have a dysfunctional youth and I can now look back at my youth and I can pick out the pockets of love. I can pick out the pockets of laughter. And I could probably remember the horrible things if you asked me to, but it’s all gotten fuzzy now. I actually don’t remember it as much. I remember the love that was there and that’s. You can literally change your past by forgiving this. But it’s. This is an onion. It’s like peeling back the layers of the onion. You can’t get a number ten person down to a one overnight. Not going to happen. Because what you’re going to do is you’re going to use my mantra and you don’t need to hold crystals unless you want to. You don’t need to burn incense unless you want to. You can dance around the room if you want to. Doesn’t matter to me, but it’s a simple, simple mantra. And you can’t get a ten down to a one. You might get it to a nine. But then your brain is a wonderful tool and it protects you. So as you forgive the first layer, you’re going to remember things that you probably don’t, that have you, that you’re going to remember things that you’ve probably forgotten. So you’re going to have to make another pass at it and then maybe another pass. A lot of people call this shadow work because you’re working on the shadows from your past and it’s going to take. It’s going to take a minute. But if you start with the easy ones, your life is going to change because you’re going to start to pay attention. You won’t be paying as much attention to the anger. You’re going to see job opportunities. You’ll be able to see ways to make more money, maybe a dream relationship. Why? Because you were so focused on all your anger before. Now you can pay attention to the good stuff.

00:24:22 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. Listening to you explain that, and I think about the past and I think about the toxic things that happen in my own childhood or even clients that I work with, we compartmentalize and people say, I’ll just bury it. Bury it. No, don’t bury it because it affects. It affects who you are as a young adult, a middle aged older adult. It affects you right up to when you pass. And forgiveness for me, like forgiving the bullies in my life or highlighting, like you said, the love that happens in those specific points and journeys of our lives. People think it’s difficult to highlight that. No, it’s not. It’s more difficult for you to continue to compartmentalize and struggle to hold it in. And that trigger point, like you said, going by a school where it triggers you, or going by a job that fired you, for an example. Or it could be you got fired.

00:25:22 – Katharine Giovanni
Sure.

00:25:23 – Dwight Heck
Or maybe you drove by an ex’s house and because you have to, it’s a journey for you to get to where you need to go and to. And. And like you said, I love how you put that. Then all of a sudden, you get to work and you’re grumpy or whatever. And the self awareness part needs to come in because most people don’t. Aren’t self aware that that was a trigger because they’ve sat all these years and just, oh, let’s. Let’s push it down. Let’s push it down. And instead of accepting their. Their inner self, their feelings and their emotions about it. And just for me, I give it up to God. Right? You know what, God? What is your will? I’m giving this up because this person, this is my awareness of what this person did, and it’s still hurting me. So I forgive them. I forgive myself for letting it get to that point, and I’m moving on. And sometimes I have to do it more than once. Is that typical or is like you said, you talked about the onions to go from ten, nine, and it’s maybe never get to one. So that’s why I personally think that I’m a working project. Right. So there’s some times that I thought I accepted things. And like you said earlier, they’re. They’re like a haze or, you know, they’re not clear anymore. But if sometimes things will happen in my life where things will creep back in that I thought that I dealt with, and then I have to re. Go back over it again. So that is typical.

00:26:51 – Katharine Giovanni
That is. And I apologize for the cough. It’s a leftover from COVID that I had a while back.

00:26:56 – Dwight Heck
That’s okay.

00:26:57 – Katharine Giovanni
The gift that keeps on giving.

00:26:59 – Dwight Heck
I’ve had it twice, so I get it. Yes.

00:27:03 – Katharine Giovanni
But, you know, if it’s family or a business partner, a lot of people’s numbers, eight, nines and tens, if you will. A lot of the time it’s family. Families will mess you up. And I don’t think half the time they mean to, but it does. Everybody I. Everybody I meet has something in their past with their family that’s just messed them up. And you’ve been carrying that. And I’ve been. I’ve talked to a few people who said, listen, it fuels my fire, my bitterness, and my hate. And what happened to me is a reason I am who I am today. That’s how I could make all this money. It’s. It’s my life. It’s my banner. I mean, I survived this, and now I’m sharing my story, that kind of thing. Okay. It did get you very far. 100%. It got you very far. Your hate and anger probably fueled your car for a very long time. But that’s the local train. Wouldn’t you rather take the express love and forgiveness will get you farther, three times faster and three times higher than hate ever will. Because if you use your hate to fuel your fire, you’re going to get, every time. Dick and Harry flu bug that’s out there now. I can prove it through science. There was a study done by a japanese researcher called Masumoto. It’s called the japanese water study. And I’m going to simplify this completely. I just did a video about it the other day, actually took two containers of water. One container of water he spoke nothing but love to beautiful, wonderful words. The other container of water spoke hate, negativity, horrible, awful words. Then he put it under a microscope. The water he spoke nasty things to had these black and brown malformations. They were nasty looking. And the water he spoke love to had these beautiful, crystalline, gorgeous formations. Why am I telling you this? The human body is almost 98% water. So when you have bad self talk or you’re angry and bitter and you refuse to forgive, what do you think you’re doing to the water cells in your body? That’s the how behind anger is toxic. That’s why anger and stress will literally kill you, because you’re literally changing the molecules in your body.

00:29:19 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, you become a magnet for everybody and anything. And even. Even if you talk about hatred, feeding, not fire and stuff, everything that we say, toxic, even not to ourselves, but to other people, it ends up coming back to you and you surround yourself.

00:29:37 – Katharine Giovanni
Australian boomerang.

00:29:39 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. You surround yourself with people that are conducive to wanting to be angry. They’re feeding your anger. And you never have a sense of gratefulness or gratitude for life. And I see that myself with people that are sick all the time. And the other thing that happens when you’re angry all the time and feeding that anger that can’t survive forever, so then you’re going to. All of a sudden, you’re going to have people that grow out of you. Maybe they find their light and they’re gone. You’re going to start losing people. You’re going to only attract the negative people. But it’s not enough to keep you. It’s not perpetual motion of a good life. You’re going to be sick all the time. Turn to addictions. I see that with a lot of angry people. Sure. Alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, sadness addicts, anger addicts.

00:30:34 – Katharine Giovanni
Better.

00:30:35 – Dwight Heck
Yeah.

00:30:36 – Katharine Giovanni
Anger, it’s, it’s, it’s hard because it’s become your story. And without your story, who are you? Kind of scary, isn’t it? If I don’t have my story, then who am I? Well, may I submit to you that you will be the person you were always meant to be until you were so paying attention to the anger. Once you put the anger down, now the real person can come out, the person you were always meant to be, whether it be a teacher or whoever it is, now they can come out. Now you can pay attention to life around you. Anger is completely toxic. But once you start to lose the anger, your life will change. Now you will lose friends, probably because you’ve attracted. Jim Rohn said, I’m the sum of the five people I spend the most time with. So if you all of a sudden start to get happier and exhibit more joy, the people who love the negativity and who love who, the narcissists and all the people, they’re going to probably not want to be around you anymore because you’re not like them anymore. But the good news is you’ll attract different people into your life.

00:31:39 – Dwight Heck
Oh, yeah. They fall away with you.

00:31:41 – Katharine Giovanni
You may have to do it more than once, especially if you live with them.

00:31:45 – Dwight Heck
Absolutely. I get people talking to me all the time that I, we have conversations and I coach them. Clients, even on the finance side, because their financial lives are in disarray. A lot of times it’s because of their, their six inches between their ears. Their brain doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie. And they believe those stories. They tell themselves about boohoo, woohoo, about anger or whatever. And I’ll tell them, you know, first and foremost, let’s look at the people around you like you talked about, the five closest people, whether it can be family, friends. And I’ll tell them that here’s a percentage system that I’ve been using now for seven, eight years with my clients and myself. Actually be cognizant of your, of your energy. Do you have triggers? Well, I don’t think I do. Okay. Well, so we’re going to start working on seeing if you have triggers and we’ll have conversations. How do you feel when I say this? And I’ll say, so now, when you’re around these people and your family or your friends, are you the type of person that can’t wait to see them again? Or you’re thinking to yourself, you’re looking at your watch constantly and you’re going, oh, gosh, I can’t wait for this to be over, and I hope I don’t have to see them in it for six, eight months or never, or are you the type of person that goes, well, you know, 70% of the time, I can’t wait to see this person again. I call it the 70 30 principle. And 30% of the time they say something doesn’t really resonate with me. And when I say something, it isn’t always verbal. It can be written, it can be in a text, it can be what they post. It can be something you overheard them say to somebody else. But if you’re, if you ever get to a point where somebody is 50 50 or 50% of the time, you’re not sure if we’re walking into a landmine or if you’re walking into joy and happiness, I would say, that person shouldn’t be in your life. And people will say, well, that’s impossible. That’s my aunt, my uncle, my mom, my dad. Okay, so you have a connection to family unity where you’re going to have a couple events a year. Here’s what you do. Supper’s at five. You go at 445 or 440. You have your niceties and your little, because you don’t want to, you don’t want to poke the bear, eat your meal right, have your dessert, have a few more niceties, and leave 35 to 45 minutes later. Well, how can I do that? Easy. You say, you know what? I have other plants. And they’ll say, well, what happens if I don’t? You always have other plans. What do you mean you also have other plans. I have a plan to protect my six inches between my ears so I’m not lying. I always have a plan. I have plans. I have to go. And what my plan is, is to protect me. I know I have to be around you because you’re my parent or my uncle and sister, brother, cousin. But all the other people that aren’t within that family circle that you get together with a couple times a year, they literally, they go this way and they’re forking the road. I go this way, and I never communicate with them again. I literally severed ties with them. They say, how successful you’ve been. I said, I’ve done it many times over the last 30 years. I started my personal development journey in 1993, and I’ve continually grow. I’m continually on the climb to not stay camped. And I literally practice that with everybody that comes into my sphere. You talked about handshake. Whether you feel that negative energy or whatever. If I do feel something negative because I’ve been told I’m an empath, I literally will then ask questions. Not intrusive questions, but just questions to see how they respond. And then I watch their body language because I love being a student of nature. Right? So everything we’re talking about, Katharine and myself, is a working project. You constantly, you’ll hone, you’ll develop, you’ll get better. You might slide back or run on the ladder, but that’s okay because now you’ve developed processes that’ll help you go three rungs back up and you only slid one right. Life isn’t perfect. At least for me, it isn’t right. I have to continually work on being the best version of me and forgiving people, acknowledging that they’re hurting me, and forgiving myself for allowing that and using that 70 30 principle I’ve got rid of. My circle of friends is down now to maybe five. Before, I used to think, oh, I got to have 50, 6100. I got to be the, you know, walk in the room and I’m the center of attention. I don’t care for it. Right. Well, that was in my twenties. I was in my twenties. Right now I’m in my late fifties.

00:36:05 – Katharine Giovanni
Let me add to the holiday thing. Let’s say I do not have an Aunt Martha, which is why I named this fictitious person Martha, because I don’t have an aunt name. Let’s say you’re going to Christmas, and every Christmas you sit next to Aunt Martha. You’ve asked your parents to stop doing that. But every Christmas, some reason, there she is sitting next to you. Aunt Martha drinks a lot, and the more she drinks, the more hate and negativity comes out of her mouth. And after all these years, she knows how to press your buttons, and she delights in making you mad. You hate it. It’s awful. So what do you do? Okay. A couple weeks before Christmas or even a month before, I want you to go through my forgiveness process. I want you to forgive Aunt Martha, and I want you to forgive the energy around Myunt Martha, forgive yourself. And the energy around you. And then forgive the energy around the entire Christmas table and everybody there. And then I want you to keep doing that. And after you forgive Aunt Martha, check in with your body. Is she still a ten, or did you move it down to a nine? Are you still kind of feeling bad about it? Do it again in 24 hours. How do you know when you forgive an Aunt Martha, when you can look at her name and there’s zero, and I mean zero emotional charge, you’re not going to forget. I don’t know anybody on the planet who can forget something that happened. Maybe some happy little unicorn is forgotten somewhere in a. In a pretty little field, but most of us can’t forget. But what I can promise you is the zero emotional charge. So what’s going to happen when you go back home for Christmas? She’s not going to bother you as much. You’re probably still going to be sitting next to her. And I would absolutely limit how much time I spend in that house because I would. I arrive, you know, late, leave early, whatever you have to do. But when you’re sitting next to her, it’s not going to bother you. You know what she’s going to say. You know that when she tries to push your buttons, you’ll probably just shake your head. It’s going to take the emotions out of it, and you’re going to feel better, and she’ll probably notice, which will probably make her a little angry because she’s not getting the reaction that she wants. See, you can forgive anything. I forgave cancer. I forgave the energy around cancer. I forgave all of it. It’s a matter of. It’s a matter of your mindset. You can’t control what you get, but you can control how you get through it. And you can control how you get through that dinner with it. Martha?

00:38:30 – Dwight Heck
Oh, absolutely. I just. It just. We just had thanksgiving here. It’s the same sort of idea. I love seeing the people, right? But there’s a couple people I really don’t enjoy seeing, and they weren’t there, so it was kind of blissful.

00:38:46 – Katharine Giovanni
Nice.

00:38:47 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, it was blissful. It was like, oh, I get this warm, fuzzy feeling, and I’m. That was just it. And I stayed longer than I normally would stay because that toxicity or that. Yes. And it just. It made things that much more pleasant and. Yeah, because I know some of my family listen to my podcast. I won’t be specific, but hey, you.

00:39:09 – Katharine Giovanni
Know, like walking on it. You don’t like walking on eggshells around people. Come on now, do I?

00:39:13 – Dwight Heck
No. Have you ever read walking is fun?

00:39:15 – Katharine Giovanni
Said nobody ever.

00:39:17 – Dwight Heck
No. And there’s a book by that title that I’ve read walking on eggshells. But anyway, there’s a, yeah, there’s so many different things that we can do to change our lives and we just realize that we have a choice in life. There’s no maybes. I tell people that a lot of the time there’s no maybe I’ll do this. You either do or you don’t. You either can or you can’t. Quit telling your mind or telling other people out loud, oh, can you do this? Oh, maybe I’ll let you know. You’ve already told your mind already is giving you an answer. You just, oh, yeah, they’ve already shut it off. You’ve already, you’re just not bold enough to say, you know, no, that’s not going to work for me. And it’s called boundaries. And that’s something I still work on, especially when I have five kids. All right, having boundaries. And, and I teach people this. Maybe I’d like to have your take on this, too. Text, phone calls, emails, you do not have to respond to them right away. You do not have to, you know, somebody calls you and it takes a split second for me to know if I’m in the right headspace to take that phone call. It can even be a client. And if it’s a client listening, I’m sorry, sometimes I’m working on something, I’m in a different headspace. I’m not in the right headspace to take that phone call from the client. My, my kids, my parents, I let it go to voicemail. I know my parents in their eighties are like, ah, you have to answer everything. Ah, you got to respond to that text. And, oh, I’m so sorry I missed your text from 2 hours ago. And it’s like, that’s fine, I don’t care. Like, life’s too short for you to worry about your response to somebody and allowing it to trigger you and excite you. And that’s another thing I’ll tell people too. And we talked about this a little bit earlier about talking out loud. I’ll say to people, if you’re angry and you’re texting somebody and don’t send it when you’re done writing it, because sometimes that can be cathartic or you’re doing an email and, or whatever the case may be, maybe it’s a voice memo, maybe it’s something you’ve read, it’s triggered you and you’re going to be a keyboard warrior. Read it out loud and read it out loud more than once. How does your body trigger when you read it out loud? And people go, well, I’ve never tried that. I will. And then people will get back to me and tell me, well, I’ve done that. And, wow, I didn’t send that text. I didn’t send that email. I didn’t do that keyboard warrior post or I reworded it and I talked it out loud until it wasn’t offensive, until it got my point across. But it wasn’t based on anger and hostility. It was based on trying to understand, trying to articulate a thought process. And as, and if you’re worried about negativity back at you, then you shouldn’t send it at all.

00:42:13 – Katharine Giovanni
Just, I tell people to wait 24 hours and then read it again. And I’ve also, I’ve also told people to burn it. Please don’t burn your house down.

00:42:24 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, please. We’re not. Yeah, we’re not condoning fire in your house.

00:42:29 – Katharine Giovanni
No, we are not. But you could write it and get it out. Now, one of the things you can do is because my method is all by yourself, there’s two things you can do. You could do it with a buddy, and this has to be a very close buddy that you could be emotional with and show all the skeletons in your closet to. So it’s got to be somebody you trust. But you can also talk to the chair. If you have somebody, let’s say they’ve passed away, so you can’t tell them what you really wanted to tell them. Sometimes a visual helps. So you put a chair in front of your chair, maybe a picture of the person, and now get it out. Say anything you want, yell at them, scream at them, do whatever you want, throw something at them, doesn’t matter. And then once you’ve gotten that out of your system, then do my mantra. And it’s probably because you’re talking to a chair. You’ll probably label them a eight, nine or ten. You’re probably going to have to do it a few more times to get to back that down. But, yeah, you can. You can talk as much as you want. Now, if you’re the type of person that does want to reach out and talk to people, do it. If that’s. If that’s what you need to get closure. I never felt the need to do that. I have forgiven everybody, including my number tens, alone in a room because I just don’t feel the need to tell anybody that I’ve forgiven them. And they probably don’t care. They’re living their life. They don’t care. They don’t know you’re mad at.

00:43:51 – Dwight Heck
They’re not even thinking about you.

00:43:52 – Katharine Giovanni
They’re not even thinking about you.

00:43:54 – Dwight Heck
No. Even Aunt Martha that poked you to get you upset. Once she leaves, she don’t give a shit about you.

00:44:00 – Katharine Giovanni
She doesn’t care. She got her laugh. She got her, her joy in making you miserable. And now she’s moving on to the next victim. My mother used to say, every family’s the same, only the names have changed. So we all have an aunt Martha. We all have, you know, the couple aunts and uncles and these relatives that they walk in and you’re like, ugh.

00:44:19 – Dwight Heck
Well. And people don’t. They’re shocked by this. You might. Well, I have, my dad’s one of 18 kids. My mom’s one of nine kids. 18? Yes. I have over 61st cousins on my dad’s. Yeah, I have over 61st cousins on my dad’s side of the family. I maybe know what five of them are doing in life. The rest are like, bye bye, I don’t want you around in my life. I don’t care to see you. I don’t care to communicate with you. And then I’ll reach. I’ll run into one of their relatives that I get along with, and they’ll say, such and such has said this about you and that about you, especially when I brought my book out, all the negativity from my relatives, and I go, oh, that’s nice.

00:45:01 – Katharine Giovanni
Yeah.

00:45:02 – Dwight Heck
We don’t seem upset. Why would I care? They’re not in my life. They don’t add any value to my six inches. They don’t make me feel good about myself when I was younger, got older, seen them at family reunions, and now I just. I don’t care. Well, they’re your relative, right? And then that blood is thicker than water.

00:45:21 – Katharine Giovanni
Walking away is healthy. My family is the people I choose to call family. Well, blood is thicker in water. Not always.

00:45:30 – Dwight Heck
Exactly.

00:45:31 – Katharine Giovanni
I can’t choose your family, but you can. I have close friends who are closer to me than, sisters are closer than family. And, you know, you’re. You’re. You’re the relatives you were born with. You could choose to get to know or choose not to. Walking away is healthy. If you’ve got a narcissist, for example, in your family, boundaries are healthy. Walking away is healthy. They’re going to gaslight you. And so walking away is healthy. I have walked away from a lot of people over the years for my own mental health. Well, my husband will say what they think about me is none of my business.

00:46:08 – Dwight Heck
Absolutely right. And I have people in my life. I have people in my life that, you know, brothers from another mother, sisters from another mother, people that aren’t blood related that I’m closer to and I trust with. And you mentioned earlier in our conversation about having that person where you can just tell them everything, right? I haven’t told, I’ve told some people that aren’t blood related things about my life that my family, my children, my mom and daddy don’t know. And at the end of the day, I feel zero guilt of protecting me because in order for me to be the best servant of others, I need to protect me. And every time in my life where I slide and I fall backwards and I have to pick myself up from that circumstance is always a forgiveness moment for me. Forgive myself for allowing that person to trigger me when in the past they haven’t triggered me in ten years or whatever. Right. All I’m tell reason I was telling that is that you’re human. So, you know, don’t expect perfection from yourself either. That to me, that’s impossible. Right? You just need to love, live life, avoid, go late, leave early, like you said, or whatever. Like I said, I just come at a specific time. I leave at a specific time. And when people, you know, hey, what are you up to? Can you get together people in my past that haven’t heard from them in years and, you know, oh, I’m extremely busy in my life right now, and I might not be busy. I might have time to see them. But what I’m extremely busy is protecting myself because I know that person’s toxic and it just doesn’t pay to stoke the fire, throw gas on it, poke the bear. I don’t need to put myself in that circumstance. So I absolutely love this conversation. What would you so repeat? What is your mantra again? Have you.

00:48:05 – Katharine Giovanni
The mantra is, I completely forgive you, and I completely forgive the energy around you. Insert the person’s name. Now let’s use Martha. I completely forgive aunt Martha. I completely forgive the energy around aunt Martha. I completely forgive myself for anything I may or may not have done. I forgive the energy around myself. I forgive the energy around both of us. And so it is. That’s it. It’s a very simple thing. Put your hand in your heart when you say it, because the words are really just for the humans in the room. It’s the energy that makes the difference. It’s the energy that you’re putting out and the energy you’re forgiving that actually makes the difference. And forgiveness energy is serious. I. Let me tell you a story. I forgave a childhood friend of mine, and I have no memory of why we stopped speaking. No memory. It was back in the 1970s. So who remembers? So I decided, easy number one person to forgive hadn’t spoken to this person in maybe 30, 40 years. So I sat and I said that mantra. I imagined my childhood friend as she was, as I remembered her, was standing in front of my bed. And I forgave her. And, you know, I really meant it. And my shoulders felt immediately lighter. It’s really weird, but it does happen. I felt a kind of an energy come out of my solar plexus, which is in the middle of your stomach, right below your ribcage, right above your belly button. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I had forgiven her. 2 hours later, she calls me up on the phone.

00:49:36 – Dwight Heck
Wow.

00:49:37 – Katharine Giovanni
I’m a concierge by training. So my concierge training kicked in and we said all the right words and made all the right noises, and we forgave each other and we reminisced. And after a while, I’m a curious little bear. And I said, I have to know, after all these years, why did you choose today of all days to call me? She said, you know, it was the darndest thing. We’re 700 miles apart at this point. It was the darndest thing, a figurine you gave me way back in school 2 hours ago, which was when I was saying the mantra fell off my shelf and landed in the middle of the floor. And I saw it and figured, I should probably call you after all these years.

00:50:14 – Dwight Heck
Wow.

00:50:14 – Katharine Giovanni
So if forgiveness energy has the power to move a figurine 700 miles away or change the water molecules in your body, for a number one level person, can you imagine what it will do to your life for higher level people, can you imagine what it would do if you forgave 1015 people? Imagine what that would do to your health and your life.

00:50:38 – Dwight Heck
Wow.

00:50:39 – Katharine Giovanni
Serious science we’re talking about now. One little PSA. I am an overachiever. Well documented overachiever. And so when I came up with this system, my friends and I, I got my list together and it must have 50 people on it. And I thought, this is going to be great. I’m going be like a phoenix rising from the ashes. I’m going to be like a butterfly coming out of the cocoon. I’m going to forgive all these people. I’ll do it before bed. So then when I wake up tomorrow, new mirror, I’ll be a new person. Yeah, right. Didn’t work out that way because I spent. I did forgive all those people. I did do it before bed because your body heals itself in its sleep. So I want everybody to do it before bed. But I forgave too many people. And I spent the next three days in bed with what everybody thought was a stomach flu. It was not the stomach flu. Remember that japanese water study? My cells just had to catch up, and my body was trying to clear the anger and negativity out in the only way it knew how. So when you do this process, I really want you to only do ten people at a time. Do as I say, not as I do. Don’t make yourself sick. Do it before bed. And it’s a nightly practice that I practice every night. And I also think of the things I’m most grateful for. And then I do ten forgiveness people or things or places, whatever I decide, I want to forgive that night. And I usually have a list in front of me. And if some people, most people are just super tired after the practice, even ten people, they just unexplainably get very tired. Other people. You might be in the bathroom a little bit, didn’t eat a piece of bad fish. It’s just your body clearing out some cells. I’m trying to be as polite as I can, but this is a serious practice that will absolutely change your life. And the thing about it, it works whether you believe in it or not. It’s like the law of gravity. The law of gravity. We can call the law of gravity the law of keeping Dwight on the planet. It doesn’t care. It’s still going to work. Okay. I don’t believe in the law of gravity. Hmm. It’s still not going to care. It’s still going to work. This works. And if you don’t think it worked after you’ve worked, done my worksheets and that kind of thing, if you don’t think you. It worked on a person. Yeah, it did. You just forgave the first layer. You’re just going to just wait up 24 hours, and more memories will come up and more things will enter your mind. Just be patient. It did work. Just keep going.

00:53:06 – Dwight Heck
No, that’s awesome. I love it. It’s definitely something I’m going to have to purchase. Is it on audible as well as or just.

00:53:16 – Katharine Giovanni
It is. It is. I understand not everybody likes to read. So it’s. I have the audiobook available. My younger son and I did the audiobook and we’re still talking to each other. Banner. Banner. We have the audiobook, the paperback and the ebook all available.

00:53:30 – Dwight Heck
Sweet. I’m going to go on to my audible invite, talking to each other.

00:53:36 – Katharine Giovanni
He’s done two of them for me. It’s the only way I can get my, my kids to read my books is to make them produce it.

00:53:43 – Dwight Heck
Sweet. That’s awesome. So one of the things, as we’re getting toward the end of the show, we could have like a five, six hour show, but I don’t. I don’t. I want to give the audience enough about you, but not enough where they think they know it all either. Right? I know. Like you said, you like, you like giving it away and you’ll give it all up because you had somebody else tell you. Why give it all away? Well, at the end of the day, we’ve given them more than enough to think about and you’ve given them your mantra. You’ve talked exactly, but not enough to complete. They have to still put in the effort. They still have to want to. Like I always tell people, any process I teach them, whether it’s life coaching or it’s on the financial planning side, you have to be one of the willingness. If you’re not one of the willing, you’re never going to achieve anything. You’re going to stay stuck. Your brain is a giant computer, needs to be fed information. You’re going to be sick all the time because all you’re feeding it is drama from television, from your friends, family, newspaper, social media, right? You get what you sow, right? Quit sowing the negativity of, you know, seeds and start sowing some positive stuff and watering it and doing things like your mention, right?

00:54:59 – Katharine Giovanni
A lot of people say, well, I can’t, you know, Katharine, because I’ve hit a wall. Okay. No disrespect to life, coaches and speakers out there. Not trying to bash you, really, I’m not. But everybody talks about this darn wall and I’m. Here’s some tools to get through the wall, and here’s a jackhammer. And God will get you through that wall.

00:55:17 – Dwight Heck
That’s a negative, though.

00:55:18 – Katharine Giovanni
Okay, let’s talk about the wall. Take a few bricks. Take some bricks out of the wall. Forgive a couple of people is my point. Then walk around the dumb thing. Keep going. Circle back if you can. Not everybody. And if you don’t want to, circle back. Okay, that’s fine. Here’s what you do. If it’s a number ten person and it’s unforgivable, and it really is unforgivable, you know, there are some things in this universe that are legitimately unforgivable. 100%. So forgive yourself. Forgive the energy around yourself. Pick out some other pieces of the memory. The bed, the table, the chair, the park, whatever it is, and keep going. Forgive what you can and keep going. If you can’t circle back, that’s fine. Just keep going. And maybe a month from now, you’ll be able to forgive other parts of the memory. If you never forgive the individual, I’m fine with that. And you should be, too. Some things are unforgivable. Remember, you do it for you. You’re not giving them a pass. You’re not saying they were right. They were awful. It was horrible. It was the worst thing ever. You’re the victim now. You want to be free. You want them out of your head. You want to live your life again. You want your life back. Forgive what you can and keep going. That’s my message to everybody. Forgive what you can. Just keep going.

00:56:39 – Dwight Heck
And that’s true, because at the end of the day, we communicate and we deal with people on a daily fashion that are always the victim. They’re always playing the role of the victim. They wear it like a proud shield, like a badge of honor.

00:56:54 – Katharine Giovanni
I did it for years. Yes.

00:56:56 – Dwight Heck
Yeah, me too. And those people, like, for example, my ex, always a victim, still at her age today. And, you know, you feel for them, but you distance yourself from people like that, whether it’s family, friends, whoever it is. Because if those listening, if your whole life, you right now are thinking to yourself, well, this isn’t me. And you’re having that victim mentality. You need to have this book. You need to learn these processes. You need to reach out to Katharine. Because at the end of the day, life is in session. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. You don’t know if you have tomorrow, live for the present, even listening to go get the audible. Like, I read so much with my own business. That’s why I prefer audible. I prefer listening to books. Just because I can fit it in. I can be, you know, this isn’t a car.

00:57:47 – Katharine Giovanni
And listen to it.

00:57:49 – Dwight Heck
This isn’t. This isn’t a PSA personal service announcement to anybody. But I have a shower speaker. I put on books, right? I’m in the bathroom getting ready. I shower, do whatever. I shave, and I’m listening to books. Well, I can’t concentrate. Well, then listen to it again. Right. You’re going to get something from it, especially if it’s an author or somebody’s. Yeah, absolutely. I remember listening to Napoleon Hills. Geez. Now I’m trying to think of the name of the book. One of my favorite.

00:58:22 – Katharine Giovanni
I know the book you’re talking about.

00:58:24 – Dwight Heck
I’m not talking. Yeah. Outwitting the devil is one of my favorite.

00:58:29 – Katharine Giovanni
Oh, that’s a different Napoleon Hill.

00:58:31 – Dwight Heck
Oh, you want to. That is amazing.

00:58:33 – Katharine Giovanni
I haven’t heard of that one.

00:58:35 – Dwight Heck
Sharon Lecter got it released in 2011, dealt with the family. It had been in an archive since 1938. Napoleon Hill wrote it, and the publishers would not publish it because it was so toxic at the time. So in 2011, a lady by the name of Sharon Lecter, she’s very famous author and super lady. She literally got that book. And the audio version of it on Audible has two people, one person playing the devil, one person playing Napoleon Hill, and he’s interviewing the devil about politics, about healthcare, about schools, about family life. And it fits today’s niche.

00:59:13 – Katharine Giovanni
You didn’t do that in the 1930s by the. Well, I’m sure it was banned 100%.

00:59:17 – Dwight Heck
Well, it was. He wrote the book in 1938, but they refused to release it, and they found it in an attic. I’m not saying that. With his manuscripts. Right. And she knew the family well. And anyway, it’s like a 13 or 14 hours list. And it is amazing. My point is, though, is that audiobooks, to me, connect. And I’ve listened to that book. I’d be driving, and all of a sudden, oh, I really like that. And it took me longer to listen to it. Some audiobooks, because I’ll rewind. I want to listen to that chapter again. And then there’s books. Like, one of my favorite books is still the five love languages. I’ve listened to it. I’ve read it twice, listen to it three times, love that book. And I still get stuff out of it. And people say, well, that’s just about relationships with your significant other. No, it isn’t. It’s about relationships with everybody. Am I. Yeah. Am I stoking the fire, or am I burning the house down? Right. Am I quashing the fire? Am I calming it? Or am I throwing gas? You know what I mean? Like. But anyway, check that book out. Those listening have heard me talk about it many times. It’s probably my favorite, favorite book that I’ve listened to in the last four or five years. Right? And if you really want to learn, listen to a great book that has some humor to it, some music, and he. And he narrates himself. Matthew McConaughey’s green lights is really good.

01:00:41 – Katharine Giovanni
That’s a good book. And I love Matthew McConaughey.

01:00:43 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. But listening to the audio portion of it, because he narrates it and he has african music he plays.

01:00:49 – Katharine Giovanni
Just listening to his voice, it just puts you in a tizzy because he’s got that. He’s got that melodic voice, doesn’t he? So. Yeah. All right. All right. All right.

01:00:58 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. All right. Oh, yeah. I love it. So one of the last things I want to ask you before we wrap up the show is if you had to give our listener listeners, Katharine, one last closing message, what would you tell them in regards to giving a heck and never giving up?

01:01:16 – Katharine Giovanni
Two things. The first thing, if you are sitting there thinking, I can’t forgive, and maybe you’re thinking, I don’t have anybody to forgive, I submit to you that there’s probably some kind of movie playing in the back of your head that you don’t even know is there? So start out by saying, I forgive myself for not being able to forgive, and I forgive the energy around that thought. Start there and then say that every night for a week. And I’m. I’m, like, 95% sure memories will start to flood your brain. Allow the memories to come, allow your intuition and that little bird on your shoulder to show you the way. And the second part of my message is really geared toward the women listening and watching. You are worthy. You are worthy enough to live a life of joy. You’re worthy enough to live a life of happiness, and we believe you. So many women out there, nobody believes them. They don’t believe what. What they say. They don’t believe that they know their bodies. They don’t believe that they know what’s wrong with them. They don’t believe them when they. When they tell them something. Well, we believe you, and you are worthy enough, and this process will get you where you really think you need to be.

01:02:33 – Dwight Heck
Well, that’s an excellent last closing message. I’m going to highly encourage my daughters to listen to this, because in a world dominated still today by males, women are discounted every single millisecond, not even second of the day. And I was labeled a feminist by one of my daughters a long time ago because I’m constantly standing on a soapbox preaching about equality and listening and, you know, not defining a woman by their gender or a male by their gender. I’ve been a person that says they shouldn’t even have that on our forums.

01:03:13 – Katharine Giovanni
What, are both my sons that way?

01:03:15 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. Like, I don’t care if you, if it’s a medical situation, yes. They need to understand if you were born male or born female because there is genetic differences. But when it comes to an application for the silliest things and they say gender, male, female, I just ignore it. Like, what does that matter? Are you going to conceive notion of who I am to.

01:03:38 – Katharine Giovanni
My older son is a federal law enforcement officer and people will ask him questions like that. You know, they, they a boy or a girl or whatever the question is. And he’ll just look you in the eye and say, it doesn’t matter.

01:03:51 – Dwight Heck
They can both be evil. And they can both be evil.

01:03:54 – Katharine Giovanni
It doesn’t matter. He won’t answer the question. It doesn’t matter. He won’t answer it because it has nothing to do with what’s going on. It doesn’t matter.

01:04:03 – Dwight Heck
Exactly. Yeah. So I appreciate that. So our time’s almost up. I want to respect our listeners and your time. What is the best way people can reach you?

01:04:15 – Katharine Giovanni
You can go to my website, Katharine Giovanni.com. and thanks to my mother, my first name is spelled a little odd and it’s k a t h a r dash n e. Giovanni.com. and the audiobook, the paperback and the ebook is available on Amazon, but all roads lead to Rome. So you can go to my website and click on books and, you know, they’re all right there.

01:04:36 – Dwight Heck
Sweet. I’ll make sure that it’s in the show. Notes. Those that are new to the Giveaheck podcast, go to giveaheck.com, go up to podcast. You’ll see a picture of Katharine and show notes which will show all her links to any social media that she has as well as the link to her website. I highly encourage you to check out the book. I know I’m going to because I’m always trying to elevate my game. And even if you haven’t started elevating your game, Katharine said it in her, in her final thoughts. Forgive yourself for not being able to forgive and go from there. So any last messages you’d like to give before I say my closing statement?

01:05:16 – Katharine Giovanni
No, just that they got this. Just trust yourself. You know, it’s, it’s your birthright to live a life of joy. We’re not meant to live in a refrigerator box on the street, which is not. So you got this.

01:05:30 – Dwight Heck
Yeah. You’re so correct. Those that are listening to the show, do me, do Katharine and yourself a favor. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with those that you love and even those that you don’t love. Maybe that’s the first time you reach out to them and you send them a link to this podcast so that they too can give themselves an opportunity to live a purposeful life. Like my book is titled how to live life on purpose and not by accident, right? You too have the seeds of greatness in you, and you deserve to water it. Well, maybe there’s a few people out there that you want to water their seeds. Maybe. Who knows, maybe you both reconnect because of it. Maybe it’s because that forgiveness has never been ingrained in you, and now it can be. I look forward to listening to the book. Those of you that like reading have at her right do whatever works for you, but just don’t quit. Take that first baby step to change your life. So again, thanks Katharine for being on. I really appreciate your time. So thanks so much for being on. Give a heck Katharine, I appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences so that others too can learn. It is never too late to Give a Heck!.