Episode #44: Interview with Donna Tashjian

Today we dive deep into the art of 'Living a Life by Design,' revealing six incredible superpowers you already possess but might not be aware of. How can you unlock these hidden abilities to transform your daily life? Tune in to discover practical tips and inspiring insights that will empower you to take charge of your destiny.

Listen Here:
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Show Notes:

• Donna Tashjian, founder of Vibrant Living International, shares insights on living a life by design.

• Six superpowers: Imagination, Intuition, Will, Memory, Reason, and Perception.

• Donna emphasizes the ongoing nature of personal growth and the value of intentional living.

• Vibrant Living, established almost 11 years ago, continues to evolve.

• Donna's coaching varies based on individual needs, focusing on unique stories and progress.

Key Takeaways:

• Rediscover the power of imagination for envisioning positive outcomes.

• Embrace intuition as a tool for guidance and decision-making.

• Distinguish between willpower and the will to hold onto dreams with an open-minded approach.

• Use memory to project oneself into the future and envision desired outcomes.

• Apply reasoning creatively to expand thinking and find new solutions.

• Cultivate a positive self-perception to align with capabilities and aspirations.

Transcript:

Welcome back to Better Than A Pill. Today, I am so excited to have Donna Tashjian on as a

guest and Donna is the founder of Vibrant Living International, a nonprofit organization where

she helps bring accelerated transformation to people across the world. Her passion is to help

people reach their full potential. And today Donna is going to be sharing with us how to live a life

by design, as well as letting us know about six superpowers we already possess but are not

aware of so welcome Donna.

Thank you, Carrie. It's a pleasure to be here today.

Great. I'm so excited to have you in. You know, before we dive into the topic, can you just start

off by telling us a little bit about your story and how you got involved in doing the work you do?

Currently I am a life mastery coach and I am the founder of Vibrant Living International.

I also have a podcast that I've had for five years. I'm an author. A mom, a wife, a grandmother,

you know, how those all those hats that we believe that we wear and, um, can truly say, I love

my life, but it didn't always feel like that. And when we look at it. The time that I've lived, when

you start adding up decades, um, you start looking back and reflecting over your life and

noticing how much your life has changed when you have learned how to create a life by design.

And so where I began my journey, as I was a mother at 15, um, my forecast for my future was

not bright. Uh, And it felt like all of my dreams had come crashing down. No one anticipates

that kind of thing. It wasn't by choice that it occurred. And so I found myself very insecure

already from other things in my life, as well as really fearful for the future and what that would

look like.

So I did raise my daughter. Um, we have an amazing relationship. Um, and I have other

children, but learning to be able to figure out how to rise above those labels that get put on us,

no matter what our past was, no matter what we, what we grew up when we all have them,

something we say we're not good at, or we can't do, or we're not smart enough, or something

enough.

Um, and so all of that was where I share that where I am today comparatively to, to show, I

mean, where my, where I could have ended up was not a pretty picture, uh, was not anyone

who has an international ministry helping, helping people around the world. I did not foresee

that, uh, in my future. I did know.

At a very young age, I was going to help people what that looked like. That's all I knew. When

somebody said, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'm going to help people. I didn't

know exactly how that would look and how that would come about. Um, I began in nonprofit

organizations, mentoring people.

Um, and I was, so that was a volunteer basis, but I have been doing mentoring and we would

have called it coaching, uh, for over 25 years. But Vibrant Living didn't start till 10 years ago,

almost 11 now. Um, and it's when I said, what do you actually want to be now that you're all

grown up? What do you love?

What's your sweet spot? And how do you do that? And so the things that I have learned in the

last 10 years have brought me to where I am today on how to say yes to your dreams, how to

say yes to what your desires, and then how to get them when you've had most of your life

feeling like you're disappointed.

How do you believe, how do you make that type of transition when there's been so much

disappointment? I don't want to get my hopes up. Right. And so that is a little bit about how I got

here. Wow. Thank you, Donna. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. And tell us a little bit

what you mean when you say life by design.

Well, I always felt like. And you can see why, but I always felt like life was happening to me,

and that there is just stuff that's out of our control. And sometimes, in my situation at 15, it was,

uh, but when we feel like we don't have control, that we don't have any choice, we're just trying

to figure out how to survive, then it is filled with a lot of fear and uncertainty, wouldn't you

agree?

Oh, yeah. Thank you. A hundred percent. And so when I realized that I am a co creator of my

life, that I am actually helping to write the story of my life, um, I recently did, um, a live

broadcast and I called it the dreams that we have and how we're writing our own story. So if

yours, Carrie, your story was a movie.

What genre would it be? Would it be a tragedy? Would it be like a Rocky movie? Over the

underdog? Overcoming a drama with lots of drama involved? What kind of story do we want to

write? And so when you think about designing your life, ask that question. At the end of my life,

what do I want my story, my movie, to be?

And if you don't like where you are, turn the page and start a new chapter. And it is, I know it

sounds really simple, but it really is. I'm closing the chapter on those thoughts, those limiting

mindsets, those I'm not good enough. And I'm going to get new resources because we can't get

to the place we want to be.

From the same place that we currently are, or we would already be there. And so that's what I

mean by designing a, your life, a life by design. What do you want? And finding out how to get

there. Well said. Yeah. And, and it is simply put, but not so simple, right? Not so simple at the

same time. Absolutely. And how do you simplify that?

Talk a little bit about that to us. One of, um, we talked about gifts that we possess that we're not

aware of. And one of them we've all heard about, but really never thought about it as a gift is

imagination. And if you think about when you were a child, imagination was a wonderful thing

and we could be anything.

And you pretend this and I'll pretend this and then pretend this happens. And, and you feel it and

you're in it and you're being it. And then we start to get into school and they're mad, you know,

quit daydreaming and it just begins to not be cool anymore. And we stop really using our

imagination because it's creative for what it was created for what it was given to us for.

You want to know a secret? What we really use our imagination for as adults. We use it to

terrorize ourselves. We use it, we use it to picture all of the things that could go wrong. And we

feel it, and we are in it. You only have to have a child that was supposed to be home at a

certain time, or someone you love, and they weren't.

And you know what I'm talking about. They're in a ditch, they're bleeding, all the things. And

most of the time we use our imagination to picture what could go wrong. . Mm-Hmm. instead of

what it was for, was to help you create what you would love. And so that is an example of just

learning to shift some of those things.

To be able to use them for what they were created for what God gave them to us for as opposed

to using them. It's using things when we use them incorrectly, the way they weren't designed to

be used. We make life harder. Then it has to be. And we don't, nobody taught us this. We don't

realize this. And so as I begin to uncover these six gifts and other laws that are in place,

because everything was first created from a thought.

Before it became a thing. The chair you're sitting in, someone thought it up. The table we're

sitting at, our computers, somebody thought it up. And you know, somebody was told they were

crazy about the technology that we're using. I was doing some research of the guy in the 1800s

who'd said that he could transport, um, Stuff through the ether was what they said through the

air, they tried to commit him to an insane asylum.

And it was the first radio waves and telegraphs that were done. And so people believe so, you

know, all of the things that we're talking about that we're using was a thought. And some people

were told ridiculous that's not possible, and said, who thought we would hold a computer in our

hands? You know, all of that.

So that is what I'm talking about when I'm saying using these gifts, the way they weren't

designed, it ends up causing us more pain. Right. And so for those people listening today that

really like the idea of, okay, yeah, let's, I want to have a life by design. And so when we've talked

before, there are what you believe are six superpowers.

That is involved in this and imagination is one of them, right? Okay. So what are the other five?

Well, you know, I can't fully describe all of them, but I will touch on them all. The, um, the other

one is intuition. And you, every one of us listening to this have had some kind of gut feeling and

didn't listen and we were sorry.

You know, most of us at least have had that kind of feeling. So learning how to touch, to utilize

your intuition the way it was designed. One of the ways I describe it is there's a few of us that

are old enough to remember computers prior to the internet and they had floppy disks and

whatever we installed on them was all they could access.

They couldn't have unlimited access. It was whatever was put in them. And that's the way our

brains are, if you will, without being, without using our intuition. It's whatever experiences we've

had, whatever somebody's told us, whatever we've been taught, whatever we've read, whatever

has been put in is all we're accessing.

But when you touch, you begin to use your intuition the way it was designed. It's like your

computer hooked to the internet. There's any, you can find out anything. You only have to ask

the right questions. Most of the time we ask, how do I not fail? How do I not get hurt? But it

doesn't really work that way.

It always asks things like, how can I find true love? How can I have healthy relationships? How

can I get healthier? All, how can I do things and begin to use intuition like Google, except it has

a farther reach than Google and learn how. Through practice to combine imagination and

intuition and the, it's, it's just anything is possible.

So those are two. What are your thoughts about that? Oh, I like them. Of course. I think we all

have that intuition in us. And you know, if somebody is having trouble accessing that, right, what

would you tell them? Like, how can they clear that space to really get in touch with their

intuition? Well, getting quiet.

Believing that it's possible is probably another and simply asking the question and it's not that

you always perceive something immediately. But learning that the answers will show up. Have

you ever, well, we have now with online, you, you, you research, you know, a new pair of shoes

and all of a sudden shoes show up in all your feeds, the intuitions kind of like that.

You ask a question and then you start to find answers in different places than you might have

perceived. And so it's just beginning to use it and to believe it's possible. Is the way to begin.

Yeah, and I would agree. I think that sometimes people will say, and I know myself, like I can, I

can hear those voices, right?

But sometimes we want to ignore those voices or we don't like what they're, what they're telling

us. Right. And so, um, so we have to revisit it. And I think sometimes it's about timing as well,

you know. And, um, I do know when you said about imagination, I really like what you, what you

said about how we have shifted from our childlike imagination, um, and dreaming and the

positive to the negative forecast and letting those things set in.

And yeah, how true is that? Yeah. No, absolutely. All right. The next one we've covered to, um,

the next one is will. And I am not talking about willpower. Uh, willpower is like trying to hold a

beach ball in a swimming pool under the water, you can do it for a while, but pretty soon, you

know, sooner or later that ball's going to come up.

And to me, I, I liken this to, to, um, perhaps dieting in some extreme way. Um, you can do it for

a little while, but it isn't maintainable to be able to be healthy. So we'll, what I'm talking about is

holding on to what you dream, what you would desire and not letting it go, but holding on with

open hands on how it's going to arrive.

And so I'm not trying to force anything. Will is. Being persistent, but not determining how it

necessarily will arise. So there's an ease to it. I think you can hear it in my voice. There is a

gentleness to it. And when that's the other thing about intuition, that particular voice, if you hear

that inside is always kind, it's always encouraging.

It's always edifying. It's never demeaning. So it's a good way to determine whether it is your

intuition or whether it's another, it's your, it's somebody, your old teacher's voice or somebody

else's voice that you're hearing. So we have imagination, we have intuition, and we have will.

That's number three.

Any thoughts before I move on? Well, Donna, that all makes sense to me. 100%. Okay. The

next one is memory and this one works. Um, it's one of the stories about Alice in Wonderland

and the white queen says to Alice, what did you do tomorrow? And. She's like, what do you

mean? What did I do? What did I do? What did I do tomorrow?

I'm not there yet. How am I supposed to know? And she said, it's a pretty poor memory that

only works backwards. And so it is using your imagination to perceive what you might do in the

future. What would you love to do? Because you really are creating your future by the thoughts

that you think. And so when I think about, uh, forwards of what I would like, let's say you're

going to do a big presentation at work.

And most of us spend time going, I don't want to mess up here and I have to make sure I say

that. And I don't want to put my hands in my pockets too much. And I don't want to say too much

and all of the things that we don't want, and we spend time imagining ourselves trying not to do

those things instead of using our imagination, picturing us nailing it.

And so using your memory forward. It's using your imagination in a way, but it's more pointed.

It's specifically about your future and what you would like to have. You do that on a regular basis

and your life will change. Yeah. That makes sense. It's big. There's a lot of overlap there with

how we're thinking.

Yeah. Imagine. Yeah. I hear you. All right. And the next one is reason. Reason. Reason. And

reason is, uh, Henry Ford said one of the hardest things people do is actually think and reason.

Most of us just rehash what we already think should be or been told should be than actually

thinking creatively. And so using reason is a way to be able to expand what you're thinking and

how you're thinking.

That it is possible, I just haven't thought of the way yet. As opposed to how struggle and stress

and and my face is all scrunched up and it's like, I'm trying to figure this out. Um, and when

we're doing that, we're just rehashing the old thoughts that we've had the old ways that we tried

to solve that didn't work.

Whatever it is. And so it's expanding your thinking so that you can, um, use it, reason in the

proper way. One example I use is one president was known to say, it isn't prudent to put a man

on the moon. And I would have to agree, wouldn't you? It didn't seem prudent to put a man on

the moon. That does not seem like a wise thing to do.

But JFK said, we will put a man on the moon and bring them safely back before the end of the

decade. That doesn't seem like prudent thinking, but it was reasoning that he was using his

imagination, intuition, you holding onto the will, I don't know how this is going to happen. And

using reason to be able to say that this is possible and thinking about how that could happen.

So that's number five.

Number six is perception. And perception has more to do with how we see ourselves than

anything else. And learning to perceive yourself right and in a correct way. You've probably, most

of us have seen the image of two animals looking in the mirror. One is a little dog or a cat, they

have both, and one is a big, and the reflection of what they see, the little cat sees a lion in the

mirror, and the big cat sees a little kitty cat, and so it's how we perceive ourselves that has

more to do with what we can believe for.

What we can believe is possible. And so when all of these gifts work in harmony together, and I

teach on how to do that, but when they all work in harmony together, everything changes and

your life by design becomes much easier. Ah, thank you. So tell us a little bit about how you

integrate all these superpowers when you're working with somebody.

Are there stages? How long is the process? Give us an idea of how that works for people that

may be interested. Well, well, um, I work with people as long as they want to work and you

have support for that because each individual is an individual story to be able to, um, learn

these gifts and where they are in their life and how to apply it to their life.

So that is, that variety, you know, varies between different people. As far as how long, this is

something you learn and it's a lifetime. You just continue. There is so much negative. In the

world, learning to do this has to be intentional. For example, when we plant a flower garden or a

vegetable garden and we nurture those little plants and pay attention to them and give them all

the right ingredients, the sun and the water and the fertilizer, we don't plant weeds.

But they still show up. And so we have to be intentional about building a life by design because

the weeds show up and learn to be a, they just do. We just live in that kind of world. We are

surrounded by that kind of environment. So learning to do something intentionally so that it

becomes second nature is what our goals are.

Right. And this is what you're living and this is what vibrant living is to you, your life by design.

Yeah. Yeah. And your life by design includes vibrant living and tell us a little bit about you now,

the final. Oh, well, um, I'm just having a ball being able to assist, especially heart centered

visionaries.

Those people who really do want to make an impact and leave a legacy in the world and help

them to achieve their dreams. So I'm helping those that are helping others. Um, and so that the

ripple effect is incredible to watch what happens when. We begin to live the way that God

designed us in harmony with him, it changes everything.

Life gets easier. It doesn't mean circumstances don't show up, but it means life still gets easier

and things go smoother and learning how to do that has been transformational. And so what

point in your life, um, were you able to kind of transcend in that direction? More so like when,

you know, kind of give us an idea.

So I know you started off a little bit with your story and, but. You know, it, it, it really began as I

began to learn about that. It was even possible to create a life by design and my life is still being

designed. I have bigger dreams than I'm living in right now. So it's something that is ongoing.

Um, there is no arriving in this.

If you're constantly growing and dreaming, there's always more, there's always bigger. And to

me, more and more, when I use those words, it involves people. More hugs, more people being

loved, more relationships. That's what more means. And in the process, there is more

abundance as well. But that is my focus is helping people to be their best selves, that more is

possible and it doesn't have to be hard.

We don't have to sacrifice our families or our health to achieve our dreams, to achieve what our

purpose is. You are happier when you know you're doing what you love. And when I'm happier, it

changes everything around me. So to say, when did this happen? It's continued to happen since

vibrant living began.

And I really got my first coach. Um, I'd always been helping other people, but I had never

invested in myself. I'd had a lot of mentors that were not investments. I'll put it that way. There

was no financial investment, but when I invested in myself, I got a new caliber. a new caliber of

coaching, a new caliber of growth that I had never had before.

And so doing that changes everything. There's tons of information online, uh, that you could

probably find some of this stuff online, but having someone help you curate it so that you can

apply it to you is priceless. Yeah, that's great. And Vibrant Living has been around now for, for

some time. Yeah.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Donna. This has been great. And you know, for those of you

that want to learn more about Donna's work, I have included the link to her website in this

episode. And remember, we do new episodes every week on Wednesday, and I look forward to

having you join me then.