Women around the world have used THREAD to achieve intentional transformation.
FROM HOPELESSNESS TO A PEACEFUL TRANSITION
I remember like it was yesterday when Sam, who was fifty-seven years old, was dying from cancer. She called me on a Wednesday morning and said, “Leonie, my only wish is to find a way to focus on the Lord as I transition from earth to heaven.” This was the moment I realized the power of THREAD as I used it to help Sam focus on who she was as a beautiful daughter of God, what it would be like to spend eternity with Him, how to release the fear of dying and lean into the peace of knowing God loves her. She’s resting, and I miss her dearly.
FROM NOT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY TO MEET HER NEEDS TO BECOMING MORE SELF-SUFFICIENT
At thirty-eight years old, Sharon was a trauma survivor, widow, and single mother. The sudden loss of her husband left her with PTSD and three children to raise. The eldest is eight years old, four, and the youngest is a four-week-old infant. Her two oldest children have been diagnosed with learning disabilities. Sharon is behind on her rent and utilities and will soon be evicted.
She struggles to feed her children daily and does not qualify for government assistance. She has reliable childcare and stable transportation but struggles to buy gas for her car.
Sharon works as a temporary secretary making $13 per hour, and she brings home about $400 a week. Her rent is $1,200 per month. She loves her job and has aspirations to develop her career.
She has a high school diploma and endeavors to complete her degree, which would allow her to find a better-paying job. She loves storytelling and does a lot of writing at her current job. She dreams of becoming a business leader one day and has a willing attitude to do what it takes to turn her dreams into reality.
In addition to her efforts to meet her family’s needs, Sharon is stressed out all the time. After her husband’s passing, her response was to return to her soul-draining career and work as hard as she could to get noticed by her boss for a promotion. She takes on big projects and finishes them ahead of time. She can’t afford to take a vacation and gets enough rest at night. She used working as an unhealthy coping mechanism.
From the outside, it seemed like Sharon was excelling in her personal and professional life. She shared how, on the inside, she felt unworthy, insignificant, unsuccessful, and dissatisfied with her life. Sharon stacked up the evidence through negative self-talk and thoughts that said, “I’m not good enough,” “things are never going to change for me,” and “I will always be stuck.”
Sharon confides in a friend about her hardships and feelings of defeat because she’s not where she envisioned she would be. She desired more of herself. Finally desperate to do something more meaningful with her life, Sharon realized that if things were going to change, she was the one who had to fix them. When she came to Women Achieve Intentional Transformation (WAIT) mentoring program, her needs were so overwhelming. It would have been easy to just help with the minimum, but that is not what I do.
Sharon was willing to work together to create a solution for her and her children. One of the first things I did was reach out to other organizations that were well equipped to address her basic needs by linking and leveraging existing resources in the community. Through our established network of community-based organizations, she received help for groceries, gas, utilities, and rent. She secured two months’ rent and was connected to scholarships and funding for college.
Sharon set an intention to see her gifts and talents fully expressed in the work she does. As a WAIT mentee, she was provided support and access to THREAD to achieve intentional transformation. With THREAD, Sharon created an action plan with SMART goals she wanted to achieve. These goals included completing her degree, finding a better-paying job, moving into affordable housing, and developing a monthly budget. Within six months, Sharon was connected to and applied for scholarships, re-enrolled in an undergraduate program, created a LinkedIn profile highlighting her writing skills, started her job search, enrolled in a budgeting course, and was on the waitlist for affordable housing.
Sharon started with one big goal of completing her undergraduate degree. With THREAD, she achieved more than she ever imagined. Her results included securing a job that paid her three times the salary she started within the program, writing small business grants for nonprofits in her spare time, and selling courses and self-help resources to support individuals and companies online. She is now building a training program and rebranding herself as a speaker and a grant development coach. She is saving to purchase her first home.
Sharon is an example of intentional transformation and someone moving on the path to self-sufficiency.
FROM BATTLING DEPRESSION TO STANDING IN HER SELF-WORTH AND VALUE
Kimberly was stuck in depression after losing her husband, serving in the military overseas. She used THREAD to determine who she wanted to become. She harvested lessons from the past and realized that since she was a little girl, she loved to sketch drawings. She developed her confidence, created an Instagram page, shared her pictures, and the overwhelming amount of positive response empowered her to start a business selling sketches around the globe. Sharing her gifts with others has ignited joy, hope, and passion for life. She has taken power away from depression and is becoming the woman she has always known herself to be.
FROM SELF-DOUBT TO DOING WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE
Joy struggled to believe that she could do whatever was needed to fulfill her dream of becoming an author. She used THREAD to get a clear idea of the outcome she wanted. She created a space for writing in her home. She honed in on a book idea and drafted a plan with a milestone for how she would bring the book to life. She hired a cover designer for the book. The book cover motivates her to bring her inspirational poetry to reality. She hangs copies of the cover design around her house as motivation to keep writing the book even when she doesn’t feel like it. In the process, she’s deepened her relationship with the Lord, increased her self-confidence, and improved communication with her God, husband, and children.
FROM BEING SINGLE TO HAPPILY MARRIED
Veronica, a forty-three-year-old woman, tried online dating to meet a beautiful life partner but had no luck. After we met and discussed what she felt were the barriers in this process, she quickly realized that she maintained some semblance of contact with her ex-boyfriends and needed to cut them off. Most of the men she kept in touch with were men who could count on her; however, they were not genuine friends that she could count on. She cleaned up her phone contacts, social media pages, photo galleries, closet, and email inbox as a way of cutting ties with her past. Filled with excitement, she set out a solid, firm intention to meet and marry her beautiful soulmate. She wrote down a list of things she wanted in a husband and released the self-limiting belief that it was impossible. She created space in her heart, made room in her schedule to meet and date a high-quality man. She released fear and engaged her friends and family as her accountability partners. She emptied half of her closet, made two keys (for him and her), painted her bedroom a neutral color, paid down her credit cards, and repositioned her life to welcome the man of her dreams. Today, she’s happily married and enjoying life with her God-ordained partner.
FROM BITTERNESS TO FORGIVENESS
Lisa wrote a letter forgiving her parents for not being who she wanted and expected them to be. The same day, she received a Facebook message from a woman she went to school with thirty years ago. In that message, the woman asked her for forgiveness, explaining to Lisa how she needed forgiveness due to an incident in high school thirty years ago. They extended forgiveness to each other and, in doing so, released the offense.
FROM LACKING MOTIVATION TO COMPLETING A GRADUATE DEGREE
Before THREAD, Lisa lacked the motivation to go back to college. With THREAD, not only did she break free from self-limiting beliefs and habits, she registered for college. She gave her heart to Jesus and connected with like-minded believers who believed in and supported her in fulfilling her life purpose. Feeling inspired along the journey, she declared her major after the second year. She completed her undergraduate degree in less than two years. Inspired, she applied for and received a full-ride graduate scholarship to Harvard University. Sharon is now happily married, living, and working overseas to thrive in her career.
FROM AN INNOVATIVE IDEA TO IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR A STEADY INCOME
Beth used THREAD to transform her plant-based idea into a thriving and innovative lifestyle company. With THREAD, she created a volunteer Board of Directors and several subcommittees. Together, they developed a vision statement and an achievable strategic plan with clear goals and milestones. As a result, she created a social media presence, blogged and marketed her company, built valuable partnerships, presented a conference to expand her reach, and secured funding to achieve her business goals.
FROM SELF-DOUBT TO SELF-CONFIDENCE
Samantha used THREAD to overcome the self-doubt that she wasn’t worthy of becoming a CEO. She enlisted help, updated her resume and LinkedIn profile, and created a vision board of the woman she wanted to be. She developed a career roadmap with milestones to reach her goal. She reached out to recruiters in organizations where she wanted to fulfill her purpose. She’s close to securing her dream job aligned with her values and life purpose.
FROM FEELING DISCONNECTED TO RECONNECTING WITH GOD
Elaine rekindled her relationship with the Lord and has grown in her confidence, influence, and impact. She has started a youth mentoring program and is developing a passion for helping young people unlock their potential.
ESTABLISHED A VISION FOR HER MARRIAGE
Melinda used step one of THREAD to set an intention for and establish a vision for her marriage. She engaged her husband in creating an intention board that includes a theme word, goals in the seven areas of her life, gratitude statements, dreams, pictures, power words, and outcomes she wanted to achieve in her marriage. She hung the intention board in her bathroom, where she and her husband could see it daily.
GROWING A HAPPY FAMILY
Alaine used THREAD to manifest her dream of having a family. She reconnected with Jesus and leaned on Him for her miracles. She built trust and faith in God, partnered with her doctors, and followed their instructions. A year later, she gave birth to beautiful twin babies. Two years ago, she landed a dream job working remotely, started a side business, won an aged-old lawsuit, and purchased her dream home by the beach in less than twelve months.
FROM GIVING UP ON GOD TO FORGING A RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS
Women behind bars in the Santa Barbara County jail use THREAD to restore their faith, love, and life. One woman shared how reading the book rekindled her hope for living. If things in your life are not going as planned, you can use THREAD to achieve intentional transformation
FROM DEPARTMENTAL SOLO TO INCREASED EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Cheri used THREAD to break down silos amongst her leadership team and, in doing so, increased employee engagement, improved performance, and increased revenues and retention. The organization has increased its viability across the US. Leaders feel inspired to innovate new solutions, addressing poverty that helps people live sustainable lives.
FROM NOT GETTING RECOGNITION FOR HER WORK TO OWNING HER OWN BUSINESS.
Deidre was frustrated and unhappy at work. Her boss had developed a pattern of taking credit for her brilliant, cutting-edge ideas, praising Deirdre’s hard work instead of acknowledging and recognizing her for her innovation. With THREAD, Deidre learned she had the power to better maneuver challenging situations and use her intention and multi-purpose skills to function less like an on-off switch and more like a purposeful tool to achieve her desired outcome. With focused goals, Deidre reached out to her coach for direction and learned new techniques for conveying her cutting-edge ideas and expertise so others knew her capabilities and skills. She developed an action plan and engaged her boss in respectful, assertive, and professional conversations, focusing on clarity, expectations, well-being, responsibility, and communication.
FROM AVOIDING DIFFICULT CONFLICT TO MASTERING COURAGEOUS CONVERSATION
Kay, director of a large healthcare firm, had a problem with a particular employee. He was a nice person, and he made good improvements, but his productivity was an issue. She determined that he wasn’t a right fit for the position he was working in. She tried several interventions to help improve his performance, including training and coaching, but after six months, she needed to take action. She was going to have to transition him out of the organization. She dreaded the difficult conversation and felt ill-equipped to deliver the news. She used THREAD to harvest lessons from her twenty-five years of experience as an educator. She created a flexible yet intentional communication plan with facts that described the situation, the impact of the employee’s behavior on the team, the organization, and its customers. She was dedicated to doing what was right even when it felt wrong at the moment.
She solicited support from Human Resources, and she outlined what she wanted to achieve from the discussion. She set an intention for how she would communicate, feel, and behave in different scenarios. She scheduled the meeting in an environment that would help her achieve her goals. This conversation was focused on finding a solution that would work for the employee and the organization.
This focused conversation resulted in the employee’s successful exchange and transition, improved communication, increased feedback, and reduced stress.