Melinda French Gates Reveals All (Pt 2): Life-Changing Lessons on Igniting Your Courage, Hearing Your Intuition & Taking Your Power Back
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Get ready to ignite your courage, tune into and hear your intuition, and take your power back! If you feel like you’ve lost yourself…maybe through unhealthy friendships, or a relationships that’s run it’s course and you know it’s time to stop betraying yourself by staying in it, or through a job that is fine but it’s not filling your soul or challenging your true talent and passions, or by people-pleasing your way through the day, so much so, that you don’t even know who you are anymore…this incredible Part 2 episode with Melinda French Gates in for you!
Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women
and girls. She’s the founder of Pivotal Ventures, focused on accelerating social progress by removing barriers that hold people back, she also co-founded the Gates Foundation, alongside former husband Bill Gates. Melinda’s brand new book The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, is out now, make sure you pick up your copy today here, it’s so good, in the book, Melinda reflects for the first time on the most significant transitions in her life, from becoming a parent, she’s now a mom of 3, to the death of a dear friend, to departing the Gates
Foundation, to deciding to end her marriage, this book is filled with the most inspiring and insightful lessons on loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping yourself and others navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty and so much more!
Through Melinda’s decades of high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy, she’s not only impacted and saved millions of lives in the US and around the world, she’s also become one of the most iconic and celebrated women of our time. It is such an honor to join Melinda and YOU in this incredible Part 2 conversation!
And whether you're joining me today for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family. And remember this episode is not just for you and me. Please share it with every single person that you know because it can change their life too.
Episode Reflection Questions for YOU: Jamie writes prompt questions each episode to spark revelations in your self-worth journey and help you apply the tools and lessons from each episode into your real life right now. Please make sure you’re signed up for Jamie’s free inspirational newsletter jamiekernlima.com 👈
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For more resources related to today’s episode, click here https://jamiekernlima.com/show/ for the podcast episode page.
Chapters:
0:00 Welcome to The Jamie Kern Lima Show
6:20 Knowing For Sure God Exists
11:20 Your Religion And Your Knowing
17:15 Divorce, Values, And Staying True To Yourself
23:45 From Feeling Unworthy to Trusting Yourself
27:45 Don't Rush During Transitions in Your Life
29:45 Panic Attacks & Helping Each Other
33:35 Your Dreams & Signs
It’s such an honor to share this podcast together with you. And please note: I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.
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Transcript
You describe how your inner voice has had faded.
You say in the decade or so before my marriage fell apart, therapy made it possible for you to respond to betrayals in your marriage without betraying yourself in return.
It is hard, right?
Really hard.
And it's hard for everyone involved, including the kids.
I felt like we had agreed on our values as a couple going into the marriage, but I got to a point where I didn't feel like I could be fully integrated and live those values in the marriage because there comes a point at which to be true to yourself,
you have to do what's right, even though you may not want to.
Melinda, Melinda French game,
how are you?
Yeah, I I cute.
I've been to Debbies many times.
Have you been to Debbie's?
Yeah, for a long time.
When they were little, they loved Debdy's.
Did they really?
Oh, yeah, the pancakes.
The pancakes?
Yeah.
Coming up in this incredible part two episode with Melinda French Gates.
She's opening up like never before.
You started having dreams of a crumbling foundation.
Yeah, I had this dream that I was on a cliff and my ex-husband Bill and the kids were also on the edge of the cliff, but my part of the cliff crumbled away and I was dropping down into a pit and they were still on the edge of this cliff together and I knew oh this means I need to separate and do something else.
I need to figure this out and I'm going to be alone in figuring this out.
And sharing life-changing lessons on igniting your courage.
Panic attacks.
So many of us have them and a lot of us think we're alone in them or we don't share them.
I think more people have them than we realize.
I had read about them and I remember being skeptical, like, is that a real thing?
Like, what is that?
You know, I've been anxious before, but,
but when you have one,
it is, it's so terrifying.
Yeah.
Just terrifying.
At least for me, the whole world falls away and you are just by yourself and just literally that like deer in the headlights.
Like you can't sweaty palms, can't think, your heart is racing.
And so I think they're really important to talk about because we can also help one another and coach one another
through them.
Finally, your body just stops you dead in your tracks and says, This is not right, and you know it.
Yeah, do you have them now?
Trusting your faith.
There were times I sort of moved away from faith.
There's a beautiful at the end of the musical Les Miseral, they say to love another person
is to see the face of God.
How do you reconcile that and practice faith and also be so passionate about some of the things you believe so strongly in that maybe some people in a particular religion don't?
And so talk about an incongruency, right?
And I had to really then reckon with my faith.
And I just realized, wow, I need to actually unlearn some of these things because I can't square the circle.
Do you know for sure God exists?
Hearing your intuition.
You have to trust.
You have to trust that something's moving through you and taking your power back.
I certainly have had times in my life where I didn't think I was worthy.
I would sit at the front of the table and think, am I worthy to be here and worthy to be the one at the head of the table asking the questions,
making the decisions about resources.
I know there were times where people were rolling their eyes like, you know, okay, that question she asked, that one wasn't a very good one, right?
And I had to learn that, no, my voice mattered.
And sometimes the question I asked turned out to be exactly the right question.
I am so excited for you, for me, for women everywhere right now because this conversation is just that incredible.
I'm literally jumping out of my chair right now.
Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls.
She's a founder of Pivotal Ventures, focused on accelerating social progress by removing barriers that hold people back.
She also co-founded the Gates Foundation alongside her former husband, Bill Gates.
Melinda's brand new book, The Next Day, Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, is out now.
Make sure you pick up your copy right now.
It is so good.
And whether today you're listening for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family.
Thank you so much for being here.
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Thank you so much.
It truly means so much to me.
and the team that works so hard to bring you this show.
Also, this episode, it's not just for you and me.
Please share this with every single person that you know because what you're about to hear can truly impact and change your life and theirs.
Jamie Kern Lima is her name.
Everybody needs Jamie Kern Lima in their life.
Jamie Kern Lima.
Jamie, you're so inspiring.
Jamie Kern Lima.
One of my favorite parts of the next day was I felt like I under, I felt like I was right by your side in some ways
in in your childhood even seeing how you know you were raised I used to type on a typewriter and you talk about the 15 pound typewriter that that you were gifted you talk about your parents you talk about being raised Catholic and so I'm curious now today
How would you say the role of faith?
What's that role of faith in your life right now?
How has it evolved?
It's fundamental in my life still.
And I will certainly say there were times I sort of moved away from faith, but then I always thank goodness came back to it.
Like one of them was in college, right?
I actually tried several different faith traditions.
I remember calling my mom and she was just like, oh, you're doing what, you know?
But then I came back to my roots.
I'm less now
about a structured religion because I realize that religions all have man-made rules that are part of them, right?
But they're all pointing to the same thing, which is a belief in spirituality or a goodness in the universe or maybe a God in some cases.
And so for me, the spiritual piece is just absolutely grounding in my life.
And I still, I go to church some, I'm still Catholic.
I go to church some, not nearly as often as when I was growing up.
But I'm also,
maybe even more importantly, in these two spiritual groups that are both non-denominational.
One I've been with for 20 years, another one's kind of the last five years.
And we are reading the same things by spiritual teachers over, you know, who taught for centuries sometimes.
or somebody who's more current.
And then we're sharing ideas about what we're learning through our faith and spirituality.
I still go on a silent retreat once a year.
In fact, I'll go in May with my group that I've been with for 20 years.
We'll go on silent retreat.
We met yesterday to prepare for that because it's a journey to go, to go on silent retreat.
I would say it's fundamental.
And then the other thing I would say, and you alluded to this in your own life, which is again, when you have doubt and in those times you need to lean in or lean forward,
just remembering there's something much bigger than you.
And there must be some reason you're here.
You have no idea how you got placed in this position, right?
I have no idea how I, you know,
the sequence of events that led up to other things in my life.
It's just, it's hard to put it together.
But when you can remember, there's something much bigger and you can trust that, at least for me, I know I just
sink into it and I just calm down.
Yeah.
Do you ever, do you know for sure God exists?
Yes.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And
there's a beautiful at the end of the musical Les Miseral.
They say to love another person
is to see the face of God.
And so I've also come to learn that God is also amongst us and in our relations and in our relationships too.
And that I can look for that and you see where you make some of those connections.
But what I encourage people to do who've grown up, if you're lucky enough to have grown up in a faith tradition, because I do think that's lucky, it means you had some values and moral structure.
It may not have all been right.
It may have put some things on you you wish you didn't have.
But I really encourage people to go back and look at that faith and learn about it.
Where did it come from?
What are the origins?
How did it come into being?
Where did it change over time?
Like I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, but there's a Celtic version of the Catholic Church that is actually even closer to what I believe, it turns out.
And
so just learning your own history so you can decide what you believe now, but practicing your faith is also really important.
And so this is why I have these two groups.
They're almost like accountability measures we are for one another.
And then I also believe in faith in action.
So part of the work I do in the world is putting what I believe to be true in my faith and all the things that I've learned through this unusual path I've had in life that, you know, I couldn't have added it all up.
I put that faith into action and hopefully I'm creating positive change in the world.
When you talk about organized religion,
you know, for me, like my journey, I'm curious your thoughts on this is, you know, because you're very, you're very
active with
women's rights and politically, all the things, all the things.
I think some people are scared to even consider faith because they feel they might be judged or they feel like, oh, well, you know, I believe these things, but then I don't know if I can practice a faith because I've always as you said the man-made rules how do you sort of in your own spirit and soul go okay
I feel this about my faith and there might be parts of it whether they're in writing or not that doesn't feel true to me How do you navigate that?
Because I think a lot of people don't have faith in their life anymore or they feel like there's so many rules that maybe feel incongruent with their soul.
How do you reconcile that and practice faith and also be so so passionate about some of the things you believe so strongly in that maybe some people in a particular religion don't?
Yeah.
I love your word incongruent because we know certain things.
Yes.
We just, there's an inner knowing about things.
And for me, I'll say as I was traveling the world more and more, I was so lucky on behalf of the foundation I got to travel.
But, you know, I was out in low-income countries three, sometimes four times a year, all over the world.
And I was learning from these men and women in villages about their lives, and they would talk about children.
And both the men and the women knew that when they could space the births of those children, they were better off.
Or if they could limit, let's say they could limit and decide they were only going to have three or four instead of six or seven.
They knew they could then feed their kids, their kids could go to school.
They had a chance, those kids, of maybe growing up and
living their dreams.
And so,
but if you, I would go in these villages and I would ask people, I literally was in a village I remember one time and we all gathered under a tree, there were about 150 people, and I said, how many of you know somebody that, a woman that has died in childbirth?
And the number of hands that went up was astounding.
And then I said, how many of you know of a baby that's been lost in childbirth?
And like even more hands went up.
And this was a group where they knew about contraceptives but didn't have access.
The world had backed away after the 1970s.
We used to make sure that people had access to contraceptives, not for all the right reasons.
But the world had backed away.
And as I learned the difference
and that child was lost because the mom had them too close together.
She didn't mean to, but all of a sudden the next one came and boom, she lost that baby prematurely because the birth was too quick and her body wasn't ready.
I started to realize, I believe in life.
I believe in these children's lives, the worthiness of them, the inherent beauty on the day they're born.
But because of a man-made rule in the church that I'm in, the Catholic Church,
we're not allowing women to have access to contraceptives.
And so, talk about an incongruency, right?
And I had to really then reckon with my faith.
I brought in some Notre Dame scholars to teach me.
I learned the history, how the Catholic Church had gotten there, why they'd gotten there.
I started to learn from a very liberal Jesuit priest, listening to his lectures and his teachings and his books, Richard Rohr.
And I just realized, wow, I need to actually unlearn some of these things because I can't square the circle.
I believe in the dignity of life.
And yet we're losing more children because of this.
We won't allow this tool to be given to women.
And it really was almost a crisis of faith, but I was able to eventually reconcile them and say, no, no, no, this is what I believe and I know to be true.
And I am going to speak the truth in the world.
And that took, again, a lot of courage and a lot of leaning forward.
But boy, did it feel right to give voice to what these families and these women were telling me.
Like if they, if I had the privilege of being there and them sharing their lives with me.
I felt given my position at the foundation, I had a responsibility to go voice that and do something about it on the world stage.
And it became, it animated my life.
I love something you just said that we all have a knowing, like we all have a knowing and know the truth.
And, you know, I
believe in God, I pray almost every day, all the things.
And in my knowing, I just, Melinda, how I feel like how I live my life.
And I want to share this because I think something you shared is so powerful.
And just for anybody listening or watching us right now who is maybe in that incongruent place, they're like, well, I kind of feel like I want, you know, to
explore faith in my life, but I just can't get over that, that rule or that judgment or whatever.
It's that knowing, it's asking yourself what feels true, like what feels true to me.
And everyone can do that.
It's free once we get good at it, right?
And I remember, you know, I've gotten pushed back.
on my show for having people that have you know that maybe love differently or vote differently or identify differently and I just every time I how I feel is when I ask my knowing my soul I feel like if Jesus were here right now he would love you no matter what no matter how you identify or how you vote or how you and that's what I believe that's what I feel is true so that's how I try to then live my life and it's just I want to share that because when you shared that so beautifully, I think for me, I think that's the powerful thing for people to do.
And a lot of people actually haven't considered that.
Well, maybe
I can approach faith in a way that i take the parts that feel true and feel right and feel like they're true for me and every person can do that okay i want to talk about lessons and trusting yourself and your inner voice um
which uh you know i could talk about i could do i could talk to you for 24 hours about uh the next day which is why everyone needs to go pick it up right now it is so good and i love what you shared earlier that in your life you've been inspired by other people sharing their stories stories or saying this is how i got through this or this is what i did there and you have friends that have shown up for you that way and the next day you describe how your inner voice has had faded and you say uh in the decade or so before my marriage fell apart you write that therapy made it possible for you to respond to betrayals in your marriage without betraying yourself in return
First of all, the only reason I even include a chapter about that time in my life in the the book is because we need to pause for a super brief break and while we do take a moment and share this episode with every single person that you know maybe they're going through a transition in their life in some way who this episode could inspire because this conversation can truly not just impact our lives but theirs too
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You say
in the decade or so before my marriage fell apart, you write that therapy made it possible for you to respond to betrayals in your marriage without betraying yourself in return.
First of all, the only reason I even include a chapter about that time in my life in the book is because people know I went through a divorce and it would be incongruous if I didn't put it in.
It would be disingenuous.
And as you said, so many people unfortunately go through it and it is hard, right?
Really hard.
And it's hard for everyone involved, including the kids, including and for sure the kids.
So I included it for that reason.
I, again, to use your word,
or to use a different word, I didn't feel like I could, I got to a point in my marriage where I felt like I absolutely knew what my values were.
I felt like we had agreed on our values as a couple going into the marriage.
But I got to a point where I didn't feel like I could be fully integrated and live those values in the marriage because of some things going on around me that I had previously not been aware of.
And there comes a point at which to be true to yourself,
you have to do what's right, even though you may not want to, right?
Like, and I talk in the book that I was afraid to call my parents, like, you know, what are they going to think?
I feel terrible.
You know, it's not what I dreamt of on the day I got married.
But in the end of the day,
like I do think often about, and I have for a long time, I write about in the book, my friend John Nielsen, who died in his 30s.
It's got me from a young age in my 30s, because that's how old I was when he passed away too.
to think about what do you want the last day to look like and work backwards in your life from there.
And for me, the last day is, you know, was I loved by my family and friends?
Did they know I love them?
Do I know that they love me?
Did I do meaningful work in the world?
And was I true to myself?
Right?
I mean, only we're going to answer for ourselves on the last day.
Not your children, not your spouse, not your mother, not your father.
We are responsible for ourselves.
And so if I couldn't be true to myself and be an integrated whole person, then I need to look at that
relationship I was in and say,
it's not working anymore.
I've done my best.
I've given everything.
I've done a lot of work on it i've done a lot of forgiveness but at some point only i answer for myself
with transitions that happen in our lives and especially the ones we weren't planning on a lot of times we you know sometimes our default will go to like is something wrong with me or you know maybe someone just lost their job or the friendship group didn't invite them to the thing or just like things are changing right
over half of us will experience divorce divorce.
There's so many transitions.
And I love the book where you talk about, you know, how many different transitions you've gone through.
I'm going through one right now where my kids are now in school.
And so like, that's a time.
I'm like, wait, I haven't had a schedule.
I haven't had to answer to anyone else.
And I'm like, just things like that, right?
So we all go through these different transitions.
And sometimes when there are ones that we didn't foresee, we can feel like, is something wrong with us?
Or are we unworthy?
Or, you know, did you ever experience that?
I certainly have had times in my life where I didn't think I was worthy.
When I transitioned into being a co-founder of the foundation,
but then I talk about in the book, you know, all of a sudden it was unbelievable that Warren Buffett was going to take the assets from Berkshire Hatha and put them into our foundation.
Like, what an amazing gift.
What an amazing gift.
But it catapulted the foundation where we were growing it like this, but all of a sudden the growth in the foundation and the public exposure was exponential.
And so to sit then at the head of the table at the foundation where you're having a meeting with 30 people around the table and they're some of the top scientists in tuberculosis and the top scientist in malaria and the top scientist in maternal mortality.
I don't have a background in medicine.
I don't have a background in global health.
My background is in computer science.
And so I would sit at the front of the table and think, am I worthy to be here and worthy to be the one at the head of the table asking the questions,
making the decisions about resources?
And I had to really grow into that role.
And I feel like there were times, I don't feel, I know there were times where people were rolling their eyes like, you know, okay, that question she asked, that one wasn't a very good one, right?
And I had to learn that no my voice mattered and sometimes the question i asked turned out to be exactly the right question um
and
and that would give me courage then the next time i'll give you an example we were out in southeast asia my ex-husband and i worked traveling with a group of scientists we were going around and learning about tuberculosis in a village in several villages and we'd done these site visits they'd lasted more than half the day.
We're kind of all about ready to go.
But the woman, one of the women we talked to earlier was there, but no one was talking to her.
And so I just went over and talked to her.
The scientists were still talking.
And then
they kind of started to come in.
And then I said to her, you know, everybody's kind of ready to go.
And I said to her, well, could you show me, we've talked to you about your experience with tuberculosis in your family and what's happened, but could you show me the actual pill packet?
And you could see all the scientists just like kind of rolling their eyes, like, what a, you know, why would you ask that question?
Who cares what the pillow packet looks like?
She brought it out and everybody was shocked, including me, the number of pills in this pillow packet.
And we started looking at it and realizing that the manufacturer was putting all these placebo pills in the packaging in this particular country.
And there really was only one pill in there per day that made a difference, not the other eight in the packet for that day, too.
So here's this poor woman and her family.
These are hard pills to take.
You need food.
And it literally got us advocating to the government saying, you've got the wrong manufacturer for this thing.
Like, do you know what they're doing with your government money?
So, even while all the scientists sort of thought it was a not very great question, and I felt unworthy, actually, in the moment, it turned out to be exactly the right question.
So, you have to trust.
You have to trust that something's moving through you.
Yeah,
yeah.
Which I think for so many people, maybe they're at the infancy of that journey, or it'll be, you know, a lifelong journey.
But that's beautiful.
And that's what I say to people.
You actually have to practice these transitions, right?
Like when you're in them, I talk about in the book, don't rush from one thing if you can help it to the next.
Like,
stop and learn the lessons in between
because.
That's where the beauty happens and the growth and eventually the resilience.
And the more you go through one transition, the easier the next one will be and the next one and the next one and you just
you have to trust there's a parable called the parable of the trapeze where you know a trapeze artist is swinging on a trapeze and they've got both hands but then they're going to go and get the next bar well as that other bar is coming towards them and they're let going of this one they have to trust that they've got the timing right to grab the next bar right there's a huge piece of trust there as they're flying through the air and it could be terrifying it could be exhilarating.
But the more they practice that, the more they're going to land that move and the better off they're going to be at it.
I love that.
I love that in the book.
That was actually a big takeaway for me because I will rush through things.
And sometimes, you know, when something doesn't go our way, we do not want to feel that for long.
You know what I mean?
And so we're like, automatically.
And you talk about that, the power of
making sure you create enough space to learn the lesson or to heal or
or to process all of it.
In the book, one thing that you share in the next day, which I just have to say this, Melinda, I have written two books and anytime I am on someone's show and they actually read the book and they actually, like, I'm so grateful.
And I just want to say this because it's so important,
you know, that the book is out right now and everyone can go get their copy
and on both audio and also I love I love doing both at the same time, reading the physical copy
and listening.
You know, I love both because I feel like I'm able to just like take everything in.
One of the things that you share in the book so vulnerably is about
panic attacks.
And so many of us have them and a lot of us think we're alone in them or we don't share them.
You talk about, I think first in 2006 with a hot air balloon ride and then I think it was your 20th wedding anniversary.
I think more people have them than we realize.
I had read about them and I remember being skeptical, like, is that a real thing?
Like, what is that?
You know, I've been anxious before, but,
but when you have one,
it is,
at least for me, the whole world falls away and you are just by yourself and just literally that like deer in the headlights.
Like you can't, sweaty palms, can't think, your heart is racing.
And so I think they're really important to talk about because we can also help one another and coach one another
through them.
So one of my youngest daughter, one of her friends had one.
We were going to get on a plane situation.
And
I was able to coach her through it.
And it felt good for her and for me at the time.
And then I had an adult female friend who had one in the last six months and called me.
And thank God she called me.
Like I could hear it in her voice and she didn't even quite know what was happening, but I could ask her, what are the circumstances?
What was being asked of you?
What were you thinking you were going to do?
And I could see that the person that was calling her to pull her to do something was doing something for their own interest, not hers.
And every single thing in her body was telling her not to do it.
But she felt guilt.
She felt reasons that she should go.
Like that person was quite good at manipulating her, right?
And so I was able to talk her down enough that she could calm herself.
we could talk later.
She didn't end up going and doing the thing the person asked her to do and thank God she did not.
Do you think that when we have a panic attack is our body telling us like something's not right or something's incongruent?
And I think it's been giving you a lot more signals before it gets to the attack and we just keep not listening to them.
We just keep pushing them down and acting like they're not there and not attuning to them and finally your body just stops you dead in your tracks and says this is not right and you know it.
Yeah.
Do you have them them now or when's the last one?
I have not had one recently, not in the last four years.
Yeah.
I haven't.
So I had my first one actually on my honeymoon and I'm like, what is this trying to tell me?
Although what's funny is we wrote the business plan for our company on our honeymoon.
So I'm like, maybe I was like about to enter a whole, I don't know what it was, but that was my first time ever.
And I couldn't even, I was similar to you where I'd heard of, of course I knew what they were, but I didn't understand.
And And then when you have, when you have one, oh my gosh, for me, I felt like I was gonna die.
Yes.
Like it's so scary.
It's so terrifying.
Yeah.
Just terrifying.
And I think that's why we need to not only talk about them and give people tools, but we need to say when it's happened to us, because I think people look out and say, oh, well, it couldn't have happened to her or him.
You know, they're so confident.
No, they can happen to anybody.
And again, it has to do with: are you living that, you know, are you being
in touch with your body and the messages it's giving you?
Are you living a fully integrated life?
Well, you talk about too that we can like we can have signs coming from us from all different areas.
And page 77 of the next day, page 77, I told you, oh my gosh, I studied every word.
It's so good.
It's so good.
Congratulations.
You can probably sense my excitement because when I get excited, it's when I know something's going to really matter and when it's going to impact so many people, but especially, especially women.
So page 77 of the next day, day, you share,
you talk about the dreams you started having.
You say an article had come out suggesting your ex-husband not only went against the marriage, but also your values.
And you started having dreams of a crumbling foundation.
Can you share about those dreams?
Because a lot of people wonder, are they seeing a sign or is it just a coincidence?
For me,
not for everybody, because I know some people that say they don't dream or they dream very little, but for me, I have a very rich dream life and have for a long time and have tried to understand my dreams.
Some dreams will take me years to understand, but if they're recurring, I know I need to pay attention to them.
Anyway, this dream, as I say in the book, doesn't really take Freud to figure it out,
which was, you know, I, after those articles, the thing things that had come out publicly, I had this dream that I was on a cliff and my ex-husband Bill and the kids were also on the edge of the cliff, but my part of the cliff crumbled away and I was dropping down into a pit and they were still on the edge of this cliff together and they were safe.
So I wasn't worried about my children.
But I knew when I woke up, oh, this means I need to separate and do something else.
I need to figure this out and I'm going to be alone in figuring this out.
This conversation is so incredible.
We made it into more than one part.
And if you are ready to hear your intuition and inner voice and learn how to finally trust it, you are not going to want to miss this incredible, final part three of this conversation with Melinda French Gates coming up in the next episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Show.
Remember, this episode's not just for you and me.
Please share this with every single person that you know because it can impact and change their life too.
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And thank you so much for joining me today.
Before you go, I want to share some words with you that couldn't be more true.
You, right now, exactly as you are, are enough and fully worthy.
You're worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams, and all the unconditional love in the world.
And it is an honor to welcome you to each and every episode of the Jamie Karn Lima Show.
Here, I hope you'll come as you are.
Heal where you need, blossom what you choose, journey toward your calling, and stay as long as you'd like because you belong here.
You are worthy, you are loved, you are loved.
I love you.
And I cannot wait to join you on the next episode of the Jamie Kern Lima Show.
Do you struggle with negative self-talk?
Living with a constant mental narrative that you're not good enough is exhausting.
I know because I spent most of my life in that habit.
The words you say to yourself about yourself are so powerful.
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In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and dreams.
You stay stuck at the level of your self-worth.
When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life.
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It's such an honor to share this podcast together with you.
And please note: I'm not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.