Nan McKay: Are you allowing fear to stop you from living a life of freedom? Terry and Kelly were once crippled by fear, but all that changed when they joined the fearless living training program and executed what they learned. They're here to share how they transform their lives and lessons on how you can start living fearlessly as well.

Nan McKay: Welcome. I'm Nan McKay, the voice behind Trailblazers impact, your beacon to extraordinary women trailblazing unique paths. Our podcast spotlights luminaries whose life stories inspire and empower delivered to your ears bi weekly. Buckle up for another episode packed with powerful narratives and empowering journeys on trailblazers impact. Stay with us. This is Nan McKay. In today's episode, we are joined by the dynamic mother and daughter duo, Terry, Sarah and Kelly Fox, who are bringing generations together with their fearless approach to life coaching. Terry, a seasoned city council member and mayor, pairs with her daughter Kelly, a seasoned coach and busy mother of six, to guide individuals from all walks of life to a fearless state of being through their impactful workshops and weekly podcasts. Drawing on the principles of fearless living, which were created by Rhonda Britton, Terry and Kelly are here to equip you with the tools and the skills necessary to triumph over fear and embrace life with newfound confidence and zeal. No matter your age or your stage in life, prepare to embark on a transformative journey to a more fearless you. So welcome to both of you.

Terry Sayre: Thank you. Thank you.

Nan McKay: Can you share with us the genesis story of how you both decided to work together because you're really bridging different generations in the.

Terry Sayre: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think when we first started, Kelly became a life coach before I did. And as her mom, I had the privilege of watching her transformation and her gaining confidence and trusting herself and really interacting with our whole family and with her children in a different way because those are six of my grandchildren, which I pay a lot of attention to. So I decided then to look into the program myself. And so I was coached through the program by one of her colleagues and at that point decided, this is something I can do. And so we began doing workshops. Then I was first trained as a trainer and then Kelly came along and assisted me and then she became a trainer. And as we trained together, we just naturally, almost organically saw the importance of our different perspectives. Me being in my seventy? S and she being in her early forty s and just that opportunity to bring those different generational perspectives to our work. And it changed the way that we implemented and presented the material. So that's kind of how it happened for me. So I'll let Kelly tell you about her genesis.

Kelly Fox: Yeah, we started working together first with the podcast, and we have done nine years of consistently showing up every Monday night and doing the podcast. We've just started our 10th season, so pretty crazy to think about that. But Terry was doing a podcast with two other coaches, and they were deciding to come into an end with their podcast. And so she started talking to me, and she's like, what do you think? You want to do a podcast? I'm like, okay, let's do it. And we came up with fearless generations. We decided to teach the twelve steps to freedom, and that's how it began. And we started working together. And once a week, we did the podcast. And then, as Terry was saying, we started doing workshops, and then come COVID, everything online exploded, and people were willing to do virtual workshops and be in virtual groups. And we started our coaching program, stepping towards freedom and just keep doing more and more.

Nan McKay: And you both are actively involved in the fearless living program. That's the one created by Rhonda Britton. How has this program transformed your personal lives? And what impact have you seen it have on your clients?

Kelly Fox: It has completely changed my life. I think that other than my spiritual beliefs, fearless living has affected my life the most. Before I think about how I functioned, I didn't believe that I was capable of really doing anything by myself. I completely doubted myself in every decision I made. I didn't think very highly of myself. I beat myself up all the time, and now it's so far from that. I trust myself. I love myself. I can tell myself I'm beautiful, which was something I never would have done before. And I have the confidence to teach other people these tools, to say, hey, I'm your fear mastery coach. My life has completely changed, and I've seen it in our clients, as well. And just the transformations that we see from even just people who come to one workshop is amazing. And the people who have been in our coaching program, where they work with us for a whole year, oh, my gosh, the transformations that they have had have just been mind blowing and so heartwarming that we were able to be a part of that journey with them.

Terry Sayre: Yeah. Well, as Kelly's mom, I can attest that as I've watched her grow in confidence, grow in her desire to take up space in a different way, to be a more effective mother, to have better communication skills, and, like she said, to learn to love and value herself, I think for me, that was the initial transformation, was the realization that if I could learn to accept my divinity as a child of God, and I could love myself as he does, that I could unlock every bit of love that I had within me to share with others. And that was the transformational or pivotal moment in my life. As I went through the fearless living, training was the value that I had. I had recently lost my husband. I was struggling as a widow. I had five children, four still at home. And I wanted to change. I wanted to live my life with confidence and my career. I was extremely confident. I had taught school. I was administrator. I felt very successful in that arena of my life. Yet my personal life was not where I wanted it to be. I felt like I was not living up to what I was created to do. And so that was my transformation. It was learning to care for value and love myself. And when that happened, it opened this floodgate of my capacity to serve and love others. And that's where sharing as a life coach, and I do leadership coaching with businesses as well. But my work as a life coach, where I could help other women and men to see their value and teach them the skills that they could consistently practice that would keep them from those traps of addiction. And for me, the addiction was perfectionism. There are many addictions beyond substance addictions. And I was addicted to being perfect. That is a myth and an impossibility. And when I learned that I could do what I could, when I could, the best I could, and I didn't have that angst and that fear every time I walked out the door that I wasn't perfect, that was life changing. And so helping others to recognize their value, first, walk alongside of them and guide them through the maze of fear that's created. We created ourselves, others created around us. Society certainly has created a lot of fear in people's lives, particularly now with the polarization of our nation. And to walk beside people and say, look, you can take fear's hand, and you can walk down your chosen path to life, and you can live it to the fullest. Fear does not have to be in front of you, stopping you. It's there to protect you, but you can manage that. And so mastering your fear in a way that allows you to move forward, you can see how that would change people's lives. And so our clients that we work with, we see that we get to be a witness to that change in their lives where they can no longer be paralyzed by fear, and they can move forward in their journey the way they want to. And we can walk beside them, helping them with the tools and strategies that they can practice that will allow them to manage that fear and to live in freedom in the middle of chaos. You can be in the middle of chaos and still be living in freedom because you are walking forward, managing your fear and being able to navigate, care for yourself and move forward. So my transformation was revelatory in my life. It changed my life. My daughters can tell you, my other four children will tell you as well. Mom is not the same person, and I'm so grateful for that. So that's my story. And then as a coach, I am humbled and honored as I walk beside my clients and watch them experience that same kind of change in their lives.

Nan McKay: It must be extremely rewarding to see people grow.

Terry Sayre: Yes.

Nan McKay: Now, Terry, you are the mayor of a city, and being involved in city council and holding the position of mayor, that must come with a set of challenges. So how have the principles of fearless living helped you in your role as a public servant?

Terry Sayre: Sure. I'll tell you, the idea of running for city council froze me again. I'm a God girl and I got poked by God to run for city council to help the homeless in my community. And that's been my purpose and my focus on city council. I was scared to death. I would not said, no way, no way, no, I'm not going to do that. But I was nudged and I followed the nudge. So I had to overcome a lot of fears just to run for the office. The first part wasn't difficult, just getting my name on the ballot, campaigning. But when I had to walk my precinct and talk to strangers and knock on doors of all the voters in my district, that was a die fear. And I learned how to overcome that one step at a time, one door at a time. And I took my campaign manager, who kind of held my hand, and I was able to do that. If I had to do that again, it would no longer be such a die. It would just be a risk that I would be willing to take again. Fortunately, when I ran again, no one ran against me. So I'm in my second term and I am the mayor at this time, the first full time woman mayor in Tulari. So I'm very happy and proud that a woman has taken that place in the years and years of Tulari's municipal government, I'm the first woman mayor, so that's kind of exciting for our gender. And just again, to show people that at any age, I ran for council at 74, I am now 78. As the mayor, I still feel 50. I think age is a state of mind. But the fearless living concepts of navigating my fear, of knowing clearly what I wanted to do. So being able to also manage that landscape with clarity, which is another thing we coach people to accomplish, is, what do you want? Do you clearly know your focus now? Here are the steps for you to get out of your comfort zone and navigate that fear one step at a time, collaborating with your coach and your colleagues and moving forward. So it's definitely helped me. I've brought that, I guess, culture of change in fearless living to the dais. I share it with my colleagues, with all the city staff. I show them that the importance of serving with a heart of a servant, not with the heart of a person trying to grandize themselves or move into another position, but truly, it's an act of service. In our community, you're not paid. It is a voluntary job, but you're not on a salary like in very large communities. I'm in a 70,000 population community. It's not small, but it's not large municipality at all. So we get a stipend to do things within our city, and they'll pay for us to attend events so that we can be a present and do that. But I get paid $5 a session to run city council meetings, and they take taxes out of that. So you can see it's not a lucrative position at all. It's one that fit me as a servant with a servant heart. And as I've said, I focus on the homeless, and we've made wonderful advancements with managing both their safety and the safety of the constituents of our city. So sort of in our county, we're the model city for how we're handling and managing the homeless population, which I know in many areas, it's the number one issue. All of that. I would not have had the courage or maybe even the dedication, if I hadn't learned how valuable one person can be and how one person can make a difference because they understand themselves, and from that, they understand others, and they can reach out to others because they have the confidence that each of us has so much value.

Nan McKay: What have you done to manage the homeless population? I'd be curious about that.

Terry Sayre: Yeah, you can go on for a.

Kelly Fox: While, so be careful.

Terry Sayre: Try to be succinct about it.

Nan McKay: Okay.

Terry Sayre: But in our community, we have a railroad that runs right down the center of our community. Like many rural communities in California, that's how they started, was they were a stop on the railroad. They were all congregated on the railroad. Well, within one year, we had 13 homeless individuals die, either hit by a train, jumped in front of a train, or were pushed in front of a train. So we worked with a railroad to help us. We purchased a property where we could have a temporary encampment where they could be safe and have water and toilets and showers and food and electricity not in their tents, but a space. They could charge their phones, and they could have those things accessible to them. It was voluntary for them to be moved there. I mean, to choose to go there, but the railroad helped us buy its private property by saying they could not be on the railroad. So this gave them. Well, where am I going to go? Well, I think I'll go to the encampment. So we have 200 individuals in the encampment. It's monitored by our police department. We have a 24/7 monitoring there, and they're provided many things. Now, I'd like to say it's all peachy keen over there. There's still issues every day. We deal with issues because we're dealing with individuals who suffer from mental illness, from addiction, from severe depression, from all kinds of. Can you imagine living on the street? And many of these people have lived on the street for ten years. What would you do? I mean, again, I try to put myself in their place. So we're in the process of building a permanent shelter where all of these people, we provide case managers. We've housed over 30 of them since they've been there. So the goal is housed, but there's a transitional period where they have to learn how to be housed. They haven't been housed for so long, so they're in survival mode. So we'll be moving them into a permanent shelter, which will have phases, again to get them bridged into housing. So our goal is to get every homeless individual that wants to be housed and to get documentation and work and move back into society. And we've been successful even in this temporary encampment with over 30 people. So then 30 more people can choose to come into the encampment because there's only so many spaces. So that's what we're doing. And we're providing drug addiction training, mental health services, case workers, family therapists. We're providing all of that, because without that, again, how are you going to change if you don't get the tools?

Nan McKay: And do you have a housing authority local where you are working with them on the voucher program?

Terry Sayre: Yes, we do. So many of them are able to get vouchers in order to go into housing other or private landlords. We also have a very active homeless task force that works with multiple agencies. Self help. I don't know if you're familiar with self help and HR communities. They are building and renovating motels and renovating those so people can go into those as well. Other than the voucher eight program under other programs through the housing department and the task force. So we have the potential in the next year to house almost as many as we as want to, at least out of our community. I mean, other communities may have more which also have their programs, but it's really working well. And I've gotten to know so many of these people personally, and just they're so anxious to improve their situations.

Nan McKay: That sounds fascinating. And, of course, housing is my background.

Terry Sayre: So that is interesting.

Nan McKay: Kelly, let's talk about you a little bit. Managing, let's say, a bustling for a household with six kids while being a coach seems like a really hefty task. So how do you integrate the teachings of your fearless living into that parenting style?

Kelly Fox: Yeah, with the older ones, it can be a little bit of a challenge because they recognize the language and they're like, don't coach me, mom. You can hear something from someone else and you're like, oh, that's smart. But you hear it from your mom and you're like, no, I don't like that. Right. So it definitely comes into play with how I communicate with them and how we interact with each other. But I think the thing that really supports me the most as a mom is doing my work, because the better I am, the better I can be there for them and show up there for them, because if I'm not doing my own work, then I'm coming to them not full, like not being able to have patience or not being able to really devote any kind of energy to them because I'm empty. So doing my own work really helps as well as my husband is very familiar with the fearless living tools, and he's been coached himself, not by me, but he has been coached himself and so knows the language. And our relationship really affects our family as well. And so we're very dedicated to having good communication skills as well because it takes both of us to raise our family and to create the environment we have in our home. But I really haven't had a full coaching practice except for maybe the last six or five years because I was raising babies. Now my youngest is in first grade. He's at school for the majority of the day, and I have a lot more time that I can devote to doing coaching and managing all of the things that it takes to have a business and be visible and try to affect change in the world. And so it's a little bit easier now. The older ones help with the younger ones, but yeah, there's always that balance of work and family for anyone, whether they work in the home or out of the home. And so it takes a realignment sometimes of the priorities. Sometimes it's like, okay, I'm going to step away from my computer and spend some time with my kids and not let the work overwhelm the other opportunities that I have. To be fearless and to interact with teenagers takes some courage and it definitely does for me.

Nan McKay: What's the age range? It's six to what?

Kelly Fox: 20? My oldest is 20 and he's still home, so they're all still home. And yeah, my youngest is six.

Nan McKay: And either one of you could be either or both. Walk us through these twelve steps to freedom that you share in your weekly podcast. Or is that too long?

Terry Sayre: She'll do it more quickly than I would.

Nan McKay: And then work in if you can. How can a person implement these steps in their daily life?

Kelly Fox: Yeah, well, I would suggest listening to our podcast each week, but the first step is awareness. It's actually this month that we're doing awareness. And so if you follow us on our social media, we post daily several things that you can be inspired by to up your awareness. And we do that each month. So it's the easiest way, I think, to integrate these tools. But just being aware of what they are is the first step. Right? So the first step is awareness. Then it's willingness, because you can be aware of change, but if you're not willing to do anything about it, it's not happening. The third tool is connection, and that's connection with yourself first and then with others. The next is compassion. We have compassion for ourselves. It always starts with us. And then when we can be compassionate with ourselves, it's much easier for us to be compassionate with others. Accountable is the next step. And then that's pretty easy to understand. Being accountable and then it's being in the present moment. That is where change happens. It happens in the present moment, not in the past, not in the future. Happens right now. And what you decide to do right now, the next is surrender. We have all our challenges with wanting to be in control, and yet we cannot control others. And there is a lot we can't control. But there are things we can, and we can be responsible or accountable for those, but yeah, surrendering those things, we can't control, let it go. And then it is intention. So being intentional and on purpose with the things that we are choosing to do and be aware of. And then it is possibilities, which is my favorite one. Actually, I switched those. But anyways, possibilities is step eight. And just being open and aware to all the different possibilities in front of us and having the courage to step out and take them. Trust is step ten. And it's my favorite one because trust.

Terry Sayre: Is the other one. Was your favorite.

Kelly Fox: Sorry. Trust is something I practice every day, trusting myself. And then passion. Having a passion for your life, a passion for your purpose and your mission here on earth. And then love is step twelve. So having love for yourself, a love of your life, a love of others, a love for being in freedom. And so those are the twelve steps.

Terry Sayre: And the amazing part of them is they were created to work in synergy. And so as you take one step, the next step just build upon the first one. So really awareness, willingness, that goes through the entire twelve steps. So you're just building upon your capacity to manage your journey. And I do a little thing called Terry talks every weekday. And that's just a 1 minute inspirational thought tool strategy around the same step of the month. And that is on YouTube. And you can have it emailed to your email. It's very accessible. And that just a shot in the arm every day to keep yourself thinking and speaking and acting in accordance with that step. And so as you progress from step to step, it just grows. Your ability to be aware is heightened. As you think about being willing and accountable, as you think about being seeing possibilities, as you think about being in the present moment, you're aware, you're willing to be observant, to listen, to use communication skills effectively, so that you can then incorporate, actually internalize each of those steps so they become a part of your processing. Each of us processes it in a different way, yet each of us can benefit from being aware. But how you process that may be differently, but it is something that then grows into a lifestyle, it grows into the way you take up space, it grows into your thinking and decision making processes. So that these twelve steps can be so internalized that they do transform and affect the way that you process information. So they grow up on each other. And each year that we go through them again, I grow in every area, they become more rigorous, more automatic, more intentional. Yeah. So they're very purposeful and intentional in how you can live your life on a daily decision by decision, choice by choice method.

Kelly Fox: Yeah. And we share tools on the podcast and on our social media all the time. And those tools, we teach you how to integrate them as well.

Nan McKay: Well, how you're doing a lot of different things. Let's take them one by one and see how people could reach you for things like you've got your podcast, so would you give the name of it?

Kelly Fox: Our podcast is fearless generations.

Nan McKay: Okay. And then the second one is you have the YouTube channel Terry, what's the.

Terry Sayre: Terry talks.

Nan McKay: Terry talks.

Kelly Fox: That's not the name of your channel. That's what the videos are called. Her channel is. Terry. Ace there coaching. But they can get access to all of this on our website, which is fearlessgenerations.org. So they can find us on all social media as fearless generations with an s on the end generations. And, yeah, we're on Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, and YouTube. And so we have a fearless generation YouTube page as. Uh. But Terry talks is on Terry's YouTube channel.

Nan McKay: Okay. And you also have a group, and how can they sign up for that on your website? As.

Kelly Fox: Can. There's a link to our Facebook group on there. But our Facebook group is called get fearless at any age with fearless generations. But if you look up fearless generations, it'll come up.

Terry Sayre: Is that where they sign up for the program, Kelly?

Kelly Fox: No, the program would be through the website.

Nan McKay: Okay. So they should really go to your website first.

Kelly Fox: Yeah.

Nan McKay: And then sign up. Well, you two are doing some tremendous things and making such a difference in the world. It's just fabulous. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?

Terry Sayre: Well, we appreciate you so much. We had the pleasure of meeting Nan in California. She came out for a workshop for master speaking skills and with Katerina Rando, which I don't know if you've had Katerina on your podcast, but I would assume you have.

Nan McKay: Yes.

Terry Sayre: We met each other there, and it was an instant connection. And her work. She and I are very close to the same age, and both of us think there's no age limit on growth, no age limit on service, no age limit on learning. And so right away, we connected, because that's an excuse people use to sit back on their laurels. And I just feel like the world is full of opportunities to learn. And that's what I love, that Kelly and I can work together, but we have different experiences and can offer different perspectives because I've been able to learn more because I've been here.

Kelly Fox: But we're very different coaches because we have different personalities, we've had different life experiences. And so when you come to one of our workshops or participate in our group program, or you listen to the podcast, you'll see that you're getting more than just one perception or one opinion or one set of experiences. You're getting two and two coaches, two advanced, certified, fearless living coaches dedicated to you to support you with the change that you want to happen in your life. And we say we bridge you from where you are to where you want to be. And we are passionate about that.

Nan McKay: Well, thank you so much for sharing with our audience and with everyone that touches you because I think you have a great thing going to help a lot of people.

Terry Sayre: Thank you, Nancy.

Kelly Fox: Thank you.

Nan McKay: Thanks for being with us. Have you seen our new podcast and YouTube website, trailblazersimpact.com? Join us there and please leave a review on iTunes. Check out our new shorts on our YouTube channel, Trailblazers impact interviews. Until next time, check out my newsletter on LinkedIn. Also, I host a new lead and succeed community to quickly accelerate your leadership skills and explore our regular website, namckayconnects.com. With new resources.