[00:00:00] Debbie: Typically that I can't, is fear based. Because you don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to fail, whatever the reason is. And if you just wait a bit after that, that's where the second thought comes. It's a minute. Why not? Why can't I?
[00:00:17] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live The Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Debbie Weiss, and she has over 50 years of experience dealing with some of life's toughest challenges. Debbie is an expert in chasing your dreams despite your circumstances, and she is a bestselling author of her memoir called On Second Thought Maybe I Can.
She's also a coauthor in the Amazon bestseller collaborative book called Heart Whispers. In addition, she is a Canfield certified trainer and the success principal and entrepreneur running both an insurance agency and her online store called Sprinkle of Hearts. She's the host of the, Maybe I Can podcast, and an inspirational speaker, a family caregiver, and a mother.
She has overcome her own limiting beliefs and fears, allowing her to begin to live her best life and her life's passion, which is to help and inspire others to do the same. She was such an amazing guest. We just talked a lot about her role as a caregiver over the course of her life some of those lessons and why she wrote her book, her first book, and then also the second book that is coming out in November.
I just think there are so many lessons that she calls sprinkles that she has learned during her life around embracing a mindset of empowerment, taking responsibility, and control of your life. We talk a lot about her journey of starting over after the death of her husband and also just the role of being a caregiver to folks who have illnesses as well as mental illness and challenges. Inspiring conversation. And I think you're going to enjoy it. Take a listen.
Debbie, thank you for joining me today.
[00:02:32] Debbie: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:02:34] Aneta: It was so funny before we hit record. You and I were talking and we were talking about, what time zone are you in. And then I said it was in Cleveland. After a little bit of discovery, we found out that your brother and sister-in-law live in the same city as me, literally in the same town, which is like a suburb of Cleveland and eight minutes away, that's so crazy.
[00:02:57] Debbie: So crazy. It just goes to show what a small world it is, right?
[00:03:01] Aneta: It is. And it's so interesting. You can find commonalities with so many people. So I want to dive into so many of the things that you're doing, but it would be so helpful just if you could share a little bit of your background, anything that you think would be helpful just to help us get to know you a little bit better.
[00:03:19] Debbie: Sure. So I spent about 40 years or so being a family caregiver. Started when I was 17 and my dad had a massive stroke and survived he lived for 30 years and I was his caregiver. He did not live with me, but I was his person for everything. And then my oldest son, when he was born, he was diagnosed on the autism spectrum.
And then my husband several years later started to have both physical and mental health challenges. And it eventually did culminate in him passing away about a year and a half ago. So honestly, for most of my life, I felt that I was a victim of my circumstances. Why did I get this tough break?
Why is this all happening to me? And around 50, I had a bit of an epiphany. And now I'm turning 61 in the next few weeks. And so over the past decade, I've been able to shift my mindset and change my life.
[00:04:31] Aneta: So do you identify as being a nurturer or did the caregiver role come naturally to you or was it hard?
[00:04:41] Debbie: I think it did come naturally to me. I think honestly, at 17, it gave me a little bit of self-worth and purpose. And people were so impressed at how I was stepping up to take care of my father that it helped me to grow as a person, but at 17, did I know that I would be able to do it at that age, who even thinks about such a thing?
Don't get me wrong. There's a difference between being a professional caregiver, and nursing, and none of that was ever anything that I was interested in. And that's not what I did as a family caregiver for the most part. But yes, I would say, I think as most women are, I'm a nurturer and, I want to take care of everyone and fix everyone's problems.
[00:05:35] Aneta: Wow. You said that your husband started experiencing some physical and emotional challenges, and some mental health challenges. Tell me a little bit more about what that experience was like for you as you were watching your husband start to have these experiences.
[00:05:51] Debbie: after he turned 50, he was 6 years older than I am. I used to joke that he was going through male menopause because I noticed a shift in his mind, and his physical health, but also I didn't realize at the time that his mental health was deteriorating. And at that point, other than ADHD, he didn't have any mental health diagnoses. And I later came to realize that he was suffering from anxiety and then later on with depression and he just never took care of himself. So he had a lot of things. He always had Crohn's disease and then he became diabetic and then all of these things added to other ancillary diagnoses and physical problems.
But honestly, it was harder dealing with his anxiety and depression because I didn't have any experience with that. And like I said, I didn't even realize that I was dealing with an illness. So I got very frustrated with him. He just was noncompliant. He would get very anxious about the smallest things that would set him off.
He and I also work together. And I have my own insurance agency, it's actually in my name, and when that started seeping into business, affecting my team members, the customers, that just created another problem until eventually his anxiety got so bad, that he just walked out of the office one day and said, I can never go back there.
And he never came back. I couldn't even get him back to say, Gary, just tell me what you haven't done. Who do I need to call? He left his desk in piles, in a mess. I said I'll bring it home. You don't have to, nope. He couldn't do it. Left me in a bind in that way. All this was going on and then out of the blue, he got diagnosed with terminal blood cancer having nothing to do with any of the other things.
It was crazy and let me just add, about six weeks before that diagnosis, for the first time in his life, he was hospitalized for his anxiety and depression and had come out a different person in a good way.
[00:08:14] Aneta: Wow.
[00:08:14] Debbie: He was excited about life. He was open to therapy and he just had the best mindset. We felt so hopeful. And then six weeks later, he gets this news.
[00:08:28] Aneta: Yeah. I believe everything's interconnected even if there isn't some sort of obvious connection, you just don't even know at the subconscious level if he was aware that something was happening internally for him. Do you think that?
[00:08:41] Debbie: I do think that. There were just so many different things going on. I do agree with you. They were all interinterconnected.
[00:08:52] Aneta: So you wrote a book and I know you're going to be releasing a second book, it's a memoir and it was the bestselling book and it's called on second thought, maybe I can. So when did you write your book?
[00:09:07] Debbie: So I wrote it while Gary was dying and unintentionally that happened. Let me just say that I am not that person who said their whole life, I want to write a book. I never wanted to write a book. I consider myself a numbers girl. I am a CPA and then I switched careers and have run my insurance agency for almost 30 years.
None of that has anything to do with writing. In college, I would look at the course syllabus and be like, if there's a term paper, I'm not taking that class. And one thing led to another that brought me to the idea of writing a memoir. And I thought that'll never happen.
If I want to do it, I'm going to have to find the money to pay someone to write this because I don't know how to do it. And one day I was listening to a podcast and I heard a woman being interviewed who helped first-time authors get their story out there. And I thought maybe I'm hearing this for a reason.
And I really liked her listening and I contacted her and really connected with her. And she was starting this 12-week course for first-time authors. And so just as I was about to join, Gary got the diagnosis. And so I was seeing a therapist at the time and I said to her clearly I can't do this now.
And the therapist said to me, I disagree. I think this is the perfect time because you're going to need something just for yourself that's separate from everything that's going on with Gary and the rest of your family. And I said, but what if I can't do what's expected of me? Like I had all of these, anxiety about not showing up as the A student.
And she said, who cares? Let it go. And that's what I did. For the first month I thought, yeah, I'm still not writing this book. And when he died, I was three chapters shy of finishing.
[00:11:19] Aneta: Did you work with that woman?
[00:11:20] Debbie: Yeah. So I took the course and we met once a week online. And there were videos to watch and whatnot, but you still have to figure it out on your own. And took me a little bit to figure out and in my mind, I needed to be clear on what's it going to look like and what are the chapters going to be. And where do I even start writing? Once I got the framework, then it got a lot easier to plug in the details.
[00:11:48] Aneta: So when you decide to do this? And you were writing it. Was it cathartic for you to be able to write while you were experiencing what was happening with your husband?
[00:11:57] Debbie: Absolutely. I was very diligent about making sure that I was writing regularly almost every day. And because my life had changed completely, I was very lucky at that time that I was home with my husband full time. I didn't have to go to my office. I had a team that was handling everything there.
So I went, but not very often. And I would schedule either I'm going to write at 6 a.m. before he gets up or I'm going to tell him at two o'clock when he's okay and doing, resting, whatever. I'm going upstairs for an hour. Don't bother me unless it's an emergency. Or when he was in the hospital, I would bring so much stuff that people thought I was moving into the hospital.
And then when he was sleeping in the hospital, I would take out my computer and start writing. And it was cathartic, even though I was often putting myself having to write about difficult things in my past that really took me right back emotionally into that story, whatever I was writing about, it was still different than what I was experiencing.
And it gave me like a little bit of excitement, wow, after I get a little further, I'm like, I'm doing this, like maybe this is going to happen. And then it gets exciting.
[00:13:29] Aneta: Yeah. How did you come up with the title of the book?
[00:13:32] Debbie: So about a year before had worked a little bit with a guy who is a story coach, which I didn't know what that was. It was someone who helps you take the story of your life and figure out, what you have to offer other people, so to speak. And as I told the story, he said, your life is really about a lot of maybe I can.
And I was like, what? I don't see that. What are you talking about? And then he said it and he was talking about it, something a little bit different than what I resonate with. And so that had always stuck in my mind. And after somehow I didn't have the title at first, but then you write it and it's it just jumped out at me that it became so obvious that's what it had to be.
And then on second thought, a lot of people just leave that out of the title which I understand. But to me, that is a crucial part of the title, and here's where it came from for me my whole life, anytime anyone asked me to do something, and didn't have to be as big as writing a book. It could be like do you want to learn how to roller skate, I can't.
My knee-jerk reaction was I can't. There was always a reason. And what I've learned over the past decade is that typically that I can't, is fear-based. Because you don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to fail, whatever the reason is. And if you just wait a bit after that, that's where the second thought comes. It's a minute. Why not? Why can't I?
And so I think that so many of us are quick to just, say, no, I can't. And if we think about it, there are so many things that opportunities that come up in front of us, that I think sometimes a lot of us know, oh, I really would like to give that a try.
But then those limiting beliefs, all those excuses, I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve this, whatever it is for you, they peek right in and that's it. That's where you put up the stop sign.
[00:15:42] Aneta: When you had this realization, when you were coming up with the title, how did that change then how you approached your life, if at all?
[00:15:50] Debbie: The funny thing is that now all my friends throw it in my face if I say no to something. They say, wait a second, what happened to Maybe I Can? I do. It still is my first thought a lot of times. But now I don't let it be my last thought. I take it further and say, do I not want to do this? Or am I just scared?
[00:16:13] Aneta: Yeah. Did you know your book was going to be a memoir? Like when you set out to write it?
[00:16:19] Debbie: I didn't even understand the difference between a memoir, a biography, or a self-help book. No, I had no idea what it was going to be. After I started learning a little bit about the descriptions, I did have to make, or I did make the conscious decision, that it was just going to be basically, it's a bunch of stories, right?
The first third is how I developed those limiting beliefs as a child. And then the middle part is, how I started experiencing, one tough situation after another and what my mindset was. And then the last part is what's happened over the last decade since I turned 50 and what has shifted.
But none of the books gives you any advice. It's just read the stories, relate to them, and, hopefully, be inspired.
[00:17:15] Aneta: Yeah. Did anything shift in your mind as you were reflecting? Because it's one thing to live our life and then it's another maybe to look back older, wiser, more mature with, growth and stuff like the look, relooking at the experiences that you've had
[00:17:32] Debbie: Absolutely. Especially as I learn more and more about personal development and personal growth. You look back and you're like, so that's why I feel that way. Oh, so that's where this comes from. So yes, it's helped me with my development for sure.
[00:17:55] Aneta: And now you're writing another book or you have written it?
[00:17:59] Debbie: I've written it.
[00:18:00] Aneta: You've written it. Okay. Why another book and how is this one different?
[00:18:04] Debbie: So I have to say that after I wrote my first book I think or while I was writing my first book Lauren, the woman that I took the course with said to me, I don't know what it is. I feel like you're going to write 20 books. I said, 20, do you know how old I am? 20? I think you're crazy. And I was writing one book. That was it.
The minute that I was done, I was like, Oh, now I have to write about this. And now I'm thinking to myself after the second one, now this and now this. I have so many ideas. I never had one idea. So I knew that after the first book, I knew that the second book I wanted to write was now something to give everybody more practical advice about what I've learned.
Almost like personal development 101. I didn't realize some of these things had a name. I didn't listen to any personal development podcasts. I knew nothing. And I wished that I had someone who at the beginning of my journey just gave me an overview or where to start or you know I got to that point where it was like, okay, something has to change.
I don't know what, I don't know how to start I don't know what it is. And that's what I was looking to do reach those people who felt like I did. So now this book is called The Sprinkle Effect a guide to creating a more colorful and fulfilling life. And because I love rainbow sprinkles. So there are 15 sprinkles, like a sprinkle of courage, a sprinkle of action, a sprinkle of discipline, curiosity, joy, you know all the different things that you can sprinkle into your life.
And so each chapter is just an explanation about what that sprinkle is all about. And then I do usually share a story and then activities and journal prompts and practical tips to get you started on your journey of incorporating that sprinkle into your life.
[00:20:14] Aneta: I would love to ask about some of these sprinkles as I think about what you've shared already. You're a young woman who is caring for an elderly parent, and many people are going to be at that stage at some point in their life. You are raising a child who is neurodivergent, which brings on a whole set of challenges, right?
Many people are also parenting or taking care of loved ones who require additional assistance and support. You lost your husband. And had to figure out what does life look like after that. So do you have some sprinkles maybe in those categories specifically that you talk about that would be helpful?
I think that there's probably someone listening that could benefit from hearing some of your experiences.
[00:20:59] Debbie: So the sprinkle that has made the biggest difference in my life is a sprinkle of responsibility. And I don't mean responsibility like being responsible for other people, as you've just described, I have for a good part of my life, and I think a lot of women have. Before learning about this, I felt like I was a victim of my circumstances.
All those things and more that you've mentioned, like I said in the beginning, why me? Why is this my life? What have I done to deserve this? I'm a good person, right? All of that kind of questioning. And the sprinkle of responsibility stems from an idea, and for me, what drilled it in was this formula from the book, the success principles by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer called E plus R equals O.
E is the event, R is your response and O is the outcome. So there's an event, add in how you respond to that event, and that equals the outcome. My whole life, I was just living as the event happens and that's the outcome. I had nothing to do with it. How I react doesn't matter. And on a broader scale, if you think about people who have come from really horrific backgrounds, poverty, abuse, all different things.
Some people just stay there. This is what their life is while others can get out and rise above. And what is the difference? When you think about celebrities like Oprah think about what her background is. She didn't have someone who came in and just took her hand and said, Oh, here you go. I'm going to give you this incredible life.
[00:23:00] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:23:01] Debbie: No, she took responsibility and said, all those things don't matter. I know what I want and I'm going to figure out a way to go and get it. And I was living having no responsibility for any of the decisions I've made, how I was thinking about things, none of it.
And even though it wasn't, it's not the idea of looking back and berating myself. It's now empowering regardless of what happens. Think about how many choices and decisions we all make every single day. That's empowering. And that mindset shift was everything to me because that said, I have the power.
If I'm not happy in an area of my life, I have the power to change that. Regardless of my circumstances, regardless of my age, I don't care what you tell me your life is like, you can do something to move it in the direction that you want to go.
[00:24:08] Aneta: Yeah. Oh, my God. What an amazing life lesson. And it's so true is no one's going to take you by the hand and show you the way.
[00:24:16] Debbie: Nope.
[00:24:17] Aneta: And also no one can move you. Sometimes people are just immovable. Even if you have someone who's a guide, you have to be willing to acknowledge that I'm not going to stay stuck where I am. This is not my permanent place, even if it's temporary.
[00:24:32] Debbie: Absolutely. And for so long, I'd be like, again, with the I can't do that. I'm taking care of my father. Oh, you don't have this. Look at you. Your life is so easy. That whole comparison is a horrible thing. Your life is so easy. Look at poor me. I can't do that. Someone out there could be listening going, Oh yeah.
Easy for them to say. They don't know what's going on with me. I don't care what's going on with you. You can do it.
[00:24:56] Aneta: Yeah. Your entire energy shifts when you talk about these sprinkles because I can tell you are so believe in it and you're so convicted. Any other favorite sprinkles that you think would be helpful to share?
[00:25:08] Debbie: Curiosity. It wasn't until I opened myself up and said, even though journaling, and meditating, I don't do that right away. I don't do that. I can't do that. The writing, so many different things. Yeah. Some things I tried and they're not for me and that's okay, but I've found so many things now that I love that are such a part of my life that I never would have found if I didn't allow myself to be open and curious.
And look, I found writing. What? Honestly, you can't know how crazy that is, but I never would have found it if I hadn't been open to journaling, which was something I hated the idea of. So you just never know where one thing is going to lead you. But if you're not open and curious, then you're going to stay stuck.
[00:26:16] Aneta: Yeah. Curiosity is such a wonderful place to bring yourself to because if you're in the negative emotional frequencies and spiral it's really hard to tell someone who is angry or, maybe feels depressed or any of these lower feelings to suddenly be joyful. No, but if you can get to curious, you can start to ask better questions.
You can start to open yourself up to more possibilities and curiosity gets you to the whole other levels. Where did you find curiosity? Was this something that just came naturally or is this something that you worked on?
[00:26:53] Debbie: Something I worked on, I think I had been curious about a lot of things but was afraid. It came back to my limiting beliefs of what if I fail. What if I'm not good enough? What if I embarrass myself? What if someone judges me? All of those things came back to that. And it's like anything else, once you try one little thing and you get a little taste and it sparks a little bit of excitement inside of you or a little bit of a passion you never knew you had, you're like now you want more, right?
What else is out there? So it just really was getting started.
[00:27:30] Aneta: Yeah. So many people, if they lose someone close to them, especially their partner, don't usually plan for that, right? We think of, we're going to retire and we're going to go take all these trips and we're going to do all this stuff. And we have these plans. What has surprised you about life after losing your partner?
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:49] Debbie: What surprised me is that even though for me, it was maybe a little bit different because like I said, he had stopped working. He did have struggles with mental illness. It was very difficult to be married to him for the last five-plus years, honestly. And so we hadn't been a couple.
He couldn't go out and do anything with me socially. I was going out with just my friends. He couldn't take vacations. I was only going on girl’s trips. He couldn't earn money and all of these things. And with that, I would think to myself I'm already prepared. And I wasn't, it didn't matter that he couldn't do those things.
He was still with me. And, I could still talk to him
And, as far as my kids are concerned, I think to myself, gosh, there's nobody else now who understands that love and pride or worry, as you feel as a parent and I don't think I was prepared for a different feeling of loneliness, again, even though we weren't in the traditional sense, doing things as a couple. It still feels different.
[00:29:20] Aneta: Yeah. And how are you embracing, if you can use that word, how are you choosing to redefine what your life looks like now?
[00:29:29] Debbie: I think it's scary because, as you said, you're still even dreaming as a couple and can't imagine the idea that you're going to be on your own and looking forward to the later part of my life. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? So I guess I'm trying to look at it as exciting I can forge that path.
I don't want to say I don't have to worry about somebody else's desires. Trying to look at it like that but I have to say it is tough because most of my friends are married or part of a couple, or even when they are complaining about their spouses, which we all do. At least most of us do. I think I wish I had a spouse to complain about. I have embraced the fact that, Okay, first of all, my husband used to do all the cooking and food shopping.
The last couple of years he couldn't. I don't know how to cook. I don't want to cook. I don't like to cook. So I've been forced to do some of those things that I've never wanted to, and at least see, okay, I can really with the cooking if I'm sure I can, it's that I really don't want to. The first three months right after he died, my water heater leaked and broke.
Water was coming through my ceiling, all of these like household things that even if he were there, I could say, Gary, what do I do? Who do I call? What do you think it is? So just realized I can figure it out. I might not want to have to figure it out, but I can figure it out.
And so I don't need to be afraid of some of the things, even at work. When he left work, there were things that he did that I knew nothing about that I didn't want to know anything about. And that scared the heck out of me after he left, but I learned. And so I think just like everything. Even though it might be an area I never wanted to learn about, I still can learn about it and I can still figure it out.
And so I don't need anybody else to help me in that way. Of course, yes, I need people to call and all of that, but I can figure it out. And so I think that's empowering and it makes moving forward by myself a little less scary.
[00:32:02] Aneta: Yeah. Your memoir, no doubt is very interesting because just what you've shared now has me curious about the stories and I love the sprinkles that you've shared with us. Thank you for your generosity and for doing that. I think we all need to be reminded sometimes of these lessons and sometimes it's easier.
Listening to someone else's story and seeing maybe ourselves in their experiences. And so many of the things that you talked about may not be common, but they are universal to many of us in one way or another. So one of the questions I always ask everyone is tied to the title of the podcast, which is what does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
[00:32:44] Debbie: It means that I am going to continue exploring and making choices that move me toward my dream every day. And because of that, now each day in the past, I used to wake up and I don't want to say drudgery, but we all just go through that familiar routine, get up, go to work, do your errands, you all of that, go to sleep and do it again. And now it doesn't feel like that. Now, I have a gratitude practice, which we didn't talk about, but I never understood that either. And it makes a big difference. And I'm excited every day for what I get to do, who I get to meet like you, who I get to talk to, and who hopefully I get to impact. And who impacts me and that changes everything.
[00:33:43] Aneta: I love that so much. And if folks wanted to learn more about you and also your books, where can they find you? Debbie?
[00:33:51] Debbie: The best place is my website because then that leads to everything else that I've got. So my website is Debbie R Weiss. com. You got to put in the R cause otherwise you get to a realtor in California and that's not me.
[00:34:07] Aneta: That happens sometimes with names. I have one of those unusual ones where no one had the same URL as me. Yeah. It's such a pleasure to meet you and I cannot wait to read your books. I'm especially excited to have a sprinkle of hearts, right?
[00:34:23] Debbie: That's an online store. I have, it's called the Sprinkle Effect
[00:34:27] Aneta: The sprinkle effect. Okay. I love the use of sprinkles. And when will that be available?
[00:34:31] Debbie: 11/11.
[00:34:33] Aneta: Angel numbers. I love it. A beautiful, auspicious day, and continued success to you, Debbie.
[00:34:39] Debbie: You too. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:34:41] Aneta: Thank you.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.