FLOW + GROW With Gail Kraft

Hello. It's Howard Brown. It's the Shining Brightly

Show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. On this glorious day, I am so

excited through the moon to introduce you to Gail Kraft. Hi,

Gail,

Hey. How you doing? Howard,

I'm awesome today. Just so excited to see you, I

just have to tell you, when you bring on someone who is your

mentor, your confidant, okay, your partner, okay, in making

the world a better place, it's a very special opportunity, and

Gail and I have this indelible bond of authenticity and just we

click, and we are partners, and this is amazing, and so I'm so

thrilled to have you here.

You know, we can say anything to any to each other,

can't we?

Our audience is now going to learn why, and I

want to thank them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for

listening, for tuning in 257,000 downloads and growing, people

need to shine brightly, and we're going to teach you how a

little bit how to do that. Let me tell you a little bit about

Gail. This is just a quick, just snapshot of her, okay, all

right. She says, to tap into your personal power, embrace

your personal purpose and discover your profound

potential. Right now. Yale craft is a keynote speaker, podcaster,

empowerment master. She's part of the author's journey to

enlightenment, and a thought leader that works with clients

and facilities and corporations, offering all sorts of programs

and various approaches to accessing their self awareness,

their focus, emotional balance, to keep it in order and tap into

your natural flow for success. This way you gain a higher self

awareness, create smarter goals and much lower stress. You too

can make conscious choices and take control of your life today.

Wow, that's a pretty powerful leader, and she's a corporate

executive and a scrum master and so much more, so much more, so

much more. Please tell me how you shine brightly each and

every day.

Okay, so this is very serious. I want you guys.

It's a morning routine that I have, and I would love for you

to embrace it. Are you ready for this? Howard, yes. Joy, joy,

joy, joy, joy, that is how I start my day.

I love it, I love it, I love it. I love it,

because I start my day similarly, but I look in the

mirror, because most people don't like what they see in the

mirror. And I start with actually saying that I am

blessed. I am grateful, okay, and I'm lucky, okay, to wake up

each day after all, what I've been through, what you've been

through. So I praise that. Then I say, I'm going to choose

kindness, I'm going to choose gratitude, to choose healing,

choose giving, choose joy. So I have the joy in there. Choose

joy, and I want to choose not to hate. And so we have very

similar morning mantras, and that's why we're so aligned.

It's so great. All right, yeah, you you could start anywhere

but, but share what you want of a quick background of who you

are. Oh

my goodness. So there's no quick background, but

I will make it as succinct as possible. Started off as a

street kid. I actually was a gang kid went into corporate

America as a young adult, became very successful, became a

manager without a college degree, by the way, which was

pretty amazing. And because I followed my instinct, I didn't

have an educated background as to what a manager should be, I

was ridiculously successful because I followed my instinct.

I didn't know I was in flow. Then I didn't realize that I was

in in the groove, if you will. But success breeds success,

right? And so it just grew exponentially, until there came

a time where I got fired, and that was the best thing for me,

because at that point, I went down the spiral of, you know,

I'm going to sue them, I'm going to be did not like who I had

become, and I realized that I am the same person, successful or

not successful, happy or not happy? And I realized I needed

to solve the Gale problem, and so I started my own personal

development. Fell into learning. I became a life coach. I became

an NLP quantum linguistic master. I became a soul

realignment master. I one thing after another after another,

because it grows. And I bring all of that right, the corporate

logical side and the woo side together for my clients. And it

is so powerful, because we are that complex. We're not one or

the other. We are all of that and then more. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely, tell me about, you know, being

diagnosed with breast cancer and your healing journey.

Okay, so, so I've written a book, because there is

so much that happened. And I do follow my instinct. I do follow

divine direction, if you will, and months and months before

anything. Working with a spiritualist friend, I was told

I was going to experience a kind of death and and come out

different. He said, You're not going to die, but it's like,

when you die, the life goes before you, and that's the

experience you're going to have. And I'm like, Yeah, okay. And

then I went on a meditation meditative journey, and the

sharmans, who ran it, said JC, and Mary showed up and put a

blue blanket of healing over you. And I'm like, Really,

that's odd, okay, whatever. Then I got Yale go on a plant based

diet, really, okay. Then I got go out and buy the chemo hats,

the caps, the scarfs that women wear. And I did, but as I was

buying them, this is funny, Howard, I'm yelling at the

universe. You want me to what I will buy these because I follow

direction, but I'm never going to wear them. They're going in a

drawer, because this is an insult to my friends who've gone

through this. So I have these things sitting in my four then I

get call your primary care. Now, Howard, I do Western I don't do

Western medicine, so I called the Alright, called the primary

care. Gail, you're in perfect shape, perfect health. Do you

even want a mammogram? And I said, Sure, why not? The

Universe sent me on this journey. Let's do the blood

test. Let's do all of it. And as I walked in for that exam, I

went, oh, oh. Oh. So I was not surprised. I never, you know how

you're supposed to test yourself. Never had any evidence

of a lump, ever. So here I went through this journey. And you

know, if you get my book, which is lessons from hell, I talk

about the ups and the downs, the arguments that I had with

Western medicine for the alternatives I wanted to bring

into that process, and the surprise with Eastern medicine

about how snobby they were and how judged I was for even

considering Western medicine and so juggling both sides through

my chosen healing process was interesting, but also I became

very connected with God. I became very connected with

source, and really leaned into wanting to allow that energy to

be part of my life on a daily basis, and I hold a very serious

conversation that's in my book with the universe, about, I want

you with me always.

I appreciate that, and we walk together. So you are

sharing that with me, and I'm, you know, as as now a three time

you know cancer. You know diagnosed patient and now in

treatment. And this is the first time I'm announcing this is that

you know, many people know that I had an analog cancer

experience in 1990 my miracle one with my twin sister, saving

my life from non Hodgkin's lymphoma. And unfortunately, 26

years later, I diagnosed with stage three, the metastatic

stage four colon cancer and achieving no evidence of disease

after five years. This is my first announcement. I've done it

on socials, but on my podcast that I've just been recently

diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, and I will be facing a

third cancer in my lifetime and headed towards a stem cell

transplant later this year, and boy, I will tell you I maybe I

put it lightly, but putting Humpty, Dumpty back together

again. It no easy task. Easy task, not an easy task. I will

tell you that the after cancer or some type of after stress

event or a life event, or even alcoholism or or trafficking,

all those are walking in darkness. And the beauty is that

is that you have people like you and I that help you put Humpty,

Dumpty back together again. Help you build your Calvary, build

your network, whether it's in business or in life. And that's,

that's what we do, and that's the way that we lift up people.

And, um, so, you know, it's just amazing. Tell me a question,

because you know that you've been my mentor. Sensei learning

energy a little bit, because it's not where I come from. I

come from the other side. I'm the go getter. I'm the

resilience guy. I'm the power through, you know, find your

happy place, and, you know, I do it differently. And this is why,

you know. You and I, you know, bring such different dynamics to

the table. Tell my audience what flow state is, because you've

helped me learn and acquire an appreciation and do that, and

it's really helped me bring clarity. So I'd love for you to

just kind of define flow state, it

really is, and I want to first address there are,

there are different exercises and processes that you can do to

get into a flow state. And one of them that I call conscious

routines, if you will. And part of that is what I call

meditation. For those of you who might balk on at that,

understand that when you go to church and pray, you're

meditating. Right when you go and you take a drive and get

into an altered state, you are meditating. Meditation is just

calming your brain and getting to a different level of

vibration. That's all it is. It's not anything Woo. It's we

do it naturally. It really is something that we need to do in

order to regenerate so so flow state is actually getting into

that level of calmness where you actually can hear what is, I

call your third mind. You have your body mind. And actually

there's three minds there, but we're not going to go into that.

You have your body mind. You have your two brain minds,

right? You're, you're you're intuitive, and then you're,

you're conscious, or your your go getter. And then you have the

voices that you hear that you don't really understand, that

little voice in the back of your head. When you you get into that

state, when I get into that state, I can hear that voice.

And it's not words, it's right, it's it's like a feeling or an

impulse to do something, and then I just follow the direction

of that, and in doing that, call it your intuition. Call it your

gut. Call it God, call it Allah, call it electricity, call it

whatever you want. But something is driving us, and when we allow

it in, it's always got our back, always has our best interest in

mind. So when it says to do something ridiculous, like buy

chemo, has Do it. Do it without question.

I wanted to respond because one of my

sayings is that we all get knocked down in life and in

business, and could be finances, could be health, like we have

experience and especially in relationships, and I actually

was doing about a third of the work, because I was doing it

through exercise and sweating it out and finding that. And now

what you've taught me, okay, I'm a prime you know, you're the

teacher. I'm the student. Adding that calmness part is really

opened me up and to really able to address this next step that's

just major life threatening for me, and before it was powered

out in the basketball court, hit the gym, walk, hike, five miles.

And now allowing that flow state and allowing that meditative

state is giving me a whole different calmness to approach

this next big mountain that I've got to climb. So I want to thank

you for that, because I'm your prime student, and now we're

going to actually teach others. So thank you for sharing what

flow state is there. I want to tell people, because you are the

flow and I am the grow and resilience is a muscle that can

be trained, and people don't realize that. And resilience is

all parts of emotional, physical and soul, and that has to be

worked on. And you actually have to be able to be very

disciplined, intentional and authentic about where you're

taking that resiliency muscle, and that's the beauty, okay, of

where you and I converge, okay? Because you're able to actually

do both and share the flow and the resilience. And I'm able to

do that, and I'm learning more of the flow, but I think that's

the beauty, and that's so attractive. So what I'm really

excited to announce, okay, is that we have this amazing

program, and it's called flow and grow, and it's short, it's

going to be a four sessions, and we're going to get you kick

started. And so Gail, I would love for you to tell what we've

created and the program we've

Well, it's a little bit of salt and pepper, it's a

little bit of spicing it up, right? Right? Yes, right. So

it's looking at leadership, whether it's in corporations or

if you're an entrepreneur. It doesn't matter. Leadership is

leadership and taking that role and growing it in such a way

that should you be open to change and open to the exercises

that we do there. You learn about who you are at a very fun

level. You learn about what flow looks like in yourself and in

business. So you identify it. You look how you learn how to

bounce back from any situations, and we're going to show you how

to look forward to possibilities, right? All of

that comes, comes. You need it all this is why. At the

beginning, when I, when I said, we are too complex to say, I'm a

this and I'm a that, and I'm a this and I'm a that, we're not,

we've, we've lived really rich, full, beautiful lives, and we

have amazing gifts to bring. And if leaders can get to that state

of understanding who they are and owning it, not asking you to

change, that's ridiculous, it's who you are, owning it, and

knowing how to transmute that into working with your team in

such a way that you're not working with your team.

I want to tell how excited, because Gail and I have

presented and to corporate environments and also to

executive teams we presented at a college, and I want to tell

you, we light it up. This is not your average type of a program.

It is interactive. We are making you feel it and be able to share

it with the group and with others and with us, and be able

to be able to pivot, if you need full pivots. And we're going to

take measurements along the way and measure the success. And

we're going to take you and we're going to kick start to and

if you want to continue on with us, we're going to keep walking

by your side. Be happy to but everybody needs that kickstart,

and that's the program called flow and grow, and it's going to

be amazing. So that's coming and flow and grow. Flow, hyphen,

grow.com. Will be the website to find out all the information,

and we'll put that in the show notes and all over social media.

But we are so excited to get this started. People need us

right now. Gail, they need this. Yeah,

yeah. There is some so much change and and I want to

keep it from the metaphysical level, but it is the

metaphysical change, the energetic changes that are going

on in the world that is impacting all of us, and

including business. And you know, whether it's politics,

whether it's, you know, social injustices, you know, whatever

is impacting you. By working with us on this program, you'll

be able to understand how to rise above that and succeed in

your life, whether it's in business or not,

you know. So the why you should consider that

this program is that you are getting, he said, she said she

said. He said, right. So you're getting a perspective from two

fairly opposite people that have this indelible bond of

convergence, and we are going to be able to help you, take you

through Okay, the next steps of where you want to go. Okay as an

individual, okay in life, in business, in relationships and

as teams. Because I say this almost every day life, business,

getting through cancer, getting through your next business

problem, getting your next job, overcoming the next walk in

darkness, is a team sport, and Gail and I put these dynamic

teams, okay, very selectively together, and we work with you

and get you started. And four weeks, four weeks, four

sessions, and we will kick you off. And we are excited to get

that.

I'm so excited, so I wrote down the word teams, and I

really want to get into that a little bit. We're a social

animal, right? We do better when we are in community, community

that supports us, right? And one of the things that I that I will

do with my clients, is a process called Value elicitation, and

that is not the values that are on the corporate wall, which no

one follows, but your personal I want to say gut level, body

level values. Mine, the first one is community. The second one

is tribe. So having relationships is ridiculously

important to me, ridiculously and and I also have learned that

there's a. Flow of in and out of community, but there isn't a

flow in and out of tribe like you and I tribe. We will always

be connected, right? Yeah, the first person I called when, when

I got my news, I didn't call my my son and my daughter? No, I

called Howard, right? And with first thing you said to me,

yeah, chemo. Sucks,

and it does so it's very important that you

actually know yourself a little bit of who you are, and we're

going to help you define really well who you are and how you

interact with others, because that is a tell of where you

might need to pivot. Tweet, okay, tone it down. Tone It Up.

And okay, you can't, you know, sometimes looking in the mirror,

do that yourself. So we are looking for your blind spots,

okay? And from a very, very just, you know, we want your

success, okay? So we want to move you forward. So it's a

great way and a great forum for do that. So I'm just so excited

to get started, and we'll be running some classes before year

end and continuing. So we're very excited about that. Any

final words about the flow and the growth program?

No, I will say that that that program came together

with flow. It was so easy for us to put that together. It's

ridiculous. It's really, it is meant to be, guys, it's meant to

be,

yeah, we're going to help so many people. So I'm

thrilled with that. I know. All right, so what I'd love you to

do now is to put your sunglasses back on. Okay? Now this is

called the shining brightly spotlight, so the spotlight is

on you, Gail, and what you give to the universe and how you'll

shine out. So tell people how best to get a hold of you. Okay,

because you have individual programs and individual books

and all that, and we're going to feature all that, including

flow, hyphen, grow.com, and so tell them, and then share some

final inspiration and kick the show back to me. Sure.

So how to get in touch with me? Actually, through

social media and I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Gale, craft,

K, R, A, F, T, like the craft cheese, but no relationship to

that company, right? But you also need to send me a message

saying you saw me on shining brightly podcast, or I will not

accept the request to friend me and then we can talk. I don't

accept friend requests from people I don't know

that's okay. Well, give me an inspirational quote

or a quick story to close out the show and shine some

brightness out there to the world.

I would say that from a story perspective, the

calmer that I get, the more impact that I have, and the more

clarity my choices become. So find your calm spot. Get

centered and just love who you are.

I love it because I'm going to add that to my

happy place. Not only is it that physical, that is actually the

calming and the flow place, universe place for me. So thank

you. This has been amazing. What a great thing to have you on. I

think people are going to take take this home and take this

message to heart where they are at and find out where they're

going. So I'm looking forward to that so much fun. I know it's

great. So you have been listening or tuning into the

shiny brightly show you can reach me at shiny brightly.com

to learn about my book and learn about speaking I can make your

event shine. And also look and find out about this podcast, and

especially my advocacy, my advocacy in the cancer world for

entrepreneurship and business at Babson College, and as well as

the interfaith relations of getting to know the stranger is

really spelled very, very important to me and now flow and

grow.com so let me thank some folks that you know get me here

every single day. Publisher, front edge publishing, I blog

monthly in read the spirit.com and the my podcast, finishing

house, is called amplify you. And then I want to give a shout

out to the diamond moments magazine, where my podcast and

my stories appear monthly. It's an amazing click through digital

magazine that goes out all over the world. And then lastly,

speak inspire and prosper has just joined on as a sponsor. So

want to thank all of them as well. And just remember, if you

choose, and this is a choice, to shine brightly just a little bit

each day for yourself. Remember self first, self care, self

love. Then you're able to then go lift up others. We will join

forces to become this force multiplier for good and positive

change in the world, in your community, in your neighborhood

and in the world. And that is how we. And Brittany together.

Thank you, Gail, love you.

I love you too. Bye, bye, everybody, take care. Bye.