Ellen Marrs
Ellen Marrs, a three-time Boston Marathon finisher and mother of seven, is a seasoned entrepreneur, renowned author, record-breaking fundraiser, and sought-after speaker. Her journey reflects a life dedicated to setting and achieving audacious goals, a commitment exemplified by accomplishments such as running the Boston Marathon thrice, balancing life with a family of nine while traveling the United States full-time, and publishing inspiring works that motivate and compel others to pursue a life filled with dreams come true. Now, her favorite accomplishment is having a small role in the success of her clients and fellow goal getters.
As the founder of Goal Getters Global, Ellen leads a thriving online training community and membership that empowers individuals, non-profits, and businesses to transform from distracted and discouraged goal setters into focused and fearless goal GETTERS. Noteworthy success stories from her community range from remarkable weight loss achievements to unprecedented business growth and recognition, demonstrating Ellen's ability to guide others toward realizing their biggest aspirations.
Ellen's impactful coaching has propelled numerous clients to professional triumphs, evidenced by testimonials in various domains, including weight loss, fitness challenges, and financial freedom. Her core philosophy, encapsulated in "acceleration through appreciation, " resonates through her signature class, "Gratitude: The Missing Link," emphasizing the power of gratitude in fostering relationships and achieving goals.
Recognized for her achievements, Ellen has been featured on esteemed platforms such as FOX 10 TV, the Boston Athletic Association, Boston University News Service, Voyage Phoenix, KPRL Radio, and Networking Times magazine. As a motivational speaker and mentor, she captivates audiences with her compelling journey, inspiring them to overcome challenges, pursue dreams, and achieve goals with unwavering passion.
Ellen's commitment to philanthropy is evident through her record-breaking fundraising for organizations like the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation and the 261 Fearless non-profit. Her upcoming book chronicles her remarkable six-year journey to conquer the prestigious Boston Marathon, providing further insight into her tenacity and resilience.
In her pursuit of life's goals, Ellen doesn't just set benchmarks; she sets and achieves audacious milestones, leaving an indelible mark on those she touches. Connect with Ellen to unlock your potential and join the global community of fearless goal GETTERS.
Episode Transcription
Guiding Growth. Conversations with Community Leaders. In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals and modern moments, an event and meeting venue in the heart of Gilbert and at Gilbert Independent, your valley. net dedicated to serving readers with good community journalism. The Gilbert Independent is a nonpartisan newspaper, an online site that covers our town's institutions, development and events.
Subscribe and follow Your valley. net Daily to stay up to date with latest local news. Are you ready? Ready? All right. Here we go. Born in Georgia. This guest was adopted at the age of 11 after the death of her biological mother. In 2001, she moved to Arizona where she attended Arizona State University and met her husband on a blind date. She broke the mold as the first ever female aircraft mechanic for Delta Airlines. Sheet metal department has run the Boston marathon three times and completed a 12 and 12 race challenge while pregnant.
She is a mom to seven and serves as a foster parent. We aren't sure there is anything this guest cannot do so we are in for a beautiful conversation today. Please welcome Ellen Mars. Wow. Dang. That bio just makes me hurt. Just thinking about all the things you've done already. That's awesome. It makes me tired. Ok. Well, let's get started with what we call you go. Would you rather spend a day with your best friend or a party with everyone? You know, my best friend, phone call or text message, text message?
Ok. Favorite superhero Wonder Woman. All right. Dine in or delivery delivery. What is the last book you read? Trusting God. Your hobby of choice running. I think I might know the answer. But would you ever write a B Yes, absolutely. In your teen years? What was your favorite song? Oh, my goodness. It would have to be something by Michael Jackson. I'm sure. But I can't remember. All right, one day with any person living or not. Who would it be my sister? And last question? I think we both know this answer, sir.
Glass, half full or half empty, half full. I would have guessed right. Ok. Do you ever feel like your business is stuck? It's time to get traction and move it forward. Call, Chris Spear, your business coach and Certified E US Implementer. They'll help you use the entrepreneurial operating system to get traction and achieve your vision call Chris today at 40413. That's 4808483037. Oh my gosh. We're so fortunate to have you here today. Thanks for being on the show with us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So what I'd like to start off with of course, is getting into the very beginnings of all the things and talk about where you started home life when you grew up and what that was like. Yeah.
So I had a pretty difficult childhood. I learned after the death of my biological mother that you mentioned um that my, the person I thought was my dad was not my dad and he decided he didn't want to raise Children that weren't his. So I was literally taken to someone's doorstep and said no one wants to take care of you or raise you. So you can either stay here or you can go to a, a school for Wayward girls. And of course I decided I would rather stay where I was dropped off and I was eventually adopted.
And it, it led to what I believe God was preparing me to be a foster and now adopted mom. Um because I have so much of that experience that I can pull from, I'm not, it doesn't mean it's any easier, but I do have a lot, there are a lot of similarities between my story and my Children that I've adopted. So as, as tough as it was, I really believe I was being prepared for something bigger, which is what I'm living when I'm living out. Absolutely. I, I can't even begin to imagine.
And I'm wondering if you look back on that moment or that time period in your life? What is it that you were tapping into intrinsically? Like, how do you get through moments like that? Well, I didn't, I had a lot of thoughts of why me, why should I even care? No one wanted me. Um I've been told later in life as I share my story that there were people who said they would take me if no one else would. And that was actually more of a wound than just thinking no one wanted to take me.
Um But what originally, I was still reeling from the grief. My mother died on Thanksgiving Day and then just uh in February, the following February was when I was left on someone's doorstep. So I, I had not fully grieved my mom, my own mother. Um But the worst part for me was I had a younger sister that I had basically been caring for because my mother was sick for quite a while. And the separation from her was the hardest being away from my little sister and not knowing what was going to happen to her was, was difficult.
And so all I was doing was just trying to keep my head up and move forward. And I do have to say, uh, my parents, the ones who adopted me really had to work through a lot of child trauma and things that they had never experienced or dealt with. So, all I was trying to do was just get up every morning and get through the day. But I eventually felt that safety and security and did not have as many behavioral issues going forward. But it was not, my teen years were pretty tough because at 11, that's when this really started to unfold for me.
Yeah, I can. Yeah, I'm sure teen years, teen years are tough anyway. That's like, what, 5th, 6th grade, somewhere in that range. Boy, that's a lot of uncertainty in the life at that time. I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old now. And I look at them and I think I remember feeling much more mature and older than, than they seem to me. And it was because of what had happened to us at such a young age, we had to deal with really big grown up problems before we were, even before I was even actually a teenager.
So, yeah, so I really grew up quickly and I think that's why I have this motto of, I'm going to do everything I can before my time is up. I'm going to live life to the fullest. So, yeah. What about high school then. So you're in a different situation, but you have adoptive parents. Now. What was high school? Like, where was that? At? Much better because when they adopted me, I think it was a blessing that I was moved almost two hours away from where I was living originally.
So it was almost like I got to start fresh, almost like I started fresh. When I moved here to Arizona in 2001, I had kind of a second chance for new friends. Uh people who didn't know my back story. So my actual high school years when I, after I was adopted, I was moved from northeast Georgia down to on the other side of Atlanta in the southern side of Atlanta. And people didn't really know me, they didn't know my story so I could just really start with a clean slate and I had pretty much a normal childhood, like most people would, I did, I was again, uh ready for my first job when I was 13 when I, you know, by 16 I was working at the mall and before I was ever 13, I was working for Delta Airlines.
So, yeah, so I was always looking forward to the next thing, the next big thing usually. So in those high school years, what kind of things did you gravitate toward like, was there athletics or clubs or? Yeah. So I seem to be, and this kind of filters through, I seem to be like in the administrative role of pretty much everything. If it was drama club, I was the house manager. You know, if it was band, I was helping organize the song list, like there was all those kind of things and I pretty much had, I think the most diverse friends group of anybody because I hung with the cheerleaders, I hung with the band people.
I hung with everybody in between and that's really kind of still my life now. It's just looking for the people I have kind of gravitated. I see that I gravitate to the people that maybe don't quite always fit in and I want them to see like there's hope like, don't, don't hold up, don't let back, don't, don't keep yourself from pursuing big things just because you don't feel like you're like everybody else in the crowd. What? In the band? Flute, flute? I was just going to guess, flute.
Now, I wish it would be drums. I would love to be a drummer. I can relate to um gravitating towards that administrative or orchestrator role. I think for me, it was always because it was a place where I could find peace in the control of it. Like it was an organization of my thoughts. It's true. And we see that in foster care and of course I see it in myself. Now there was something that happened to me at a very young age that I had zero control over.
I had no say so I had, I had no way of making a decision for myself at that age. And so I was always looking for those things that I could be the decision maker. And so when you can control, when things get done or how they get done, that's I think we're gifted that way based on our experiences. Do you think back on those, back to the high school still, um, area of your life? Was there anybody that stood out as a mentor or a guide or anybody that kind of helped you?
It seems like you're pretty independent because you had to be. But was there anybody you leaned into then? Yeah. So I had a lot of what I would call favorite teachers, but they always seem to be the hard ones. You know, we had one, my English teacher was Doctor Rae and we had to call her doctor and uh she was tough and nobody really liked her. But I was kind of intrigued by the way she treated us. But I will say the most influential teacher that I had is the one who told me I would never amount to anything.
I'm one of those people. If you tell me I can't do it, I will do it or I will die trying. And he told me in 11th grade that he didn't see my future as bright and I didn't really have what it took. To succeed. So I made sure I did. I'm pretty sure you're not going to get Sarah to laugh in this session today just so, you know, I, I am surprised at how often we actually hear that story from our leaders of teachers who had that type of influence.
I, I was wondering at this point like, is it something that they're saying because they actually do see like they want to give you a motivator? I mean, it's shocking to me because maybe they see what they think will propel you. But there's some kids that could be crushed by that and it's not intentional probably on their part. But in a way now it's like reverse psychology. Oh, yeah. But I would never think of telling my, I'm just the opposite. Like I look at a child. I don't care.
We're big believers in my household. And if someone says I'm going to like me, I'm going to run the Boston marathon. There were so many people that said I couldn't do it and because of that, I have to show them, you know, and so, but not everybody's like that you could crush a kid or you could crush an adult by saying things like that to them. So, no, me first, me first. How do you, how did you find Delta? How did Delta find you while you're still in high school?
That's a great question. So, one of my first jobs after the mall was working for an accountant who did taxes in our city there and I was just a pair of professional helping in the office. And there was a pilot who walked in one day and, uh, I handed him his tax returns. He said, wow, you sure are, you know, pretty put together for a young kid. And I said, well, I've had to be, you know, I grew up pretty quickly and over the course of us just meeting every once in a while in the office.
He one day said, have you ever thought of working for a big company? And I said, like what? And he said, well, I work for an airline. Have you ever thought of working for the airline industry? I hadn't at that time. Um, but I did have some foreign languages in my back pocket. And so when I went to interview, um, at Delta, he, he kind of showed me the ropes of how to and they were hiring at that time for someone to clean the labs, the toilets.
And I was, he said, take whatever you can get because once you get into the company, you can transfer around. And so I went in thinking that's what I'd be doing is cleaning the cabins. But they flipped my resume and saw that I spoke French and they said, oh, you speak French and you speak Spanish? Do you want something different? And I said, what you got? And I became an interpreter on their international concourse. So, but eventually the way I became a mechanic was again, a friend heard that I wanted to be full time.
At that time, I was part time as an interpreter. And he said, he called me up and he said, look, I know you're kind of tired of these long shifts over on the international concourse where we have a pilot program and we need, basically, we need a woman to see if she can prove that she can do this. And I said, well, tell me what's involved. Well, he, he evidently saw something or he just thought I would do it or die trying. Right? And so when he offered it to me, I said, what is involved?
And he says, well, no more of those crazy shifts. You'll be working Monday through Friday 9 to 5, but you'll be working with all men. And I said, wow, throw me in that tar pit. And so they literally took me over and I spent six weeks in a training course with all men and they put me to the test and then I went on to become an aircraft mechanic. I worked in their sheet metal shop. Yeah, for 14 years, I was with Delta and the last part of that, the last 10 years, years or so as an aircraft mechanic mechanic though, where did that come from?
Like that? Has that been in you? And you just didn't know it or well, the person I told you was who I thought was my father. He was an auto mechanic, but I never, I never tinkered with tools or anything. It was literally an opportunity for me to get a full time, great job with great days off and holidays and what have you. Um And when it was presented to me, I thought, why not? Let's go see what will happen. And it was tough. I mean, I had some really hard times trying to prove myself.
I couldn't ask for help. You know, your normal guys would say, hey man, come over and give me a hand. If I did that. It was because I was a girl. And so there was a lot, but then eventually I proved myself and I really, I mean, when I decided to come to Arizona in 2001, a lot of those same guys that were giving me grief. They were, they were the ones shedding the tears and saying goodbye and giving me presents. And yeah, so it took a while, but I fit in, I eventually fit in and I liked sports and so I could at least have a conversation with people.
They would meet around my toolbox and ask questions on Monday morning and see if I watched the games and those kind of things. Thanks for being a Trailblazer. Yeah, it wasn't easy, but I'm really glad I had that experience. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Ok. So I'm curious. So go is still sticking with this thread. What was like the most interesting aircraft you worked on? Because it was mostly just commercial lines, right. It was all Delta Airlines airplanes, it was all theirs. And really the most of what we were doing was 727 and 730 sevens.
And it's the thrust reverser, which is what basically stops you at the end of the runway. You're hoping that there's no problems with the thrust reverser. And yeah, so I would do anything from the cowlings. A lot of riveting a lot of welding type things, grinding the welds down and things like that. And it was pretty boring in most people's minds. They see the big part of the airplane sitting in a hangar. I was in a shop where they take the engine and all the parts off and bring them to us.
So we're literally working on parts of planes. Of course, it's fun when you're on a plane and you can tell the person next to you. Yeah, I, I probably riveted that rivet right there on the wing, you know, but it wasn't a, it wasn't a flashy job. Ok. So how does, how do you get to Arizona? And how does college fit into this equation? Well, she flew obviously and the tools worked. So that's what got me here. Crazy thing was because of my administrative event when I was an aircraft mechanic.
They started having a lot of different volunteer events, charity events. And because I was one the only female in our department and the only one that really wanted to help organize things. I got really involved in community service events and coordinating volunteers. We have charity softball tournaments and things. And one night, I literally ended up having an office with my toolbox so I could be working on the floor but also help with administrative stuff in our specific department. And I just heard this charity event being discussed on the radio.
And I thought, wow, that'd be something really cool to get involved with. But I didn't realize the show I was listening to was syndicated and the charity event was here in Arizona. So when I called to see how I could personally get involved, they gave me the details of it. And I said, oh, I don't know if I could help because the big charity thing they were doing were flying teddy bears to Brazil to donate and pass out at orphanages. And I said, well, I don't, I don't know if I could help.
But what, what are you looking for? And the lady said we need bears but you need to drop them off at like Fry's grocery store. I said, I don't know what Fry is and that's when I realized that it was not a show in Georgia. And so long story short, Delta, I reached out to my counterparts at Delta and Delta ended up flying the teddy bears down covering the cost, flew the CEO and his wife of the company down to Brazil. And the only thing that they asked was that I go with them and represent the airlines and take photos and report back so that they could show this to the community partners.
And because of that connection, one of the people that work for that company decided to step away from her job. And she called me one day and said, I know you'll never leave Delta. But I was wondering, and I'm just going to get this to you. I don't, I want to step down and go home and take care of my Children. Would you ever consider taking my job here at this organization? I looked at the opportunity and I said, well, Delta has this program, I can take a two year leave of absence.
So I did and I came out to a su to try out this job. But because of Delta's program, I could easily go home after two years if I didn't like it. And so I had a secure job. But unfortunately, when I came here right after I got here, 911 happened and that's when they Delta basically went out to all of the employees and said, if anyone wants to, if you're on leave and you want to stay on leave, we will give you a severance package and some other things, some benefits.
And I had fallen in love with Arizona and I took the severance package and I stayed, I fell in love with the state and never, well, I did go back home for a little while because of sick family members. But this is where I met my husband. Um, ok, so just goose bumps. I mean, how a literal miracle it is. That's amazing. My life is riddled with miracles from the time. I mean, probably since I was born, but from the time I was adopted forward, my whole life is, is a miracle story. Yeah.
Ok. So you're in Arizona now? Yep. And I'm, I was at the gym working out and I worked at a gym and these two guys overheard me complaining about Valentine's Day. I was like, Valentine's Day is such a ridiculous holiday. All it is is for men to schmooze up with chocolate and jewelry and what have you. And I made some really funny comments at the gym and these guys overheard me and they're like, you know, we know a guy and so again, long story short, they say we know a guy and I was like, sure you do.
And they took my information down and, um, they said, oh, he'll, he'll give you a call. He's single too, but he speaks Spanish. And I was like, well, lucky me, I speak Spanish too. Um, the way they said it, I thought they meant he only spoke Spanish, but that wasn't the case. And, yeah, we went out on a blind date. Um, our first date was actually bear in mind. I was in my early thirties and, um, my first blind date, it just so happened. My parents were here visiting from Georgia.
So he met me on my first date. I was with my family and so he met my parents. Yeah. Yeah, he waited a little too long to call. So when he did call me, I had a little fun with him and pretended I didn't know anything about him. And then when I kind of came clean, he said, well, I was, this is how he said it. He said I had plans this weekend, but they got canceled. So I wanted to see what you were doing. And I thought, wow, that's a real dumb way to start off the conversation.
I'm plan b you gonna be the consolation. So I said, I said, yeah, sure. But my family's here. So it would be our first date with my mom and dad and my mother. We were in the car and she said, are you kidding? Like asking me if I had lost my mind. And he said, just can I call you back? And he hung up? And I said, well, I got rid of him and sure enough. And one hour later he called back and said, if you're nice enough to ask me, I should be nice.
Enough to go. But do you know what he was doing for that hour? Calling every single friend he had asking if he should go on this first date and not one person told him he should. Everyone said, are you crazy? Do not go on that date and we just celebrated our 123th wedding anniversary last year. So he also likes a challenge. Yes. Yes, we are a great balance. I'm the crazy one that's always going forward. He's the balance, the patience side of our marriage. So there you go.
Opposites attract. Ok, so now you're here in Arizona, you found this guy and you're in a new foundation. Talk about that. Well, when I got here, I started with that company and very quickly I realized that company was not for me. And um so the woman who had offered me her job, uh she was not as satisfied at home as she thought she would be. So we literally switched. I became a nanny for six Children and she went back to the office and worked her six Children. Yes.
So she had, that was the whole reason she wanted to leave the job and stay at home with her Children. And that's why I came to take her job. But I was here pretty quickly, I realized like this was probably not the best. I still had a Su and I still had Delta to fall back on. Um But by that point, I had met the man that's now my husband. And so I ended up working for her for a while until, until they had, you know, a permanent solution.
Then I started working for a church here nearby and worked at that church for 16 years. And so I started out as a volunteer. But yeah, and so I only stayed in that job, I think before the end of the year. So I moved out here in May and by Christmas, I was already, I was already working as a nanny. Alright, I know um you now are in a place where you have seven Children. And journey includes adoption and share with us a little bit of what that journey looks like, raising your family and keeping all of these balls in the air. Sure.
We actually decided to become foster parents in around 2010 and in the foster care system, obviously, Arizona has a huge crisis still today of just needing more families. And so my husband and I decided we wanted to to be a part of that because of my own experience, but we really wanted to adopt. We didn't consider fostering and then uh through time and just a lot of consultations with people in the um adoption arena here, we realized that they needed people to consider um not just adoption but fostering short term.
So we eventually did that for a while. And of course, if you're ever part of that, you realize there's usually a conversation that says, would you be willing to adopt? And we fostered two boys for two years and they eventually went home to their biological parents. So that in the state size is a, is a win. It was, it was very grief filled for us and our two biological Children at that time, but we quickly were placed with two girls. And over a very short time after we got them, we found out there were actually four Children and it's very hard to place a sibling group of four.
And we had two of them that at that time were considered special needs. So we had to make a big decision. And in the midst of that, we found out we were pregnant and we had dealt with miscarriages. And so we were really going back and forth. Do we foster, do we adopt? What do, what is, what is happening? And eventually we were asked if we would adopt all four because we had tried to help, uh, find a family that would adopt all four because our plan, we had already switched it over to we're gonna foster because they really need foster families.
But, uh, we could not find a family that would take all four. And so eventually, when I was 4.5 months pregnant with our third biological child, the state asked us, would you seriously consider adopting them? And I remember that day I was driving in the car with my husband and I had the phone in my ear and I said, they want us to adopt all four. And he said, tell her, we'll call her back because we got to pray. And so I said, well, we need to pray about this.
We'll call you back. And there was never any discussion. We knew that this was what was meant for us. So we adopted all four. We actually went from 2 to 7 Children in nine months. In 2014, we started the year with our two biological Children. And by Halloween of that year, we had seven Children in our house. Yeah, so everything had to double. We had a bigger car, we had more beds, everything had to increase in size. And we tell people we survived 2014. We can do anything because I woke up um on my 45th birthday with a newborn in my arms and four other Children that were ready to bond with me.
And that was probably the toughest time of my life. But again, I drew my own experiences and I had my parents to call up and say did, did I do this, did I ever do that? And there were a lot of similarities that we were able to notice. So I felt like this was meant for us to do. Yeah, I'm curious when you look back on that time, if you could tell yourself something, then from your point of view. Now, what would you tell yourself we're going to be ok. Yeah.
My husband had to tell me that a lot because that morning that I said, I woke up on my birthday. I said, I don't want to do this. I actually said, I'll be 100% honest. I said, we can't do this, please take them back because I had a newborn literally in my hands. And I said, we can't, how are we going to do this? Like we literally now have seven Children. And he said, there is enough of us to go around. God is always going to protect us.
He, I mean, my husband is the rock in our family. He is the person that you go to when you're freaking out because he'll calm you down. And he said everything will be fine if you get up and move, we'll be ok. And, and I did exactly what he asked and yeah, and I say that to other people too because fostering and adoption is a very tough road to walk. But if you look back at all of my friends that have adopted or fostered, even if it was a tough situation, they all can tell you it'll be ok.
You know, you, it's gonna be rough and you'll have terrible situations you'll have to endure sometimes, but it'll be ok. I can see now why you took up running as a hobby. Yes. Yes. And people say, oh, I can't believe you run 123 miles. I said, no, don't think about me. My husband follows me on 26 2 mile routes with seven kids in a van. He drove, actually the first year I ran Boston, he drove from Phoenix to Boston in a van with all seven of our kids. And at that time, well, that was five years ago now.
So my oldest would have been 14 and my youngest was five. So he had seven kids and drove all the way to the Boston starting line to be near me. So, yeah, we give props to him, forget me. I have a board that has all of my medals on it and it says 26.2 miles of peace and quiet. That's the way I like it. Not to mention all the training to get to that point. There's a lot of that, a lot of running and I have this great little pit crew, all of my kids, you know, they're out there with water bottles or peanut butter or clean socks or whatever I need.
And yeah, so we have our own little race crew if we need it. So lots of follow up questions here. You made me think of your sister that you guys, did. You guys end up getting back together or you stay separated because we never, I don't think you said what happened there. Yeah. So my younger sister my biological sister, I haven't seen her in more than a decade when, when Children are separated the way that we were in a very traumatic situation. You see a lot of things.
I had an older, biological brother and a younger biological sister. We later found out that we were all half, we didn't know that either until I was, you know, we were all split apart and I haven't seen my older brother in decades now. Uh, that's my younger sister that and, and I haven't seen that much of her. She's had some issues which we all do, but I just haven't seen her. But my, the one I said, I wish I could see, that's my adopted sister and she passed away in 2021.
So I actually have more connection with my adopted siblings than I did with my biological because we all went in different. They were all from the same adoptive parents that you had. Um, my biological. Yes. Yeah. They were adopted parents, their two Children. Those are the ones that I was more connected to than my biological ones. Yeah. Ok. Now, the ages of all these kids at the time you guys adopted them newborn. So, first of all, that's a lot of crazy right there. No wonder you wanted to get out.
Lack of sleep. Oh, yeah. Ok. But what were the age of the kids? Plus the newborn? +543, 18 months and a newborn? I had five under five, which if you know anything about the adoption process in Arizona, it's actually they don't allow you to have five under five. So my husband and I even, you know, in the midst of us waiting on our child to be born, we were having to deal with state regulatory issues and literally had to offer up our licensing just to allow them just to get them to allow us to have all the Children.
Our big goal was not to have these four Children split apart. Like I was from my, I, you brought up a great question. I did not have the relationship with my biological siblings and I was going to do everything. I could not to have these four Children be split up like that because we had a lot of people that said, I'll take one, I'll take two, I'll take this one and that one, no one wanted to keep them together. And so I had vowed that I would never, we would never split siblings if we could help it.
And so we didn't. But yeah, we had five under 52 of our Children that were adopted were born in the same year. So one was born in January and one was born in November. And then the next two came here. So I have stair steps. We joke when, when we started um them all in their preschool and our church nursery, I could walk down the hallway in our church and there was one of our Children was in every single classroom all the way down the hallway. So, yeah, and they were really close together and alongside raising a family, you're still working and accomplishing things professionally as well.
How did you find that balance? And what were some of those pivot points for you or your proud moments? Yeah. So one of the big things that we decided to do when my oldest daughter and my oldest son were in kindergarten, first grade, we decided to homeschool. So I was actually homeschooling them as well. Um And so I wasn't just working and homeschooling again, that order and organization, I really thrived on that. I thrived on creating a schedule and it, and it, if you've ever been around Children in need, they thrive on a schedule.
They love boundaries because they've never had that kind of capacity to know. Like is this ok? Is that ok? And so I was really proud of the fact that we didn't misplace any Children. That was always our joke. A good day is when we don't lose a child. Right? We've got them all corralled and they go in the same place. But um I guess the biggest success, I guess out of all of that is seeing how well they're doing, all of my Children are doing well. They have, they're Children, they're gonna have problems, but to see where we started and where we've come just in the 10 years because this is our 123 year anniversary year, this year that we adopted the before and to just see how God has worked through even the toughest situations and put them all on these, they're all different, obviously.
But in really successful tracks, we are really excited for their future and what they do. So I'm my proudest moment I guess is just to see how God worked in each one of their lives differently, but all are moving forward. We don't have anyone that's stuck in trauma or stuck and we will still deal with that forever. Just like me as an adult. I deal with it. But we are, I'm really happy to see that our kids are not stuck in that. So your youngest is 10. Now, she, she just turned in this week.
Ok. I want to hear about this 12 and 12 thing going on. Tell me about that. Yeah. So a big pivot in my life and especially with the whole goal thing was in 226 where I went to this business event and they sat us down and there was this personal development aspect which I had never even heard the term and I just thought I came here to learn how to build a business. I don't know what this all this who nanny is, you know, they want you to write down your goals as if they've happened in the present tense and I was like, this is so weird.
Like, what are we doing here people? And everybody else is just writing away and I'm sitting there sweating it out. I have a video of me sitting there like, uh Ben would twitch too just so, you know, for the bird. But let me tell you what happened from the who nanny because I'm more of a like, let's just go do it. I don't want to talk about it. I just want, what do I want? I'm going to go get it and I sat and I finally, I just got so nervous looking around me.
I just started writing stuff and it was so weird. I really believed that it was God saying you're not just gonna write stuff, you're gonna write things you're gonna do. And so I wrote down 222 statements that day and one of them was I'm traveling the country with my family in a motor home. I'm writing a book, I'm running 24041 and 21 races. So I decided right there. Um, well, actually I laughed because I wrote a lot of these things and I was like, oh, I will never do this.
This is so dumb. Like this is just, I'm gonna throw this paper in the trash when I get home. Um, but they tell you, oh, make a card and it's like a vision board except something you can carry around. I wish I had known I would have brought it with me because I still carry the same one. It's now 212 years old and I'm still carrying it. But now there's a lot of check marks on it because I've achieved a lot of them. But one of them was I am and I always say I joke because I said I am soaring through 212 races in 123 months.
But if you see me run, you would not say, oh, she's soaring. It's more like I'm just kind of making it to the finish line. But I said I would run 212 and 212 and I decided to either run a full marathon or a half marathon every month consecutively for 212 months. And I eventually ran 13 because at that time, my oldest daughter wanted to do a race with me. That was a five K. But so that one is kind of like a little bonus. Yeah, she was like, let's go up to paradise or no, it was Fountain Hills and we ran that little five K together.
And so I eventually ran that. But after my, uh, after the ninth race, I found out I was pregnant and at the 10th race, I thought I had lost the baby. So I thought I'd had a miscarriage and we were in San Diego. I had just run, uh, I think I have it backwards after the 10th. But then at the 11th, I was really concerned and we, we actually called my doctor and said, we've, we've lost our child. I'm here in, uh, San Diego. And it's obvious that I've had a miscarriage.
And when we got home, we went for a week and we stayed there because we had promised our kids a vacation. And when we came home, I went for my checkup and because they said just come home as long as you feel. Ok. And when I got back, we found out the baby was still alive. And that's my 10 year old now. And that child had, we went on eventually with my doctor's advice. I was able to finish that challenge. But before she was ever born, this little one has she had run her own little 13, uh 123 a couple of times over before she was ever born.
A lot of bouncing in the belly for that one and my delivery for her was quick. Dad almost missed it like she was not waiting around. And yeah, my husband walked in to sit down and the doctor said, don't sit down, dad, she's here and my husband was like, what, why did you get the camera and get the camera? She hasn't stopped moving yet. No joke. She is the one that is always going. She's either upright and moving forward or she's crashed. That's it. So, yeah, I love that.
So let's talk about today. Sure. What do you do today? Um How do you work within the community? And what does that look like for you. Yeah. So today, my biggest thing that I'm focusing on is this membership that I created two years ago to help other people. As soon as I ran Boston, once people start asking me, how did you do it? And then twice, wait a minute. And in the midst of that, we broke a lot of fundraising records. And so we found that every time I achieved a big goal, there were always these very consistent things that I did, it was almost like a cycle.
You know, I would dream big. That's that who nanny, stuff that I talk about. And then I would have this plan of action and then I would move forward on these different things. And so people kept asking. So I just started teaching individuals and I would watch them win and then I would go to another race or I would, you know, I was all about now it's time for me to see what other people can do. And so in April of 2022 right after I'd had foot surgery, um someone convinced me to start this training program and, and teach people step by step how to set the goal and the big missing component for a lot of companies that do this, they don't stay with the person, they show them how to do a vision board, they show them how to set a goal.
But then when the person's like in what I would call the mile 19 season when it gets hard and you hit the roadblocks, they're all alone. And so our company literally, we will stay with the person until they're finished until they are done or until they check out. But we don't, we haven't had that yet. So my time now is coaching people all around the world, us and Canada right now and they set the goal and then we help them get to the finish line of their goals.
The other side of that on the home life is we have my oldest daughter's in culinary school. So she's here, you know, working in a restaurant nearby in Gilbert. And um my oldest son is working and then we are home for right now, but we travel full time. Gilbert is our home base and so we come home for seasons like this where to get my daughter in school, get my son settled in his new job and then we'll go back in the summer and go see the next states.
Because when we started traveling as a family, we wanted to teach our kids about us history by visiting all the 50 state capitals. In our first year, we got to 26 states and 22 capitals. Have you been to Kansas? Yes. Yes, we have. Why is that home? That's nice. Yeah. So we, and we were now we're up to 4041 states. I believe it is, but we haven't done all the capitals because during the shutdown, a lot of the capitals, it was just very hard to get into them. And with a hearing impaired child, it's really hard if they were, you know, wearing a mask or anything.
So, we kind of paused that and started doing National Parks. And so we have a little bit of a blend now and the big, now we're at the big stage, you know, Alaska, Hawaii, those and the Dakotas. But I just talked to my son this morning. I said, are we going to get you out for summer travel this year? And he's like, uh probably not. He just got a promotion where he works and I was like, oh, so this will be a big switch going out with five instead of seven.
Yeah, a little bit of a heartache for mom, but that's a hard one. All right. So what's OK. So this is what you are doing now, where do you see this going? Is this? Yeah. So the go getters global community that we're building is going to be, it's going to be much farther than Canada and the US, we actually have a retreat coming up this spring here in Gilbert. Actually, we brought our retreat home to Gilbert and it's going to be here in April and we bring them in for that in person energy that you can't get on a zoom screen.
We meet with them once a week and to be able to bring them in. And I want people to feel what I have felt. Every, every finish line I've crossed, I have built a little bit more swagger. So when someone, there were times when I said I was going to run Boston and I would just get a glance and it would make me feel like, oh, impostor syndrome, a lot of people quit because of imposter syndrome. So the more people I feel like I can help get their own goals, the better we're going to have a better community, we're going to have like, if more people are walking around with the confidence and swagger that some of our goal getters have, you wouldn't stop them.
We wouldn't have a lot of the problems. And I ask people, you know, who will benefit close to you and who will benefit. How will someone benefit in the world if you get this one goal? And it's really cool for people to start doing this, not just for themselves, but for the betterment of the community, I'm curious in the work you're doing and the observations you've made, I'm sure you've picked up on some trends. There's, there's probably similar threads that stand in the way of individuals as obstacles.
What are those? Absolutely. And we actually did a survey, not just our members, but people who were not having the success that they wanted. Um The biggest one obviously was fear of failure. They don't want people to know they failed. So I broadcast my failures as often as I can. Uh even if it's just a trip up and it may not be devastating. But hey, guys, you know what? I trip up just like you guys do podcast. People want me to do a podcast. I'm like, I wouldn't know what microphone to put in front of someone's face, right?
So we learn and they watch from me. The other thing is um having a supportive community, most people when you start out and you say you're going to do something, people are around you like yay and at your finish line, they're all there, yay. But in the middle where the work is really hard. Some of these goals that they have are going to take years. It took me six years just to get to Boston for the first time. And so the lack of an action plan, people will say they're going to do something on January 1st, but they have it written nowhere, how they're going to do it.
So action plan fear failure and the lack of a community that will support them. That's our three primary focuses of what we work on intentionally because those are the most popular but mindset and imposter syndrome, those kind of things creep in once they get going. So we have to bring that over right now. We're dealing with what we call the February funk. If you don't know, there's actually a trend in the month of February where people will feel melancholy. It's between, you know, the holidays are done but the spring hasn't hit and you'll see people literally just back off, they'll just disappear, people disappear from church, they'll disappear from your networking groups because there's this, there's a whole list of why that happens.
But, yeah, so we're helping people get through the February funk. Fascinating. I feel like we can just talk for hours. I'm so curious. I got to know what's on this board that you talked about that you did a long, long time ago. What's left on that board that you still want to get accomplished? Oh, those things that I wrote down. Yes. So I want to be in different countries. So, one of the big things is not to just be in the, you know, the countries that are attached to the United States like Canada.
Um I want to go out further on there. Yes. Yes. And Singapore, there's, I've been to Australia to speak and things like that. But there's so many places that I want to find the people that really have a desire to achieve something big and hopefully it benefits more than just themselves. If not. That's ok too. Um, on the board, I wrote a lot about being a motivational speaker. I wrote, I want to write a book. Well, I did, I wrote a book and so that one I got checked off lessons from the finish line. Yeah.
So it's all about the 12 races that I run. I ran and I had the travel one which was perfect. I had one on there about my father. Unfortunately, he passed away. Um, but it was, it was also kind of lived out where I got to be there when he passed away. So, a lot of these things that I said enabled me because I built my own businesses. Now, I'm my own boss. And so when my dad was sick, I was able to be with him. When my sister was passing away, I was able to be with her.
So there's those hidden benefits that I would have never thought to write down. Um So it's really nice to see like the, the who nanny or the woo woo. That really used to drive me crazy. I use it for a purpose. Like I don't want people to just write these things down or I'm not an achieve it and believe it kind of person, I'm a ok, believe it. But get your butt to work like you need to put some action behind the thought process and a lot of people just get discouraged because they've never been taught that.
Well, what I'm hearing today is that there is still hope for a bun. So do you still have the tool belt? Do you still do that kind of stuff? I do. Yeah, I'll definitely, I'll share with you my full list sometime. And then I'll tell you what the who nanny woo woo stuff was. I'll tell you what, just stop in. I'll give you the retreat date. You can stop in and see some of our training. And I will say you mentioned the mentors in our life. And one of the guys that was at that event who taught me a lot, like one of the big things I learned is if you want to achieve something, I mean, I have my paper calendar right here with me.
I'm old school in that. But he said I can tell your success level by what you have on your calendar. And at any given time, he would say, show me your calendar and I'll tell you how successful you're gonna be in your business because he'll look and see what's on your calendar. So, one of the training calls, he told us if it's not on your calendar, it's less likely to be done. So I listened to him right before that 12 and 12 race challenge. And when I hung up the phone, after listening to his call, I knew he was talking about business, but I sat down and I booked the first six races of that 12 race challenge.
I paid for the rental cars. I paid for the hotel and I registered for the races and that first six months of running was so smooth because I did what he said to do and he's going to be one of our guest speakers at the retreat. So it's really cool to see that come true. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been an incredible conversation. Very exciting. It's what I needed in February, but now I have it in March. You didn't have the February Funk, did you?
I might have, I don't know. Now he's got the 12 and 12 funk. I would definitely have something like that. Well, thank you for being here. Fantastic. Fantastic. And I know everybody listening, love this conversation. I know I did. So if you want more of this kind of content in your inbox, sign up, join our tribe and they'll come right to you. Thanks for listening, guiding growth, conversations with community leaders. Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?
This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand whether you want to again be on the show, reach out to us, let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it.
We'd love to hear from, you reach out, let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.
