Lakeland Local: Valerie The Chef Destroys Defusers
I wanted to feature a Lakeland Local here for several reasons.
- Sparking, Igniting and Exploding the globe starts by sparking right at home. Lakeland Locals are amazing people with amazing stories. So, I want to share. (Share your own local spark below.)
- Principles that are globally applicable are learned in that same local setting.
Valerie the Chef is both sparking right here and bearing a story that communicates a universal principle, that of the Defusers.
Valie the Chef is a coffee-shop regular here in town. One day we got to talking, and I found that she has a great (and tasty) story. It is a story with a lesson that many of us have shared in our own lives.
To simplify, as a young girl, she wanted to be a chef. She loved working with food and making things that lit people up.
ENTER THE DREAM-DESTROYING DEFUSERS…
Very quickly, the Defusers came along. They told Valerie things like “there’s no money in being a chef” and “that’s silly for thinking anyone could do that for a career.” (Familiar, right?)
The “defusers” are people who come along and steal your ability to spark. They dampen your fuse, making it almost impossible to really spark your success, and ignite and explode your significance. They disconnect the spark from the powder-keg in our spirits that allow us to ignite and explode.
Warrior-writer, Steven Pressfield, calls it Resistance.
Teachers call it procrastination.
They are the Enemy.
The Terminator of all things good.
Vile and disgusting.
A horde of zombies (the really fast ones, not the slow ones) chasing you into a parking garage with no back door and you are fresh out of 12-guage shells.
A church lady who thinks your heels are too high, your skirt too short, or that your tattoo shouldn’t show.
Any confident white-collar worker who thinks that doing the humanitarianism is “not secure” or “escapism.”
UNFORTUNATELY, WE TEND TO LISTEN TO THEM
I know I did. Valerie admitted that she fell victim to having her fuse dampened. Many of my one-on-one coaching sessions end up with someone admitting that they do, in fact, have a dream but have let the voices get to them!
When we are starting out and trying to spark our success, RUN AWAY FROM DEFUSERS. It does not matter why people try to diffuse us. It does not matter where they come from. It does not matter who they are.
RUN AWAY!
Because, like mythological harpies, even when they physically stop defusing us, their voices echo and keep our spark from lighting. (Ca-CAW! Accursed harpies.)
As far as Valerie was concerned, there came a critical point many years later in her life where she realized this truth. She realized that the power of the Defusing voices were just that, voices.
DEATH TO THE DEFUSING SPIRIT
At this turning point, Valerie decided to take a risk. She decided to go back to school and get her education as a chef. The Defuser spirit was overcome in this simple act of faith Valerie had in herself.
And boy I am glad she did!
Furthermore, it is fortunate for me that she is currently working on pastries! Because that is the best dang carrot cake I have ever had. And the raspberry tort is to die for.
Just look at the explosive results of Valerie destroying the Defuser voices. If you don’t belielve me, just ask my palate.
Likewise, look at the results in the lives of Kenny, Liz, Brian Morgan, or any of the long list of people who shut of the Defuser voices regarding our work in Haiti.
Like Daniel Rivera following his dream to be a firefighter and having all the opportunity in the world open up. Like Bethany making HUGE life changes, exploring the growth necessary to take the next level in her photography and personal life.
Comment below and let me know where the Defusers have gotten you. If you see Valerie, encourage her. Let her know what her story has done for you…and if you ask real nice, she just may give you a slice of killer carrot cake!
–Grant
