JENNIFER A. NIELSEN: "Once Upon A Climb"

Published Jan 9, 2024, 8:00 AM

It's Season 6 of LOVE SOMEONE! My first guest is New York Times bestselling author, Jennifer A. Nielsen, joining me to share her hard-earned insight and advice on how to make your dreams a reality.

Her book, "Once Upon A Climb - 5 Steps Every Dreamer Should Know" is going to help us lay the groundwork to get wherever we're headed. She's warm and kind and oh-so-encouraging, as well as an experienced pro at overcoming obstacles and reaching the mountaintop. Step right up and join this conversation!

What TO-DO would you like to turn into a TA-DA!?

Happy New Year, my friends. Have you recovered from the holidays yet? No me either. We had a big family birthday party this weekend and it definitely extended our festive moods. There's still bits and pieces of Christmas strown about my house, as well as leftover party supplies and the flotsam and jetsam of a busy family. But this is the first full week we're back to our regular routine, back to school, back to work, back to life, so I suppose we'll settle into this new year soon enough. Did you make a bunch of New Year's resolutions, and if so, how many of you already broken? I gave up that nonsense years and years ago, too much pressure, too much kicking myself when I failed in my resolve. Instead, as I've shared with you on social media and in my newsletter, I like to set some sweet intentions, be more present, react less, to love more. Inevitably, However, there will be things I need to accomplish in the coming year. Maybe it's something to do with work, or family or my farm. But there are always things to do, and I'm going to get some help this year from a little book I found and chose as my January Book Club Pick. It's called Once Upon a Climb, Five Steps Every Dreamer Should Know, by New York Times bestselling author Jennifer A. Nielsen. Jennifer has been writing books for a long long time, but once believed she wasn't very bright. She was even told she would never succeed as a writer. Well, she is very bright, and now she's published over twenty three books that include several series, the Ascendant Series, many historical novels, a bunch of other works. Jenn has won multiple awards, including the Sidney Taylor Notable Book Award, multiple State Book Awards. She's been the keynote speaker at writing and publishing conferences, inspiring countless readers and attendees. She's compiled her hard earned life lessons, her advice, her insights for achieving success into five simple steps, all for dreamers who want to reach their own personal summits. And she accepted my invitation to join me today on our first episode of Love Someone with Delilah season six, is that even possible will get caught up with Jin and hear what advice she's sharing with others about her own climbing experiences. Just as soon as we shine some light on one of our podcast sponsors that are helping to bring these wonderful, insightful conversations your way. As we welcome in the new year, I hope you plan on spending much of it connecting with friends and loved ones. There's no better way to do it. If you ask me, then over a cup of Constant Comment tea from Bigelow Tea. I recently toured the Bigelow headquarters and was treated to a tea tasting lesson given by third generation president and CEO of Bigelow t Cindy Bigelow. It was an amazing experience. I witnessed their state of the art blending and packaging operations and met their state of the heart employees. The Bigelow family has been blending tea for over eighty years, with top quality ingredients and a lot of love. My fave is Constant Comment, but with over one hundred and fifty varieties, they have a blend to suit every palate, for every season and every occasion. Maybe you're more of an earl gray or lemon ginger drinker, You'll have to go to Bigelot dot com and see all their many blends. Start your winter mornings with a steaming mug of Bigelot. You can find it at your favorite store and at bigelot dot com. Right now they have some brand new blends ready to share with you. Welcome to Love Someone Today, twenty twenty four, Jennifer Nielsen. Welcome aboard. You are our first guest, Jennifer on this new season. What is the season six?

Sure? Well, wow, what an honor to be here. And happy New Year to everybody.

Happy New Year. So, Jennifer, you have written several books and you are known as a motivator, as a life coach, as a speaker, kind of like a cheerleader, Like you cheer people on. You help them to reach their goals. You help them to reach the goal line.

Well, I mean, why else are we here but to move forward the best we can and then to bring other people with us. And so yeah, of.

Course, So my question was when you we're in junior high or high school, did you did you have the pomp poms?

No? No, I was the kid who, particularly early junior high, who I could walk down a hallway and not have anybody say hello to me. I could be missed entirely. And that was it. And then by ninth grade, I sort of got it figured out. And I wasn't the pomp pom person, but I at least started to understand that there was a path forward for me, and so at least I started to figure me out by then.

By ninth grade, I had nothing, nothing figured out by ninth grade except that Wesley Henshaw was the cutest boy you know in my class. That's what I had figured out by ninth grade.

Oh, I had that figured out. But I also, you know, I started too, not Wesley, right who I'm sure was adorable, but no, I just started to figure out that there were things I was good at and that there was something I could do in my life with the things I was good at. And I also realized there were things I was abysmal at.

Stop right there, Confession session. Got to share what, Jennifer, are you most abysmal at? Like, what is something that used to bother you that you couldn't do and now that you've embraced it, you can own it and say I don't care. I don't care that I can't fill in the blank.

You know, it's interesting. I do care, but not for the reasons that a person might think. And this this is the reality of it. I am abysmal with math, really really bad at it. And here's my illustration of it. In my junior year of high school, first term, I flunked math F and I've been a good student. And I got an F in math. And not because I missed assignments or because I was bowing out.

Or because you were out of the with Wesley Hinshaw.

No, none of that, and I would have gone. But no, it's I earned an F. My best efforts scored me an F grade. And so in second semester, I thought, I'm going to pick it up right. I can't. This is not acceptable, and I worked harder at it, and in my second term I earned a D minus. No, I shouldn't say that I didn't earn a D minus. I earned another F. The teacher gave me a D minus so that I could have credit for the class, and that was a charity give. And a third term I dropped it and I didn't take another math class for the rest of my junior year. I didn't take math in my senior year. I chose a college based on my major so that I didn't have to take math. My college is because they accepted my minimal Act score as you don't have to take the required math class with my minimal Act score. I have never had a math class since then, and I walked out of that first semester of my junior year in math convinced I was stupid because how could you be a smart person and earn an F How could you ever do that? And I was convinced I was not very smart until college when I heard this philosophy about intelligence and I thought it was brilliant. It's the idea is that every one of us is really great at some things and not great at other things, and so there's multiple intelligences. It's not a number, it's not an IQ. It is here's where I'm a genius, and here's where I'm abysmal. And that's okay. You can be brilliant. Your life is not a IQ number. And that revolutionized my life.

Isn't that a beautiful thing to know? When I accepted that about myself because you and I are very much alike. It sounds like I was able to parent my children better.

Yeah.

Yeah, because once I accepted about myself and embrace the fact that there are some things I am genius at but most stuff, I'm not not only am I not genius. I earn an F in many areas of my life and that's okay, that's okay. And once I could embrace that about myself, I went, oh, oh.

Well, and that's the problem, right when we judge our ability to achieve anything based on what happens to get measured in school, and that's never fair. We're never fair to ourselves when we do that, or.

Gets valued by our parents. If our caregivers are people that raise us or whatever, have a value system that values math, or values reading above all else, or values a college education or whatever, we can feel like a complete failure.

Right, And that's why I think for me that I idea of multiple intelligences was so revolutionary because it gave me permission to be me and that I wasn't measured by the worst of myself nor the best of myself.

I'm just me And that seems to be working out pretty well.

Some days better than others.

Right. So it's a new year. Share with us, how on this climb we can make it to the top and see that vista.

Well, I think that's just it, right, is talking about what it is to make it to the top. So I do live in an area with mountains, and the thing is, you see what you believe is the summit, right, and you put your eyes on it, and you're like, that's where I'm trying to get to. That's your whatever, your resolution, your dream, your goal, and you put your eye on that summit. And the thing is when you reach that summit and you're like, now I have done it, what you realize is that's not the actual summit of the mountain. That there's something higher still, but you couldn't see it because your eye was on the lower summit. And so the idea is that every one of us, every one of us in life, we are climbing, and that's how it should be. We should never get to a point where we say now I've arrived and nothing more is required of me, because that's when our muscles atrophy, that's when we lose that hunger and passion. And so the idea of for twenty twenty four, it's not about having some resolution of like, Okay, now I'm going to reach this summit. You were climbing last year, and you're going to be climbing again this year and next year you will continue to climb. And it doesn't matter where you are at on the mountain. All that matters is that you say, if I can do nothing else today, I will hold the ground I have, and if it's a good day, I'll take a step up. And if it's a great day, I will discover an amazing view right where I stand. And that's okay. That's okay even if all you do is hold the ground you have.

So you live in the mountains, do you actually climb the mountains? Like do you are?

You?

Yeah?

Yeah? But I absolutely am in the mountains as often as I can be there.

So Jennifer, tell me how we can share with our listeners some steps they can take to find that pure joy in their life, in their marriage, in their relationships and their parenting in the new year. Kind of leave some of the negativity behind. Get some simple steps. I like simple.

I think you look at who your team is. So I was in a writing conference once and it was just this huge conference. You know, you're sitting in a room of seven hundred other people, all of them trying to get published. And I overheard this woman once and she had come with all of her big dreams and hopes and excitement, and then she sat in a room with six hundred and ninety nine other writers and she said why me, Like, why would I ever presume that I could have my dream? Because six hundred and ninety nine people in this one room are trying for the same thing I am. And she just thought, there is no way I could ever get to where I want to go in life. And I heard her, and I thought that was so heartbreaking because she was walking away from something she had entered that writing conference passionate about, and she was checking out so quickly, and so I wanted to do something that spoke to her and to say that somebody else's success will not cause your failure, and that there is room for everybody on the mountain because we're not all headed to the same spot. And so how do we find success? I mean, number one, we stopped comparing right that it if somebody is a little further along the trail than we are, well that's not keeping us behind on the trail. It means they are where they are. And what we hope is that if you are higher on the trail than somebody else, you have a responsibility to reach behind you and say, hey, I don't know if you saw this rock in the trail, but I stumbled over it, and I want you to notice it because I don't want you to stumble there too. I think that's our obligation. And I think if we're a little bit behind on the trail, it's our obligation to reach ahead and say, I'm struggling here, can you take my hand and just pull me for a little bit, And that we each have those obligations to each other in life, and that's how we all continue to climb. And so if you are listening as a parent, it is okay to reach out and say, look, I need a hand up, I am exhausted, or I don't know what to do, because I guarantee there is somebody. Whatever you're facing, somebody is ahead of you on the trail and they can help answer your questions, or they can just sit with you and enjoy the view where you are and let you catch your breath. If you're aspiring to a certain dream, then stay on the trail and keep your eye fixed on the summit that you are headed to. And if you don't know what you want in life, well then at least get on the mountain. Because sometimes we think if we're busy that that means we're making progress, and sometimes all we're doing is walking in circles. So get on the mountain and move uphill.

I was talking with a young lady who's a part of my extended family yesterday and she's twenty and she said, I just I don't even know where to start, Like I don't even know what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah. Well, and sometimes we change a lot, right where things priorities to us when we're eighteen years old. We might have different priorities at twenty five, and so then we're like, well, did I waste that time? And of course not, there's there's no waste of anything we do that you know has personal growth. So it's like she'll figure it out. But in the meantime, do things for you. And if you get to school and it's the wrong school for you, change schools. And if you get into a major and it's the wrong major for you, you're not locked into that even if it's like your postgraduate work. Fine. You know, we all know people in this life who hit a reset button and said, you know, the path I was walking, it wasn't taking me in the direction I wanted to go. Fine, So one of the things I talk about in this book is about your climbing team and who you choose for your climbing team. And so I had published, like I was on book number four, and somebody really close to me in my life at book number four said, so, so are you actually serious about this writing thing? And I'm like, well, I mean, I have spent now nearly fifteen years of my life pursuing this so and I was so frustrated, and I thought, how could she say that she loves me and not understand this is one of the top priorities in my life. How could she really love me? And it was really frustrating for a while. And then one day I realized she does. She does love me, she does care about me. But she's not on my climbing team. She is not that person. And it doesn't make her evil. It just means she's not on that team that I'm taking. You know, I do need cheerleaders, I do need guides, I do need people, you know, porters to help me carry the weight. And there's a place for her in my life, but just not on my climbing team. And so if you decide to shift gears entirely, and you're like, you know what, this is actually the direction I want to go. Of course, there will be people who are not going to get it, and they love you, they care about you, and they want what's best for you, but they just may not be on your climbing team. And that's okay. Just listen to the voices who say I will walk this with you, and they are out there.

Do you have any clues for young people who need to switch out members of their climbing team and need to distance themselves, Like, how do you gracefully say you know what?

Great?

You stay here or head back down to the bottom. I'll catch up with you, but I need somebody who's gonna be helping, not pulling me down.

There will always be those people, right, And usually the people who pull you down are the people who tried and failed, or the people who never tried because they're convinced they will fail. And I heard that once somebody just say, I never listen to the failures. In other words, and it's not like a life failure. But if somebody, for example, is like, hey, you know what, I want to be a dancer. You know I want to be a professional ballerina. And so then they talk to people who tried to become a professional ballerina and they didn't make it, and they're going to say, oh, you'll never make it, and they can be your friend. You just know they are not the ones you're going to turn to for tips for success. But also, I firmly believe that we whatever our passion is or our interest is, wherever we find joy, that the reason we find it is because we've already been given all of the tools to succeed. We might need to refine them, we might need to work on them, but to understand that you are given everything you need to succeed in the thing you want to do, if only you will use what you already have. And then to be content with the idea that as you are, you are already enough. You don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to do anything other than to say, as I am, I a good enough for this world.

Right there, right there, somebody needs to make a T shirt with that on it. Great market, It isn't that beautiful? Because it's the truth. It's the truth. And for me, because I'm a person that believes in a higher power. I'm not a cosmic accident, you know. I'm not just a bunch of cells that happen to come together accidentally. I'm an on purpose, and I believe everybody I meet is an on purpose. They're here on purpose.

I think that's beautiful. I agree with it.

So, if you're an on purpose and you come to the realization that you're enough, you're smart enough, you are capable enough, you have enough gifts and talents that are uniquely you to do that thing that you were meant to do, why do we waste time and energy worrying or fussing or feeling insecure or like we're not enough?

I you know, because we're listening to the wrong sources. And very often I feel like we are. We are our own worst critic. We stare in the mirror and we criticize, and we disparage, and we say things to ourselves we'd never say to anybody else in the universe ever. You know that one woman out of a group of seven hundred in a room would never say to another writer, you could never make it because of everybody else in here. That would never enter her mindset. But she was perfectly willing to discredit herself in a way she never would not for another six hundred and ninety nine people. And I think we have to be so careful about the script that we write for ourselves, because if the script is I will never make it to the summit, then you'll never make it, and not because you can't, but because why would you bother doing all of the client if you're telling yourself there is no summit for you. So I think the biggest thing is to say yes, of course, and I might stumble, and I might go downhill as often as I go uphill, I might fall and land in a very dark place. But then to say, at the end of the day, I will I will continue climbing.

How many books have you published now?

I think I'm at twenty three.

Perhaps, Wow Wow, Okay, so you said choose our climbing team. We got there. You've got a few more points. And I think that the next two, especially especially number four on the list of notes across the crevass and choose your root. I think these are kind of important for somebody who their resolution or their decision this year is to stop being my worst enemy, stop being my worst critic, and start pursuing that thing with passion that I've always wanted to do. They're assembling their climbing team.

What next after we assemble our climbing team, choosing our route, understanding that there are a lot of different ways to get to any specific point. And I think this speaks to this young woman you are speaking to over the holidays, that everybody in her life says, well, this is the route you have to go, This is the one acceptable route, and to acknowledge there are a lot of different routes to the place we want to get to. And yet at the same time, you will always get this beckoning to accept a lower summit than what you really want and to say is that good enough? And so you look at the job you have, Is that the job you want? Is that the thing that lights up your imagination and you just know you are where you landed? Or are you just doing the thing that brings in a few dollars? And what that means is, maybe did you accept a lower summit than where you deserve to be? And we don't have to do that. And so you choose your route and understanding that for very big dreams, often it is a bumpy route filled with a lot of places where you can fall and fall hard. And by choosing that summit, you've accepted the likelihood of you falling, even the guarantee of you falling. But if that's your summit, then you just know that's going to be your route.

All right. Now the next one, which I think is so precious and so priceless, especially for young people.

It's about so if you are climbing any high altitude, if you're climbing Everest, you will encounter the crevasse. And some of them are small enough you can step over them and it's no big deal. Some of them are so wide and so deep that you cannot see the bottom of them. And the way that they cross it on high altitude mountains is they'll take a ladder or strap two ladders together. In some instances they'll put one end of the ladder on good solid ground and lower the other ladder on the other end of the ground. And it is your job as a climber when you've got those crampons that you talk about, those spikes on the bottom of the boot, when you are walking across that ladder stretched out horizontally, you've got to put your boot down in the exact right place, because you mess it up just a little bit, and that spike is going to land on a wrung of a ladder. It's going to send you tilting over the edge. And so you've got to put your feet down exactly when you cross that ladder. There are no walls around you, there's nothing to keep you from falling. There is nobody holding your hand. You have a rope, and you put that crampon down in the wrong place, you will go over the edge and you will fall. And sometimes we fall hard, and it's called a failure. Right you're trying. And in real life it would never if we're climbing that mountain and we fall, we would never think, well, I tried to climb this mountain and it failed. Therefore I will live out the rest of my life life down in this crevass. You would never do that. That's why you have the rope. It is meant to get you out. But in real life we do it all the time. In real life, we fall into that crevass and we say, well, this is my life now.

This divorce has wrecked me. I will never be anything more. Losing this job has wrecked me. Closing my business has wrecked me. I'm never going to overcome this.

And we live in the crevass. And if you think about and if you recognize, are you doing that in your life? Now you've got to look for the rope and somebody will pull you out, or you will climb out, or most likely it's a bit of both. But we do not stay in our failure ever, because that is not where we are meant to be. I can fail a thousand times in each direction every day. That's fine. I know how to do it, because I've had to climb out of that hole hundreds of times. I know how to do that. I find a way to get better, and then I try again. And if I fall, that is fine. I will find a way to get better and try again. The only reason I ever became published, the only reason I ever hit New York Times or whatever success I've obtained, is not because I have natural talent. I don't. It is because every time I failed, I got stronger and climbed out again and again and again. That's all we'd have to do, just get that rope. But we don't live in our failure because it doesn't wreck us when we fall. It wrecks us when we live in the crevass. That's when we atrophy and it's not where we're meant to be.

We're spending time with best selling author Jennifer A. Nielsen today, who's going to help us get some big task accomplished, maybe something you've been putting off, or maybe a new opportunity that's coming your way, or maybe just a dream in your heart. Unif he's got some great advice, we'll get back to it after I share some information about another sponsor. I'm proud to have a relationship with. Mercy Ships has been transforming lives for over forty years. Many people in our world have no access to healthcare, and as a result, they must endure pain and suffering. But with the support of volunteers and donors, Mercy Ships can go to these communities and perform free surgeries, surgeries that help mothers see their babies for the first time, surgeries that allow little boys and girls to run and play. They change lives through the work they do. Now, thanks to the launch of the Global Mercy, the first custom built hospital ship of its kind, they can help even more people. The Global Mercy is projected to serve one hundred and fifty patients over the next five decades. Four year old Amato from southern Senegal was the first to receive surgery on the global mercy Born with one windswept leg and one bode leg, he missed out on so many things kids love, but thanks to the treatment he received from Mercy Ships, Amatu can't wait to run around with his friends and he dreams of all that lies ahead. Learn more about Mercyships at mercyships dot org. So many people need to hear that.

And let's not forget there are realities of life, right There are things that there are challenges that some people have to overcome that I would not wish on any enemy that I may ever have. There's mental illness and struggles like that. There are a thousand different challenges that I've never had to face in my life. So I don't want to come from this place of superiority as if to say that you know, nobody is facing something harder than I've ever faced. That's simply not true. For some people. It is a very deep and very dark crevasse. All I am saying is find the rope. There is a rope. You've got to find it. You've got to get out. You are not meant to be where you are now. And number five, oh, your summit, Your summit, it's where you're meant to be. It's where you're meant to be. Every gift, every action of your life is for you to stand on top of the summit. And in real life, when you know, we cannot drop somebody on a summit of Everest, right, you can't just helicopter them there and they just parachute down. You would die on Everest if you did that, because your body has not acclimated all of these things that we go through, all of the hardship, all of the struggle, all of the failure. You think, think you're just wasting time, you think you're going nowhere, But you are changing, and you change literally to do a climb, and we change figuratively. It is the climb that makes us worthy to stand on top of that summit and breathe in the air and live. That is where you are meant to be, And there is no bypassing that summit climb. It's the climb is how we get there. But the view is worth it. And when you are there, start looking around and figuring out where am I going next, because even greater things are yet ahead.

Jennifer Nielsen, Once Upon a Climb? Where can folks find? Where you're speaking? Where can folks find this book and all your other wonderful little tidbits on how to have a better future, a better present, not even future, but a better present.

Yeah, just yeah, life that we live. It's twenty twenty four. We have a new fresh start. You can find Once upon a Climb at any of your online favorite resources. Please support your local indie booksellers. If they don't have it, ask them to order it in for you, and support local wherever you can. If you want to know more about me or about any of my other books, my website is jen Nielsen dot com j E N N I E L S e N dot com, which should give my schedule and anywhere that I might happen to be.

Thank you, Thank you. It has been delightful talking to you, learning from you, and hopefully especially young people will we'll grab Once upon a Climb and drink it in and start setting their goals, choosing their path, choosing their climbing partners and go in for it.

Absolutely, this is going to be a great and wonderful year. Thank you for having me on your show.

Jennifer A. Nielsen set out originally to write a book to inspire other writers to keep writing, to keep doing all the things necessary to reach the summit and become a published author. She soon realized that her advice worked for many achievable goals. Once Upon a Climb Five Steps Every Dreamer Should Know is a slim, hardback volume with realistic and relatable advice. She will demonstrate how to set yourself up for success, how to surround yourself with those who will support your vision, how to map out your assent, what to do when you face obstacles, and the importance of keeping your eye on the prize. The book jacket says, it's like having a heart to heart talk with a life coach, and after hearing our conversation, you know that's true. She's genuine and caring and here to cheer you on to your personal mountaintop. She's going to help me and you turn our to do list into tada list. You can catch up with Jennifer on our website jen Nielsen dot com. J E n n I E l s E N j E N n I E l s E n dot com. You can find Once Upon a Climb, published by Shadow Mountain Books, it's your favorite bookseller. I don't know what twenty twenty four holds for us. My hope is that it contains some laughter, more laughter than tears, and that we spend much of our time with those we hold dear. It's January, so that means I'm currently plotting and planning and dreaming about my gardens this year. One thing is for certain. This year there will be lots of flowers.

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