We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rebecca Psigoda a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rebecca , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

In 2012, I became a Certified Infinite Possibilities Trainer to share an empowerment program created by New York Times best-selling author, Mike Dooley. I chose to do this after ‘The Voice’ spoke to me and shared that I should take this training because one day I would “work with the younger me.”

There were lots of “younger Me’s” to choose from. I lost my mother before the age of 2, grew up with a father with alcohol and abuse challenges, watched my 2 older sisters taken to foster homes to live as, “they were too much trouble,” and was allowed to stay, along with my brother if we abided by the house rules of, ‘being seen but not heard, because if you were, you would be hurt.’

I grew up doing my best to be either silent or at least quiet. I left home at the age of 16.

When I decided I thought I was finally ready as an IP Trainer to begin working with “the younger me,” I approached several groups that I had experience with, and thought would welcome the opportunity for their survivors to receive some help with empowerment and feeling better about themselves. Among the organizations I approached were The Domestic Violence Center, and the Rape Crisis Center. They both shared a warm but definitive, “No thank you,” and I felt a wave of frustration sweep over me as I considered how much I had worked on myself, and with the program, to even develop the confidence to deliver this to the group I thought represented, “the younger me.”

Then through a conversation about my frustration with a good friend, she asked if I could deliver the program to children. When I shared that it wasn’t a children’s program, she said, “Yes, I know… but could you make it one.”

I met up with my friend the following week at The Homeless Families Foundation here in Columbus, OH, met the kids, and through a series of bizarre synchronicities, knew that this was “the younger me that I would work with. As I was about to leave my meeting there, I saw a giant mural on the wall of the cafeteria that was the cover of Mike Dooley’s children’s book; “Dreams do Come True,” with the next line in the title, “All they need is you.” As I read those words in the tag line, I could hear “The Voice” speaking them into my ear as I read them to myself, and I knew that this was something that I would do.

I knew in that moment that all of the other “No’s” had to happen so that this would be my “Yes.”

As I was driving home from that meeting, I had to pull over as the realization hit me that at 19 years old, I was homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. I was going to be working with all the younger Me’s through developing the youth version of this program.

After creating this first derivative of Mike Dooley’s foundational program, Infinite Possibilities into “I Believe in ME!” I began to share it with other trainers within our IP community, (now over 3,000 trainers worldwide) so that they too would have the materials to share with young people in their part of the world or online. I also authored a children’s book and coloring book to augment those programs, and had them published and made available through amazon.

In 2022, a new trainer shared with me that she was using my children’s version of the program with a good friend’s mother with dementia, and it worked wonderfully. As a prolific author, she suggested we re-write the children’s version to meet the needs of the Alzheimer’s/dementia patient, and we did exactly that creating, “Infinite Possibilities for the Well-Traveled Soul”. Once we made the decision to create this version, we wrote it in a way that would speak to an extended audience beyond Dementia and Alzheimer’s.  The program also works with most any vulnerable adult that has lost hope and needs permission to dream again. This includes those adults surviving challenging accidents, illness, the loss of a loved-one, nursing home resident, or veteran.

I have 3 older siblings, all experiencing various stages of dementia. Once again, the creation of these materials is once again a reflection of working with The Younger Me.

“Infinite Possibilities for the Well-Traveled Soul” offers guidance through both a Caregiver’s Guide and an Adventurer’s Guide and are available through amazon.

In addition to making the program materials available to all the IP Trainers for FREE, I have recording packages for both programs on how to deliver them along with all of the online PDFs of the manuals for anyone and everyone through my websites.

So, my mission has been and remains to this day, at just shy of 66, to continue to share what I have learned through Mike Dooley’s foundational program, Infinite Possibilities, and my derivative creations, to work with the younger me. I have donated the complete programs and recording packages more than I have sold them. For my 60th birthday, my gift to myself was to donate all materials to any non-profit working with at-risk youth worldwide, and that was one of the best feelings of my life as I saw children everywhere begin to receive this message of empowerment.

In addition, I am currently a founding member of a new organization called, “Go Big to Give Big,” in which members are mainly entrepreneurs that all build their businesses to have a giving component as part of the core purpose. Through that organization, I have donated the IBIM program to organizations already working with at-risk youth.  Part of my current mission is to once again make giving the program to organizations that speak to my heart a top priority.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hi, I am Rebecca Psigoda and I live in Columbus, Ohio with my husband Mark.  We have 2 grown sons, Jared is our oldest, lives in China, has a lovely a wife and gifted us last year with a beautiful granddaughter.  Our younger son, Jordan, lives in the Los Angeles, CA area and lives with his 2 dogs, our delightful grandpuppies.  

I grew up in S CA, and my husband grew up in Pittsburgh, PA.  We met in 1984 at work in the cable television industry.  We married in 1985, and I have always referred to him as “The cutest boy in the room.”  I felt that way then, and I still do today, 38 years later. 

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When I grew up, I learned that you had to have a definitive plan. Create an outline and follow all the steps on the outline… and you move on to step 2 once completing step 1.

When I became an Infinite Possibilities Trainer, we learned that you first establish the goal and or dream. Then each day, you do what you can that day… take the baby steps that are right in front of you and do the same the next day. It’s called The GPS analogy. You simply take the next few steps like you would if driving your car and you don’t need to know how any of it is going to unfold… just do what you can, from where you are at, with what you have, and with your goal in mind. It is important to take action every day. Each day, you also spend at least 90 seconds visualizing a successful outcome of the goal or dream and how that feels.

So, I unlearned the idea of figuring out HOW to do everything before doing it, and now, just visualize the goal and take daily steps in the direction of my goal. Set the metaphorical GPS with the goal being the destination and put the car in drive.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I became an Infinite Possibilities Trainer in 2012, it was to be an empowerment trainer for adults. As I shared in the first area of this interview, through series of what I now know to be synchronistic events, I eventually found myself working with at-risk children through The Homeless Families Foundation to empower them. This was a pivotal moment for me in my career as I then went on to re-write the adult program for young people and become a trainer of trainers to share that work beyond simply teaching it myself.

The youth version of the program started out for middle school students, and then I was asked once again to rewrite it for children ages 5-11. Without knowing how I would simplify it once again, I created the intention and allowed ‘The Voice’ to offer me hints and clues about what it would take to do that.

I will never forget the morning I woke up, and as I walked into the kitchen to grab some coffee, and a group of characters along with a Dr. Seuss-style poem appeared in my mind. I was told by ‘The Voice’ that these were the characters, and this was a “rap song”.  I was to match the characters up to the chapters of Infinite Possibilities, write down and learn the lyrics being fed to me, and share it all with the youngest students… as this would be how they would learn the program.

To suddenly be performing rap at age 60? Now that was a pivotal moment indeed. It continued to be pivotal as I shared the rap onstage for the first time in front of our live conference group, and as a relatively quiet and serious person, I shared with the audience that if this is what it takes to teach these valuable tools to a child, I will do it!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rebeccapsigoda.com and www.ibelieveinme4kids.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.psigoda/