We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shannon Lea Pickering a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shannon Lea, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I am Shannon Lea Pickering. In my first career I was a licensed clinical psychologist and adjunct professor of psychology at a 4 year university.

After a number of years, I decided to try corporate life, and I climbed the career ladder from sales to national corporate training to management at a Global Fortune 500 company.

While in people development roles, I became fascinated with a valid and reliable Positive Psychology assessment tool that focuses on helping people unleash authenticity, develop interdependent communication, and boost healthy, successful life and career success.

I launched my third career in 2014 as a Positive Psychology Coach and Consultant, which has proved to be that mythical career where my talent and passion collide.

I was, once again, achieving great success in a career. Work was my identity. Stress my closest companion. Steamrolling the limits of my mind and body, my greatest source of pride.

What I hid from the world was that from age 12-44, I had been diagnosed with a cascade of serious diseases including systemic lupus, fibromyalgia, chronic lyme disease, endometriosis, asthma, narcolepsy, severe gastritis, colitis, gastroparesis, celiac disease and more.

By 2014 I was disabled, lupus impacting my heart, lungs and DNA. I remember the day my rheumatologist told me I could have a heart and lung transplant but not a DNA transplant. I was facing a lifetime of chemo and steroids to stop the relentless progress of lupus and my prognosis was not good. I was certain I had about 5 years to live. Not to mention the endless lists of medications I was taking and the multiple surgeries and hospitalizations I had endured.

What I discovered the hard way is that if you don’t take care of your mind and body and soul, your body will shut you down for maintenance. And by 2014, my body was trying to shut me down permanently. I am an extreme example of what happens when you prioritize achievement over self-care.

I pivoted my life to learning how to radically restore health. I am now free of disease which some consider a miracle. I am thriving in work and life. Today I teach consumers and corporations how to power performance and personal happiness by focusing on the foundations of wellbeing. No one should live a life with limitations.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am thrilled to share that today, my health is better than ever.

Finding balance was the hardest achievement of my life. AND the one that opened the door to designing the life that I truly desire to live: A life overflowing with career success AND fulfilling wellbeing, creativity, relationships, and activities.

When I tell you that self-care is profoundly important, I speak from experience. I am the living example that ignoring your self-care can have dire consequences. I share my story in the hopes that you will decide – today – right now- to take one step to improve your self-care.

Warren Buffett said, “The best investment you can make is in yourself.” Self-care isn’t selfish. It is an investment in your future self. And it’s an act of service. Because if you don’t server your well-being, you eventually won’t be able to serve anyone or anything else.

After extensive research, our company has identified 10 areas of wellbeing.

You may be surprised that my healing wasn’t based on fancy pills, portions, gadgets or tech gizmos.

In my experience, wellbeing comes from practical practices that are most often free and accessible to everyone.

Most importantly, you must identify the practices that will benefit you most and commit to doing them. Practice – daily behaviors – are how you impact actual change in your life. There are no short cuts or secrets. But even one small DAILY behavior change can have profound long term effects.

You would not build a house on a flawed foundation, right? Think of wellbeing as the solid foundation from which to build your dream life. We teach people how to build that foundation in 10 steps.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

After successfully restoring my health and building the life and business that I desired, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. I was completely devastated. I had to shut down my new business and my entire life to undergo a year of intensive treatment. After a year, I had to start over. I had to begin rebuilding my health, my business and my life from the beginning.

And yet I saw it as an opportunity. Starting from scratch means I was able to evaluate every activity, every connection, every item in my life and decide what to keep and what to delete. This opportunity was truly priceless. I gave myself permission to edit anything out of my life that did not serve my mission and my wellbeing. I finally realized that life is precious and no part should be wasted. I learned to say no. I learned to prioritize. I learned to detox people, items, and activities.

My view on resilience is that it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. Or even knocked out. It matters if you get back up. I get back up. Every time. If I’m knocked out, i may have to stay down and recover for a time. But you can bet, I’m getting back up.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I never stopped to smell the roses. Because I didn’t see them. Because I ran them over on the way to achieve something.

I had to unlearn confusing achievement with identify. I had to learn balance. We do not have separate work and personal lives. We have one united mind and body and it goes with us into every role.

We must take care of our mind, body and soul. Balancing self care actually allows us to achieve more because we have more energy, we communicate better, and we have enhanced mental clarity.

The world does not come off its axis if we slow down. Priorities get done. I would put it this way: We can have it all – we can have a family, career and personal life. But we cannot do it all. We have to select with intention what we can do and what we cannot. We are universally over scheduled. Editing is as important as adding when it comes to activities, items and people.

Contact Info:

• Website: WELLsiliency.com
• Instagram: @LeadYourselfToHealth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonleapickering

Image Credits
@JASimsPhotography