161:The Formula for Continual Expansion into Your Own Greatness with Sherry Stirling Fernandez the Author of “Life Mastery: Personal Progression Toward an Infinite Potential”

Dr. Brad Miller here on beyond adversity. This

is the podcast where we help you to advance navigate through

adverse conditions in your life, and to emerge to a place of

peace, prosperity and purpose. We love to talk to authors and

leaders and teachers who have had a story to tell about how

they have had advanced in one way or another, navigated

through adverse conditions in their life and have had success

and a process to do so that you can learn from our author, guest

today, he is a Sherry Sterling finance. And she is the author

of life, mastery, personal progression towards an infinite

potential. It's her first book, and she's going to tell talk to

us today and share with her about her story, which is a rags

to riches story with her husband, Ken, they went through

and found success in their life, and through their business

adventures, and but most, especially through the process

that they call the Life Mastery process, which came after their

study of principles of success, and practicing those principles.

And that's what she teaches. And that's the focus of the areas

that she's going to share with us hear about today. And she is,

has the Life Mastery as a process of contentment, progress

and happiness. And she's going to be helpful to us today. So we

Welcome to Beyond add versity. You Sherry Sterling in finance.

Thanks for having me. It's good to have you here with us today.

Sherry, on the podcast, you say that this is a kind of a rags to

riches story. And I know that in your story, not only in building

a business, and did your print, tell us about a little bit, but

also on growing up? Did you've had a few challenges in your

life before you kind of emerge to some success? And can you

just share with a little bit about your story, how you

evolved from growing up and so on, and through some of the

challenges that you have faced some adversities you may have

faced it and where you're at right now. Just a little bit

about Sherry.

And well, thank you. I yeah, I

didn't, I guess I didn't really think about my background is

having adversity Exactly. But I tell you the details, you say,

Well, that sounds like diversity. But my parents were

divorced, we did the number of marriages kind of thing. That

same with the abusive stepfather that kind of stuff, did have

some years of stability might go a little bit older, but I just

was a little wild. A lot of my problems I created for myself,

got myself in some drinking and partying and that kind of thing.

And then when I finally settled down and baby and first and then

met my husband and we we got married, I realized I wanted

things I wanted everything I wanted rich spiritual life, I

wanted a fabulous marriage, I'm not married. And now here I was

married someone the best marriage I could have been I

want to do things and travel problem was we were just barely

surviving. We were like, not very, pretty good on the table,

we were just

broke. And so I had to figure out in the course of wasted my

education years, because we were partying that early 70s, you

know, on young people on the road, lots of pot and drinking

and parties and you know, drugs and stuff like that, and just

wasted those years, I might have gotten a degree or done

something or some experience of build up some money. So those

were gone. So I thought how am I going to get from here to now

I've got two babies, how am I going to get from here I placed

the poverty to some place that I want to go. So I started reading

the books and I started with them vigors books at the top.

And I started thinking of ways to grow and applying things,

principles that I knew and that I learned my husband was the

same listening to the great mentors of those days, you know,

the zig ziglar and Jim Rohn Of course, and, and Brian Tracy and

reading the books and and applying the principles and

refining them. And then I began teaching them and started

mentoring people myself. And then COVID hit and I wrote a

book. And that's kind of how I got married here but really

great marvelous life found success and all the things I

teach in rich spiritual life, great marriage, lots of money in

the bank, well educated I was able to hit all the high points

and be with us when could you kind of came to the school of

hard knocks a little bit through the process. You're talking

there. And you learned a lot because you invested a lot in

your personal education after having some challenges in your

life to overcome growing up and choices. We all make choices.

But then you made some choices to change. That's what I want to

talk to you about a little bit cherries, some of the choices

that you made for to change when you think were some of the

specific choices. I like to call them bold actions or actions

that we take that you took

To transform because you know, as well as I

do, that there's a lot of people who went through similar

experiences when they were young, in your case in the in

the 70s, through all that process you're talking about

there, who still, you know, are still stuck there, right?

They're still stuck that that kind of life and lifestyle, and

make a difference how old you are, people can still stay stuck

you chose not to. And so what I'm really fascinated about, by

better story, Sherry, is what you did, what were some of the

actions that you took, what were some of the things that really

broke the mold in your life, to get you to where you're at

today?

I liked the way he asked the

question, what did I do? What were the things that I did,

because that requires doing things you can want want want,

but you have to actually do something as what you do every

day. It wasn't instantaneous. Obviously, it took quite a few

years before things started to come together for us financially

from other things get a little quicker. But what did I do?

First of all, the lifestyle I had to living was extremely

disciplined, right. And that's a very disciplined party. Don't

much of yourself. So I had to start with some disciplines. And

I nobody taught me this particular thing, I just, I just

continued child's chart. And I thought that works for children

work for me. So I made a little chart for myself, that was like

a, like, we call tracking sheets now. But I listed the habits I

wanted, which were just some basic ones I wanted to pray

every day, I wanted to read the scriptures every day. And I

wanted to write my journal every day. This is why I started with

just those three. So I made this little tracking sheet or little

chart on a three by five card I had in my kitchen. And I would

check it if I did the thing that I was supposed to do every day,

I would get a check. And I didn't close the blank. And I

didn't like the blades, I didn't want my friends or family to see

me having any blank. So I use my pride a little bit. And it

works, you know to time I develop those three habits. And

then I added Did

you have this like posted somewhere and you're

posted on my kitchen cabinet where we

had quite a few people go home in those days and friends and

family and younger siblings. And it served a little bit as I used

that as that nobody ever said a word about that. But I just

thought nobody's gonna see a spot on my chart. Without that

check.

You held yourself accountable, in a sense to the

other people just by just by having it out in public,

I just did my ego I guess it's a

little bit of a countability partner their size and start

exercising every single day. And now my I still do that. I don't

have to put prayer on it. For example, some of these things,

they don't put any marks like there's such habits, but I still

track that 10 things a day, how much water I drink and my

workouts, let me qualify to be a certain kind of workout. They

don't add that to the check mark. Yeah, I still do that. And

so that's probably the crux of my training program is you got

to do something. And you have to Peter Drucker said if it's not

measured, it's not managed. And so you've got to you've got to

measure what you're doing, by the way to be a gold yourself

accountable those tracking sheets way I give away free

leads on my website, you can get those in one to try it out for

yourself. But they weren't my clients I'll run into I'm, I've

taught this years ago, milsim still doing that, and make a

difference in that one thing. There's other skills I teach,

but that one skill to track your day habits. It's all about daily

habits. It's just all about daily habits.

Yeah, that accountability to yourself of

the literally putting up pencil to paper makes a difference,

doesn't it? There's something to be said about the actual

physical act and the check mark, and so on about accomplishment.

And you use You said you didn't want to see any blank spaces on

that. And even you know, today I and

I, as I've taught this over the years, nobody does know,

everybody sounds like such a maybe childish thing, but

nobody, nobody likes to get that check. And nobody likes empty

spaces. And so when I teach this, I teach them do it exactly

that way you get a check if you did it with an empty space that

you didn't tell the ego or it's our brain, whatever it is,

doesn't like empty spaces and, and nobody wants to go into

space on their little chart.

Well, we're all wired up a little differently. I

know that sometimes when I'm a teacher and a pastor and

sometimes I do outlines for messages, which fill in the

blank type of things. And if sometimes if I somehow forget or

misstate something, so that one blank is not filled in. I hear

from it from some people, you know, because they can't stand

it tonight have that blank filled in that you have it's

awesome that you have this action that you've taken and and

I think it's very relevant to if you want to change in your life,

you got to be very intentional life is just going to slip by if

you just say I will let that go all charges, something you know

tomorrow or let it go or whatever it is. We have to take

action and fulfill those actions and that that's commendable.

Most people just let life happen.

Right? Like you say they just you just let life happen. But I

said taking action and doing something but statistically, we

think about three to 5% of people actually design their own

lives. And you can see how that happens. You just do the same

things every day every day and you're going to change one of

these days, but you don't do anything in one day. Your

whole premise of this podcast. In the work I do

about getting beyond adversity, adversity is those things that

happen in our life such as what you've already mentioned, here

it can be, you know, it can be depression or death of the

family or disease or financial issues, anything, it can get us

stuck. In order to get out of that we have to take action and

to do something about it. And I also believe, you know, share

that we need, that's kind of the physical part, if you will, for

instance, to exercise when I go workout in the mornings, I gotta

get my car driving to the gym. So that's my kind of my impetus

there. But there's also a little more to it, I believe. And I'd

like to speak a little bit you mentioned already in your

comments earlier, any connection to a higher power or something

beyond yourself a spiritual thing or a meditative process?

Anything that kind of goes to the inner life, about your

transformative process?

Yeah, absolutely. And I deeply

spiritual and religious. And I will also say that when I

started to that same period of life as I one thing that when

you start to pray, and I felt like that was fundamental self,

yeah, you know, if I can call it a higher power, and help me get

through these things, it makes all the difference in the world

in I like, I was reading a book, Ryan Holiday, and he said, if

our bodies were all of a sudden, went numb, we'd be so long we're

going to die could we be trying to fix that they said, for a lot

of us are spirits, and we're not even concerned, a successful

life needs to be spiritual, physical, with educational, we

have been rounded, and all those things and I, I just, it's a

spiritual that brings so much of the depth, the beauty, the help

the support, I if it has to be spiritual, too. And when I work

with clients, I don't care where they're at spiritually, but they

have to do something in the spiritual realm and and

physical, all eight areas of Life Mastery. And when those the

spiritual can be go for a walk in the woods, and that's all

you've got or meditated. That's all you've got. But yeah, that

spiritual part is just critically important.

You got the end, these are all inner integrated

one to another, I believe. And you are you can do the physical

things you said such as your check mark system, your tracking

system included a spiritual element did that to recall

correct? Yeah,

first thing I put on there was, I had

always, even though I had done this very wild child and not

religious, and I was raised with to handle a lot of religion in

my community, but not my family. Even at that, because when my

parents were first divorced, when I was seven, I was the

oldest of these four little girls, and my mother was not

well prepared to take care of horrible girls. And I needed

that family to go back together. So I started praying, I didn't

know how I learned to do that. I started praying as a little

girl, I did that all my life, I'd come back from party, you

know, whatever, I'll get on my knees and pray. So that wasn't

much of an issue. I know. It's a weird thing. But that's how it

was. But the morning prayer when you wanted to have a habit of

morning prayer. So that was the first thing that went on my

chart, so that in daily scripture reading, and then a

journal, and then exercise and then over the years, more and

more and more and more things. And that still makes money. Some

of those things still make my my list every day, not the praying,

but the scriptural study, and that kind of thing. I still do

that every day.

That's awesome. And I believe that, you know, part

of this process of life transformation means we got to

be very cognizant of all these various areas of physical part

part that has to do with our spiritual life. And, and there's

also emotional elements. And you've already mentioned some,

you know, family members has some some folks in your life

that I know that your husband, our partners, in many ways, but

let's let's talk about emotions, I believe are kind of fuel that

helps us to change, I believe that spiritual life is the power

part, that's the source of the power, and that the fuel that

keeps us going, is emotions. Let's talk about loving

relationships, either in your life, or you, perhaps your

husband or other people that have been a part of your team,

to help you transform, and then how you're able to translate

that to other people, how you share that with other people.

Let's talk about the emotional elements relationships,

happen, just don't have the longest

chapter in my book, how to be on relationships, and they're

critically important for so many reasons, that it's our

relationships that we enjoy that we enjoy life, and we, the

people that we enjoy, that's all really important, but they also

important that we kind of bump up against each other and learn

some things about ourselves. I'm always amazed at how brilliant I

am before I actually interact with people. But yeah, the

satisfaction of a good relationship, a good marriage

relationship. Well, I get all the credit for Life Mastery. My

husband, I did this together. I couldn't have done it without

him. He was an integral part of the learning process. And we

work together and we bet at odds it would have been much more

difficult. I am who I am, I'm sure I would have pushed hard to

be the best I can be anyway, but how if somebody, a partner, and

a close relationship, and we have a really, really marvelous,

remarkable people, much About time, how close we are, we

really had this very close relationship and I wouldn't

wanted to do it, I just don't think it could have done it as

well. And I wouldn't want to do it by myself. And then I have

him as to reflect back to me when I'm off, off target, you

know, and I missed the mark a little bit into target through I

just, yeah, the relationships, really, at the end of the day,

most of our happiness is comes from relationships, if not with

God, it's our husband or wife or children, or friends. That's

where all of the joy and happiness comes from, like not

having a bunch of money in the bank,

crowood you got, as you mentioned, it's cool when

you're able to iterate those things in such a way that you

were able to work through a process and have success on all

those areas. That's what everybody wants, really, you

know, everybody wants to have success in their life, and they

get kind of put up in a ditch, sometimes by one bad first life

happens, and life happens, you know, but the check marks and so

on, that's part of that accountability that way, but our

relationships can be help us hold us accountable to when we

have affirming loving relationships, that to help hold

us accountable both marriages you mentioned and you're also

accountable to your clients, I know and that type of thing that

you work with, and you develop rapport and relationships that

way it's so it's not just an interchange of you know, just as

not an exchange of money or anything else like that. It's

interchange of life.

I'm 65 my kids are like 31 to 45 and

six, seven. And they're still really the reason I get out of

bed in the morning because I've got to show them how to live

right. I can't just, they're not my home, I need to show them how

it how you live when you're 65 I need to show them how you grow

how to grow old well. And same thing with my clients, my

clients are looking to my life. So it does hold me accountable.

I can't, I can't if I have any. I just won't check my check my

tracking sheet today I can do that. Because I've got people on

teaching that to be hypocrite. So yeah, those people that we

love are cannibal to myself a lot too. And a lot of reasons I

want to change my life because I had these two at that time,

little girls. I wanted them to have everything I wanted to be

the best mother I could be I didn't want to leave them at

risk. And so that was one of my reasons for wanting to teach to

Yeah, changing and being candid with those people.

Yeah, that's a those those are the most

important people to us most of the time you know, we sometimes

we have unfortunate experiences so you mentioned some forge

experiences growing up in that type of thing, but still, you

know, families family and if we can be a influencer upon our

family members, I have three adult children, myself and two

grandchildren and I certainly think about that a lot.

Especially my two grandchildren are very young I think about

influence on them right now more justifies more than anything

else. These days in terms of people who are close to violence

How about process a little bit your books about process and and

one of the things I love to be aware of is things like

discipline. So I think you have to think and act with

discipline, in order to really get things accomplished. You've

already mentioned that in several ways. But I know your

your book is about mastery, you've talked about life.

mastery and mastery means you practice you got to practice

something mastered I know you're in the physical fitness world

you don't get don't get better at aspect of physical fitness by

just doing it once a month or so you got to keep adding tests

What about your process about your program of helping people

to get better because you call it a progression?

First of all this is say about that is

I'm just totally just flabbergasted amazed, just in

awe of human potential. Just that's what kind of Jazz's me up

and watching people change. It's just everything I just think is

awesome. But my one of the things that's unique about Life

Mastery is they do they do include how the last sections on

how I when I was reading the books, and look, I kept thinking

alongside have to do something, something to get down motivated,

but then say, Well tell me what to do and how to do it. What to

do, I could probably work out which again, but how to do it, I

needed somebody to tell me how. So that's one of the things

unique about Life Mastery. And I teach, I teach several skills.

One is to have a mission statement. One is to have

governing values. So there's some things like that have a big

dreams list. But as far as hardcore progression things that

teach three things, one is the tracking sheet that I mentioned,

which is about the things that you do the things that are

measurable, I don't believe in SMART goals, you know, this the

specific measurable What is it attainable, relevant and

actionable release I don't believe in bout for my belly

bigger than that. For action steps that need to be those

things. So things that we do, I say put so much money in the

bank every week I work out every day I drink so much water you

just certainly things that we actually do I need in my fit

something in my field. I pray those kind of specific habits

tracking sheet that's all about the tracking sheet but sometimes

we want things that are not that are very valuable but they're

not tracking All right in that way. And so the second system

that I teach with the kind of goals kind of goes like, if I

have a goal to mileage everybody I have about this, if I have a

goal to be a good listener, how am I going to measure that?

Like, hey, listen, good today, one isn't that one person pretty

good at being not that other person so good, you can't really

measure that. So to be a good listener, to be kind to speak

well of other people to laugh easily, things like that, that

you can't measure daily, written affirmations. And it's the balm

for who you are, who you're trying to change. And this is

how I discovered that happiness comes from personal progression.

That's what that's what makes us happy, going towards that

infinite potential. So it's through affirmations, I actually

learned that because progress comes so fast. And that works

like this, you write down the affirmations that already

exists, and that I know a lot of people do this in the mirror and

they say things that I got that is not as effective as this, I

promise you, if you have a, I get my planner or notebook. And

every day you write and you never miss, I am happy or I am

competent, or I laugh easily. Or lately, I picked up a sticky

thing. From john a couple one of his books. He said My life is

dope, which is insane. You know, I thought on the 65 year old

woman I like my life is dope. So put that in my affirmations just

for fun, my life is dope. Daily, affirmations have changed who I

am.

30 is a certain number that you use when you

write out your affirmations. Do you just kind of make sure you

write out one? Or do you do?

Maybe Maybe I like to have my clients

have at least six or six to 12. And they're together enough to

make you feel like it's worth your time. You write it from

memory every day, once you thought what really good, strong

verbiage. Same every day, you'll change it a little over time,

obviously. But basically write the same thing every day in

preferably in the same order. And you just write it everyday

first thing in the day, I like to also pray over him because

that's why I won't but every day I write the same thing I've been

writing, I opened up my frame like so this is very serious

child, very serious. I don't have very much I do. We're

talking about mathematics with some affirmations. But I've been

probably 10 years I've been writing I laugh easily. And

often things like that the things that I want to be unkind

in though you can do all kinds of things like that. And they

make a difference. You have to really want it, you have to do

it every day. And you have to actually write it doesn't work

to just look in the mirror and say, Gosh, I'm great, that's

fine. But it's not really going to affect you like writing down

a serious, powerful, well worded,

and that's a that's an awesome thing to do. I know

that getting better every day reminds me of one of the mentors

I have in terms of my background is pastors guy named john

Wesley, who founded a religious group called the Methodist and,

and yeah, he talked about perfection. And a lot of people

thought he meant you know, try to be perfect. Now he thought

about going on to perfection. Perfection isn't heaven. But the

idea is we get better every day. It's not about an arrogant thing

is I'm perfect, but I'm calling on to perfection, you got

something to shoot for, to get better. And I love what you're

sharing, sharing there about the affirmation. And that mission

statement information, I think is so important because it

grounds us and our values that and then kind of sets the tone,

then if you do it first thing in the morning, you're mentioning

there, then it sets the tone for the rest of the day. And that's

an awesome thing there. Let's talk for a minute Sherry about

some of the people you are influencing now, your book is

something your way your your writing, flowing to people Life

Mastery, personal progression towards infinite potential. But

you've also had a business that helps influence people in their

physical health, you've had clients that you're working with

taking your Life Mastery, tell us about what you're offering to

people through your book and through your, your clients who

teach you what kinds of things are people going to get? If they

connect up with you in one of these ways?

I think the main thing is like I

was saying before that tools, you know, first of all, some

understanding motivation to know that it is how to be happy is

progressing. Everyday, like you said, we're not going to get

there, which is a good news of this life. Good news is just

something to do some areas to work on itj areas. And I think

that that will surprise a few people is aviaries is the

obvious many that I learned a while back, I realized

something's missing. And I've added character for the working

on our character, lifestyle, because we're working towards

kind of life. So there's eight areas to work from there are is

and then the tools to do it. And one of the tools that I offer on

my website as well as a personal assessment. I'd like to say this

about and then the tools I just talked about how to do tracking

and how the affirmations also there's another tool for

tracking goals called satisfaction checklist. It's in

the book. Those are all available, the assessments

available on the web on the website, as well as the tracking

sheet. The one thing I'd like to say about is a lot of people in

this genre in this industry are younger people who have writing

a book to build a career on, I did not do that. And then

they'll they'll only teach a little bit because they got to

buy another book so they can continue speaking and teaching

whenever I'm independently wealthy. I don't need to work. I

Do you love staying in the personal development realm, I

love working with people, but on my own time schedule. So when I

wrote this book, I didn't think, Oh, this is going to lead me on

to great things, I really want to make a difference in people's

lives. I want to leave people with something nice when I have

all this information in my head, and I'm not getting any younger.

And I thought how can I get this out to more people. And so the

book is really, really involved sincerely, my heart both

inspired out to source greater than myself and written

deliberately with the intent solely to make a difference in

somebody else's life. So the books available I do do some

work in but not very much. I do about two to four people at the

most because I have down to doing too many wore me out we

are working on a mentoring program now with some young

people been in my program are developing a mentoring program.

So that's gonna hopefully launch in the fall, but that will be

their business. I don't know that. Exactly.

I love the fact that you're Yeah, hey, you have

a very clear cognizance, Sherry about your motivations and where

you're coming from on this, and how you're choosing to see this

as a gift to be helpful to others, rather than just a

vehicle or resource to serve your own needs and that type of

thing. And that that's awesome. process. Let's just talk for a

minute about the results of that. And then we'll well kind

of bring this thing around for a landing year. What I mean by the

results, it sounds like you've been working with some people

you mentioned some group people there, tell us a story. You want

to get names, of course, but story about a person who you've

worked with who you have seen transformation, some change in

their life, to go from wherever they were at whatever situation

right to something better.

Oh, there's so many that one comes

right to mind, because now I'm working with him. He was here

when we first got on the call leading as we have a meeting.

But we're together, he worked with me for 14 months. And he

just bought the big ideas. Most of my clients are

entrepreneurially minded. So they're trying to have all these

big ideas and turn them down. But he is falling in love with

his program he carries around his tracking sheets everywhere

and his affirmations everywhere. And to watch him go from sort of

listening. It's kind of like a disciplined, young adult, to

just like a man, it's just been such a fun process to watch. He

got hold of these disciplines, to move from one discipline to

pulling his life together overcoming some bad habits,

establishing some good habits. It's just been a joy to watch.

Mostly I don't work with people who are meat counseling, right?

I'm working with people that are doing good, they want to do

better. And he is just, it's been just fun to watch him. I

spoke out a couple of weeks ago in front of a group of realtors,

and he was there just helped me want to be there for some

reason. So I had him. I just talked about what nasty and and

he sold the show that one of the women afterwards that we were

you mentioned me. He's mentoring but I said just tell him Yeah,

totally. Yes. So he's just, it's been so fun and brings such joy

to me to watch him make changes. I can go to all clients, they

always just just they always just tell me that just great.

But

from my perspective, sure. That's what

it's really all about. When you see life transformation happen,

it's just nothing better. I mean, nothing better than that.

And that's what Jazz's me up. So reason I'm loving to be around

my grandchildren these days, one is three and one is about nine

or 10 months old. You see those dramatic physical and verbal

changes and all that kind of thing. It's just so exciting.

But it's also exciting when you see when you work with someone,

and they're kind of stuck at life, I call it you know, the

kind of that malaise of mediocrity and when you get

stuck in those, when adverse when life happens when a when a

COVID crisis happens or the things and some people get

stuck, and somebody will find a way to move through it. And

people like you are helping people move through it. And when

you see that happen to know from the people who I coach and work

with when I see it happened when you see a life change happen.

And people move through adversity you try to call a life

of peace, prosperity and purpose man, there's just nothing better

and you got some good stuff here in your book. And just to

clarify that tell people how they can get to tell people how

they can get the book and get connected with you

on my master hinfo calm I'm really

easy to find emailed me there are some on Facebook and all the

usual always willing to contact you back at this point I can do

that the book is available on Amazon mt Life Mastery, a

personal progression towards a potential by Sheree Sterling

pregnant. And there's also the free downloads on the website.

Lots of great resources there. And it's all

you'll find it all Life Mastery info calm that is. Sherry's

website. You will also put connections and links at our

website, Dr. Brad miller.com. To as we always like to provide

resources from authors and leaders and teachers who are all

about helping you to transform your life. So it's been our

guest our pleasure Today you're on the beyond diversity podcast

to have a great leader and mentor who can be helpful to

your life. Her name is Sherry Sterling finance and her She is

the author of Life Mastery, personal progression towards the

infinite potential. Thank you for being our guest today on the