From Doubt to Do (eBook)

Navigating Your Pathway to Possibility

Kat O'Sullivan (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-4890-5 (ISBN)

Infos

'From Doubt to Do' is a story of personal and professional transformation. Incorporating inspirational quotes and thought-provoking questions, Kat O'Sullivan inspires readers to have the courage to shift from fear to action. In addition to providing hope, inspiration, reassurance, and encouragement; the book offers a clear strategy, plan, and practical tools to help readers on their transformational journeys from 'impossible' to 'possible.'

Kat is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and lifelong changemaker. She believes when 'shift happens,' it's time to 'make magic happen.' Kat leverages her 25 years of experience and expertise to help individuals and organizations achieve the seemingly impossible. She challenges assumptions, brings a fresh perspective, and creates a sense of curiosity about what else is possible. Kat has a long history of reinvention under fire, with immediate and long-lasting results. Kat works to provide clear strategies, plans, and practical tools to help everyone on their transformational journeys from 'impossible' to 'possible.'

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"e;From Doubt to Do"e; is for anyone facing a significant transition who has doubts about what else is possible, no matter what stage of life they are in. When someone accepts the invitation to make a shift, they open themselves up to new possibilities. In Part I, Kat shares stories of personal and professional transformation, inspirational quotes, and thought-provoking questions that will inspire readers to have the courage to shift from doubt to do. In Part II: Your Transformational Journal, the prompts are designed to help readers go deeper, reflect on the insights they gained, and further research as they navigate their path to possibility. This book is for readers who are ready to say, "e;Hell, YES!"e; to what they really want and create new possibilities in life.

Textauszug

I. THE SECRECY FACTOR:

How are secrets impacting what’s possible?

I took this photo in our backyard. I love the contrast between the dark burgundy leaves and this vibrant flower. While this flower doesn’t have a widely recognized symbolic meaning, it is versatile and visually appealing. Its vibrant burgundy foliage, edible leaves with a tangy flavor, cultural uses in traditional dishes, ornamental value in gardening and landscaping, and potential medicinal properties make it truly unique.

I’ve noticed that the flowers only bloom during daylight hours and close during the evening or in low-light conditions. It’s like they keep their beauty secret until it’s safe to open up.

I was born in a secret city.

Yes, I was top secret. I continue to grapple with figuring out who I am and how I can blossom in the wake of a dark past and related secrecy. Like all babies born in this secret city in the ’40s and ’50s, my original birth certificate showed I was born in a PO Box somewhere in New Mexico. My actual birthplace wasn’t supposed to exist to outsiders. It was top secret, remote, and completely self-contained.

In 1950, my parents’ lives were forever changed when two men in black showed up at their door. They were there to recruit my dad with an offer he couldn’t refuse—literally, even though he knew little about where he was heading, what he would be doing, or how long he would be there. Hard to imagine, right? I’m unsure if it was the money, the sense of adventure, or the opportunity to do something that felt exclusive and prestigious that made him want to go. I’ll never know because my dad never shared his feelings or reasons for doing anything. To him, they might as well all be top secret. Oh, and he left for places unknown without my mom. What must she have been thinking, given all the unknowns? However, she joined my dad three months later after yet another visit from those men in black.

Let’s imagine if you were recruited.

First, you would need to pass a rigorous background check. Then, you would report to 109 East Palace, an inconspicuous office behind a walled garden in a one-story adobe that dated back to the 1600s. You meet the gatekeeper, Dorothy, who is responsible for keeping secrets safe from the curious, who wonder what everyone with unusual accents is doing in town. Dorothy would issue you your clearance papers and give you further instructions about how to get to the secret city. You would make the forty-mile drive up a narrow, steep, windy road to a mountain plateau. At 7,300 feet, you have a stunning view of the valley below. It’s a stark contrast to the mysterious military facility and scientific research lab you are about to enter. What you see are armed guards patrolling the perimeter, barbed-wire fences, and intimidating gates. What you don’t see is the protected airspace. You will learn that strict security keeps you in as much as it keeps others out. Signs remind you that there’s something at stake in how you live your new life:

How are you feeling as you enter those gates?

Secrecy is now your way of life.

Your new life is kind of a bizarre combo of summer camp, science fair, and college campus on lockdown. You live under an assumed name and can never disclose your exact location. To others, you live somewhere in New Mexico. They monitor all your phone calls and screen and likely censor all your incoming and outgoing mail. You have access to a general store, post office, school, and a military hospital. There is no need to go elsewhere for necessities like groceries, basic toiletries, shoeshine, socks, and underwear.

Occasionally, you are allowed to leave the compound for non-essentials like clothing, beauty products, records, and those magazines you had to cancel. What, no magazines!? Why? If too many people have magazines sent to the same PO Box, it would raise suspicion. When you do go out, you don’t talk about your life or work with outsiders. You are always looking over your shoulder, aware that spies are around you to ensure you don’t say something or engage with someone you shouldn’t be meeting.

Given the isolation and the average age of twenty-five, it’s no surprise that there is a baby boom. The hospital has one of the highest birthrates of any military hospital. By the way, my folks did their part. My two brothers and I were all born there. I am the oldest.

If you have school-age children, they will attend the school run mainly by the wives of men working here. You might be disappointed to learn there is no kindergarten. That’s only a problem if you believe the premise of the book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. It became a philosophy and a #1 New York Times bestseller.

The bottom line? You must cut yourself off from the outside world.

Everything is very serious until it’s not.

In some ways, it may seem like you are in any other city in the US with a radio station, orchestra, theatrical plays, soda fountain, and frequent social events, including square dances and even wild parties. It’s a way to create a sense of normalcy and help reduce the mental and emotional stress this environment creates.

Looks can be deceiving. It is anything but normal. I get it. You might be thinking that you are now part of some weird cult. Or maybe you are in witness protection for something and don’t even know why. Or perhaps you won a prize and have been chosen to be part of the cast for some new high-profile spy movie. Or maybe you will find out you are part of an experiment about what it’s like to live among those secret aliens. Reality check: None of the above!

“It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you!”

• Top Gun

In the ’40s and ’50s, that may have been true. Today, I am free to let you in on that secret. I was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico—the birthplace of the atomic bomb.

Before moving to Los Alamos, my parents were living in Chicago. My dad had finished his tour of duty in the Navy as a radio engineer. My mom had just finished nursing school.

My parents joined other scientists, engineers, support staff, and their families in the post-Manhattan Project era. It was still top secret and a prime US nuclear weapons design post.

My parents never imagined putting their training to work developing thermonuclear weapons, but they did. My dad was in the field testing the H-bomb, i.e., hydrogen bomb. My mom worked in the lab. I never did find out what she did in there.

I’m unsure how to feel about my parents’ involvement. They rarely talked about it, and when they did, it was superficial at best. I wish I knew more about what contributed to their decision to get involved and then leave and how they felt about it. Sadly, they took all of that to their graves.

It’s a legacy of contradictions.

For many involved in the Manhattan Project, it’s still hard to shake off whether using a weapon with such enormous destructive force is morally acceptable. Some are proud of their work and claim, “We ended WWII.” Others are regretful, given the unimaginable devastation it created.

I take solace that my folks weren’t involved in the Manhattan Project until I realize they were involved in creating the hydrogen bomb and a whole arsenal of sophisticated thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems. The potential devastation from those is unimaginable. I wonder if we will survive the Atomic Age.

For a whole generation of Baby Boomers, including me, we were at the effect of the Cold War the Atomic Age created. Our schools included repeated duck-and-cover bomb drills. We would squeeze ourselves under our school desks. They would tell us to cover our heads. I’m not sure why, but at some point, they began to ask us to hide in the hallways to keep us away from breaking glass and blinding flashes of light. We would be praying it was just a drill. For those who could afford it, they built personal bomb shelters. Really? Given the catastrophic devastation a nuclear bomb would create, I’m not sure any of that would have made a difference. While it may be part of my legacy through my parents, I certainly don’t want that to be my legacy.

After eight years of living this clandestine life, my parents decide to leave Los Alamos, hungry to pursue a more normal life. I am five at that time. As much as they want something different, I’m not sure they are ready to live without the cloak of secrecy. Imagine how hard it would be to leave behind something so ingrained. In some ways, it is as if they are escaping a cult needing reprogramming. But that never happens. Secrecy is now a way of life for them. They take that habit with them wherever they go, and so do I.

We move to Albuquerque, and a year later, my parents decide they want more distance from New Mexico, and we move to Southern California. I experience one of many ripple effects of living in Los Alamos when my mom enrolls me in first grade in the outside world. She hears, “What do you mean your child never went to preschool or kindergarten?” They want to hold me back a year, but my...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.4.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-4890-5 / 9798350948905