Let’s talk
Judy: And today is April 4th and I’m Judy Baker, Book Marketing Mentor. And this is another episode of Author Spotlight. And today I have Vicki Dello Joio with me, and she is a master at energy and presentation, and she has shown that. Forty-five years as a Qi Gong practitioner. And we will explain what your gong is for those of you who don’t know. She’s a master teacher and she shows how joy is a life force.
I totally am on board with this. It’s a fuel we can draw from, and it allows us to embrace life’s complexities while expanding our capacity to achieve our potential, Vicki. Has a towel list philosophy. She presents a worldview that there are nine laws, principles, and practices to reflect on three realms.
Which is inspiration human, which is intention and earth manifestation. I have been in a class with Vicki and I will tell you; she is a brilliant person at bringing stories into the mix and how you can use your energy. Even if you’re shy to project your message and connect with people. And. Welcome, Vicki.
Connect with Vicki Dello Joio
- https://www.vickidellojoio.com/
- https://yourpowerpresence.com/
- Https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickidellojoio/
- Https://www.facebook.com/WayofJoy
Author Spotlight on Vicki Dello Joio Transcript
And I want to know two things about you right off the bat. What would you say is your most energetic part of your day? I’m going to throw you on that one,
Vicki: but you said two things. So I’ll just start with that. Okay. So first of all, I just want to say, thank you so much, Judy. I feel so honored to be on your Author Spotlight.
I think the work that you’re doing to bring authors forward is so important and so incredibly inspiring. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and say thank you. I would say that the most energetic part of my day is when I. When I have a sense that I hit that place in the zone, it can happen at different times of the day, but you know, that those, those moments, those moments of grace, where you just have the sense that you’re on your course, you’re doing what you want to do.
Success
I remember that I had the sense of what success was a few years ago. I’m a performer as well as a she going teacher. And I, I work a lot with, with business people and entrepreneurs on how to deliver their message. Well, but in this case, I was doing my solo show in New York city, which is where I grew up.
So I was going back to my hometown I’m in California, going back to my hometown, to perform, and we’d had a great run. It was sold. All the time we were getting standing ovations every night. And my sense of success was when one evening I was going to the theater. I was staying at his place in Berlin. And it was in the place I was performing was in the village in Manhattan.
So I was taking the long subway ride. I had this long subway ride ahead of me as I was walking to the subway stop. It was summertime. And it had like, it just done a little bit of very light rain. And there’s that smell that comes up from concrete that I think of as specifically a New York smell. So as walking, I knew it was gonna be a great show cause they had all been great shows.
I knew it was going to, you know, I didn’t have to worry about money or anything else. It was just me walking to the subway to go perform. That was probably one of the most energetic. Points in my life, because it was really that sense of success meant being on the path to where I want to go. It wasn’t so much about, oh, I’m so glad.
I mean, it was great to have standing ovations. It’s not like I’m trying to pretend that it didn’t matter, but it wasn’t actually the highlight for me, the highlight for me was that sense of I am on the path that I need to be on. Right. So different times of day. I like that. Well, the second thing not with that question because you and I both know what Qi Gong is, but there are people who have never experienced don’t know what it is.
And I want you to explain how you got into that and why it’s so important. There’s a long story and a short story. I’ll try to keep it fairly condensed. First of all, she going is coming from China. It’s a, it’s a martial healing. Art kind of goes back and forth between both. She goes is actually an umbrella word.
It’s a word that I think of like dance. So you could say, well, I, I take dance classes. Well, Alvin Ailey style. Is it ballet? Is it tap? Is it modern? Is it, what, what is it? So she goes and has medical Qi Gong underneath it. So that’s for healing. And that based on Chinese medicine, both classical and traditional Chinese medicine, it’s got a martial art, which is Tai-Chi and other forms, which are more robust.
And then it has a spiritual side. It probably has many others as well. There’s over 6,000 exercises that get called. She going in the word actually became into being. Some people say the 40, some people say the fifties, but it was, it was a word that they came up with in China to describe pretty much any of these energy practice or cheap practice systems that incorporate movement.
Whether that’s internal movement or external, actually moving a meditation and intention, bringing to a focus here, your thoughts and how you, how you, how you move energy with your intention, the way I got into it. Or did you want to ask something or say something because no?
Judy: I do want to, I do want to know how you got into it because you know, you and I are.
How did you find Qi Gong?
Born in the United States and, you know, wandering around. And so how did, how in the world did you find out about Qi Gong?
Vicki: Well, my first intro, Qi Gong to Tai Chi Chuan and I was in a, I was 16, I think 17, I was in a summer program at a theater at a theater school. And they had brought in a Tai Chi teacher who was an old man who was teaching this form.
And I’d never heard of Tai-Chi Chuan at that point. He was, he was. He was. What do I want to say about him? The big cause they claim to fame was that he was probably in his seventies. You know, I thought that was really old at the time he had just, his wife had just had a newborn. So this was supposed to be a big sign of the Realty in his, you know, macho or what, not macho, but, you know, sense of being really strong.
And for me as a young lesbian, that meant nothing. I had no interest in becoming that, but when I started actually doing the movie. It really just felt like coming home. I don’t know what else to say about it. It just felt so familiar. So that was my first introduction to she go home or to take each one later on, I started doing more intense fighting forms, martial arts.
Like particularly one called Kaja Kimbo, which is basically was created to help people defend themselves on the street. It was created in Hawaii by five different martial arts masters around street fighting. I started doing that because I had the sense that I needed to be able to defend myself. I had been attacked on the street earlier.
I realized I wanted to learn something that where I could take myself. I could take myself to another level of self-protection. So I began doing that. This is, this story could, can go on for a bit, but, but basically while I was doing it, there was a point in my life where I was breaking up with my partner.
She and I were training at the same school. And for some reason, our teacher thought it would be great to have us spar with each other. So we were hitting and punching and kicking each other at school. Then at home, we were screaming and yelling and it’s not a pretty time in my life. But what I realized is one day I was walking home from from, from the Bart, which is our subway system here.
As I was walking, there was a guy that came around the corner. You know how sometimes you can see somebody and you can know this is something I need to, you know, 10, I go out there and the energy’s a little funky. His energy was like, He came up to me. He reached out to grab me as he did. I had the sense of growing through my spine.
I lengthened the back of my neck. I had space between my vertebrae. It was just instinctive. I didn’t know what I was doing. His hand literally bounced off of contact. It was like, boom. It bounced off it. Like without even touching me about six inches from my body. He walked away, looking at his hand and looking at me and looking at his hand and trying to figure it out.
So I knew he hadn’t missed, there was something there. When I got home, I had a message from a colleague and friend who had became like, she’d gone teacher. She said, I think you need to start learning these internal arts again, go back to that. So I began studying to go and found out that the name for this was something that is called , which has to do with your externalized.
This becomes very important, not just in terms of self-defense or even how we maybe want to carry ourselves in the world. But it’s really important when we start to think that there’s energy that’s coming from us. That’s a real palpable thing. This guy didn’t know from it. I didn’t know before. Yet he bounced and he literally bounced and he could have reached me very easily that this is something that’s really important for people who are speakers, who are business people.
I began to think about what is the, you know, the energy that allow you to break through a bunch of bricks or a board with your hand. What if we could take that energy and apply it in our. In terms of how we communicate, whether we’re with clients or referral partners or colleagues, or whether we’re making sales, whatever it might be.
What if, or just in terms of organizing our business life, what, what does our business look like? How do we create it? What if we took that kind of energy and applied it in that way? What if we can combine the two? So that was a big motivator for me in terms of how I bring into the world that I work with.
Now, I work with people. All over from artists to lawyers and business people, to writers, to people who are just looking to feel better in their bodies. So, and the thing that all of these people have in common is that they all have begun to recognize that it’s your energy that you bring to everything that you do that matters the most.
Tai Chi Connection
Judy: I’m sitting here because my mind is racing and you made me remember. One of my theater instructors, because I studied theater in college. We did, we did Tai Chi and we, and we did balance work on, on it wasn’t a Bosu ball, but it was a balance board. And as I’m doing TRX now, and I’m doing Pilates and I’m going, oh, oh, all of that is there.
And what you said is so spot on. I do a regular practice with acupressure. I’ve worked with an acupressure person. She’s, you know, certified. I worked with her for years and we even do distance sessions. So she’s, we’re doing it over Zoom. And I know some of you out there are going, what, what are you talking about?
But our energy can be transmitted in so many different ways. When you get tuned into it, then it makes sense. But until you start feeling, it doesn’t resonate yet.
Vicki: That sounds a little woo. Right.
Judy: But everything you said, I’m going, I get it. I can, I could picture you in that situation. I been in that situation where I said, okay, I need to, you know, bring everything.
And once I do that, there’s also this sense of calm that doesn’t show up when you’re. You know, you’re scattered, so it’s both projecting out, but it’s also centering centering. So I really appreciate what you said. It makes
Vicki: well, you know, there’s that, that thing about, I don’t know if this is actually real, but that the butterfly across the ocean can be the start of a hurricane in another part of the world.
Yeah. Have you heard that?
Judy: That heard that? Yeah.
Vicki: I don’t know if that’s actually science or, or just wonder wonderful story that I love, but I do know that I had a teacher who was sent that, that if we can know that when they cut down the trees in the Amazon, that’s going to impact us here in the same way we can think about if we’re working on energetic field here that.
Actually impact what’s happening in the in in the Amazon or other parts of the world. I think that there’s something to this. I it’s, I teach my Qi Gong class that I’m teaching now on Zoom, since the pandemic I call living in the chief field, because what I find is that when people actually start to do these practices in a group, they access.
Bigger resource than they do just on their own, not that working on your own and having your own practice. Isn’t critical. It’s very, you know, very, very useful, but to have that sense that the people are all in Europe, in Mexico and Canada across the country. So it’s not like it’s all people in my area.
But there’s a sense that as we’re moving this together, there’s a rising, that feels, it feels almost like being fed from the bottom up. So for me, it’s become very, very real. And I have to say that one of the things I often talk about is. Well, I grew up in New York city. Very, very practical. What you see is what you get kind of like there’s no, like there’s no who my, my, my, my clients call me a Renegade woo coach, because I have this practical side and then I’m also love tapping into this other piece.
So I grew up thinking that that was all there was. When I moved to California, I was really afraid. I’d become one of those, you know, people whose feet don’t touch the ground. Who’s sort of walking in the air. Exactly, exactly like me. So I became my own worst fear right now. This is what I teach. This is what I, not only believe, but have just seen so much evidence.
I mean that, the story about what she, I have many of them, of how I have seen used watched my students use this energy field very intentionally with incredible results.
Judy: Well, you and I both know this being performers. There’s a difference between rehearsing in a room by yourself and then the energy that happens when you’re in front of an audience. And that is so different. And Zoom is it’s tricky doing the phone Zoom. I will say that it’s still, I still have a little struggle with it, but I’ve gotten better. There’s an exchange and that, you know, publishing it’s an exchange of ideas. Performing is an exchange of ideas and energy.
And that’s, that’s the beauty and what you were talking about. This group energy that happens. I mean, now scientists are finding, you know, we used to think only mushrooms were connected and had, you know, miles and miles and miles. Now they know that trees are connected. Everything you said about, do we influence our environment? We do. If, well, we we’ve seen it. We’ve seen it with what happened politically in the last year that when there’s a feed of, of angry and upset, it tends to grow.
If instead we’re having a conversation going, we don’t want to be on that side of the conversation. We want to be on the com on the side of. Maybe I don’t agree with you, but I’m curious. I want to know who you are and what’s going on. Then there can be a real conversation rather than just people throwing things at each other.
So.
Reciprocity
Vicki: I liked it because it really makes me think of how deep listening is one piece of important reciprocity. Right? You say something, I take it in and I hear it. There’s a reciprocity just in my receiving it. Then I respond or in however I do, if you’re receiving it, then we start to create this loop right.
Of reciprocity. That’s like an infinity sign. It goes back and forth between us or between you and your audience. Are you and your readers? You never also you also, as authors, we never really know who we’re hitting and how, but there is that sense. I think that when we put it out there, there’s a vision that it’s going to be helping.
You know, people often say if I can help one person, but it may be hundreds, thousands, millions of people. I had this incredible experience where I, s omebody reached out to me because she had read the way of joy. She, I think she found me on Facebook or something like that. She’s somebody who has started this incredible school for Dalit girls in India, Dalit called untouchables.
So they’re the poorest cast in India. And she started a leadership program for these girls and she was using The Way of Joy book as kind of a structure to be able to help these young people empower themselves and be able to move into a whole other level. So I had no idea until I had the book had been published for a couple of years when she reached out to me.
So of course I donated a lot of stuff, so that to continue that important work, but we don’t know as authors who it’s going to reach. I had no idea. I almost disowned my book after I wrote it because I felt, oh, it’s. It’s got a fair amount of complexity. It’s not a simple type of book. It’s something that’s got a lot of different layers, storytelling memoir, as well as practices, as well as theory, as well as the structure that I’ve created, that I call the way of joy, the nine ways to access joy as a fuel in your life instead of a goal.
So. It’s amazing. I think there’s something so brave, those of us who write and put it out there, it’s such a brave thing to do, and the influence can be incalculable.
The Way of Joy Origins
Judy: I mean, you’re bringing up a good point. Now, The Way of Joy is, I mean, the title really comes out of your belief system. Is that correct?
Vicki: Yes. Partly. Here’s the, here’s this confession. I was when I, right before I came up with this as a name for the work I’ve been doing the work at the point, at that point for probably about 30 years or something. I I realized that my name means victory of joy, Victoria, Dello, Joio. So I thought, well, what would that be like if I, what, what does, what does victory enjoining life mean?
What, how can I, how can I think about that? So part of it was just trying to live up to the legacy of the name that I was born with.
Judy: Oh, I’m sitting here just being speechless, because I think about how some of us don’t really know what our names mean and. People who I know people who, you know, renamed themselves and, and all kinds of things.
But if you go back to the roots of that, that is, that’s just so perfect for you. Absolutely. It’s a perfect name for you. When, when you undertook the process of writing your book, what spurred you to do that because you and I both know. And so to all of you watching, it’s a lot of work to write a book.
Vicki: Oh, it was the most work I’ve ever done in my life.
It’s one of those kinds of never, again, things, although I have got a new one kind of cooking up a little bit, maybe more of a workbook that would go with this. I had been teaching for. I dunno, I’ve been teaching for a long time. I was starting to do something that I, that my students nicknamed Dharma talks.
I often follow the lead of my students. I don’t tend to get this I am the Dharma, but I, I started doing these talks on these different things. The themes, like how to circles become spirals? What does that mean in our life when we’re kind of repeating patterns, how do we break through? Or what is it? What are boundaries?
What boundaries look like? How to boundaries dissolve barriers? What does that? So there’s this different concepts that I was coming up with, that I was talking about and having dialogue and the students would all it wasn’t like me just expounding. I would talk about something for a while and then we’d have dialogue about it.
At some point, one of my students said: “you really need to write a book about this.” I sorta like Naa, naa. Now I’m not a writer, but it did keep calling me. I actually ended up closing my school. I had a school at that point with a lot of different classes. I closed the school or hired people to, to teach my classes, went to the country, borrowed money, went to the country to write my book.
Three months into it. It was like, ah, it’s all coming through. I was in the what’s called the heaven realm. Everything is possible. It’s the place of full potential. Everything was great. Then I get a call from my uncle who was like a father to me, very, very beautiful man that he had end stage lung cancer, my mother and I flew back to be with him during his last days.
And I was there sort of, almost like a doula during his final, final weeks. Then I got back. One of my senior students was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer plus, and she was the mother of my goddaughter, who was seven at the time. Plus my, my mom was diagnosed with double breast cancer. So there was this moment where it was really I had another friend say “Vicki. I’m so frustrated for you borrow this money. You went to the country to go write your book. Now all of these things are calling for your attention. You’re needing to do all these things.” I realized I didn’t feel victimized at all. I felt like this was a chance to kitchen test these theories.
If I had the audacity to say, we can use joy as a fuel in every choice we make, even in the face of challenges, what does that mean? Not only if I’m suffering, but if the people that I love are suffering, what does joy look like then?
So it really felt like I had to put my, my theories to the test before I could really come out and really own, this is a system that worked for me and it hopefully will work for other people.
Energy Heals
Judy: That makes perfect sense. And I can, I can just echo. The fact that I had people who did energy work when I was diagnosed with cancer and because they had positive visions of what was going to happen. And because I had a belief of a good outcome, my experience was very different than many of the other women I’ve met along the way who also had ovarian cancer.
They suffered. I wasn’t really suffering. I mean, I, it, things were not normal, but certainly knowing that there are ways to, to draw on energy outside as well as inside is so different of an approach than just saying, oh, I’m, I’m the patient and here help me. And whatever you do is going to be okay. That’s not enough.
It really isn’t enough. And I, I really, I hear what you’re saying too. Being called to write the book and then, oh, here, let’s see what it really looks like in the real world. If you’d like to share anything about what happened as you were being called on. I’d love to hear that.
Vicki: What do you mean by what happened?
Judy: Well, here you were here, you were dealing with, with your family, with cancer, you were dealing with a friend with cancer. How did, how did you showing up help in that situation and what, what really transpired, how, you know, how was it different, do you think than had you not had this information?
Vicki: I wasn’t, I wasn’t ever, ever at a place where I was thrown or that I was, I wouldn’t have maybe thrown is not the right word where I felt victimized.
I guess that’s the main thing. It kept me out of victim mode. Now I want to say there are times when we are victimized, where things happen and we are treated unjustly and unfairly, but there’s a victim mindset that can get locked in. And that’s, I think part of my practice helped me come back to the present.
So not only those things that I listed happened, but then my, my wife’s father died, then my own father died. So I was with my dad as he, as he died. In fact, I was with my mom as she died too. Although she died much later than the, than the breast cancer diagnosis. There’s a process. I think that had to do with just how do I align?
How do I stay really grounded and present? So even if I’m seeing somebody suffer, how do I have empathy, compassion, show up for them. But not absorb it into my own body, but more let it move through. So when the pandemic happened or something like that, one of the things I was focusing on was people were having all these different types of reaction from anger to grief, to despair, to depression.
To know that all of those emotions as your guest, Joie Seldon knows so well, all of those emotions are valid and important to feel, but we have to not hang on to any of them, not even the sense of joy or relief, but to let, let it move through us as water. So the point is to stay aligned, to recognize that recognize that these emotions and these different challenges circumstances are going to come to continue to do the practice of staying centered, staying aligned between heaven, which has to do with vision which has to do with clarity, which has to do with inspiration and earth, which has to do with being really grounded, being really present, being able to access what resources are there for us, so that we can then extend from the heart. Right? Energy comes from above, down and up from below. Then we, energy comes out from the heart.
This is going a little bit into the woo side of it, but that there’s this is that tai chi energy that when I lengthened my spine instinctively, I went into a place that I think of as I am, as opposed to you can’t as opposed to I’m going to control this. It was more, I am here and I’m just allowing this.
Energy to emanate out and discovered that it was palpable, that it wasn’t just a inner experience, but it was actually something that was felt by somebody else who would not have necessarily been open to it.
Judy: Wow.
I think the conversation here, you’re really opening people’s eyes up to what is possible and. You know, that things, things are, things are available. If we pay attention. There is energy available to help us there’s energy available to protect us and being able to open up to let energy in. That’s also very, very key, but I think what you’ve also described is it’s being a conduit.
You were a conduit when you were writing. You were a conduit when you are performing and when you’re helping other people. And that is, you know, as a, as a business owner, that’s, that’s what I’m here to do, too. I’m here to facilitate. I’m not here to tell you, oh, you must do this, this and this. I’m here to work with you.
And to help you bring out the best in you. And you are doing that with your performance, with your book, with, you know, when you speak in front of other people. And I just love that.
Vicki: Thank you so much Judy. I love how you put the beautiful.
Judy: you are very welcome. Well, I’m curious when you were, when you were writing your book, did you, did you do any research and to look to see if there were any other books that were like yours?
I’m I’m trying to think in my head if I can think of any, but did you find anything that was like your book?
Vicki: No, I actually, I know that that was something you asked me to think about ahead of time. There really isn’t any book that’s like my book in the sense that what I’ve done is taken my understanding of Daoist principles or some Daoist, not all of them, but some Daoist principles.
My understanding of what these practices have taught me when I was very young, I used to ask a Thai Chi teacher, you know, what is this movement? And what does this movement mean? And what does that mean? They would say when you’re very old you will understand. So maybe I’m very old. Now I started, I started to have a sense that these forms were speaking to me that they were coming through me.
Like you said, being, being a conduit. I love how you put that. I guess that what I would say is that there are things that are related. Like for example, there’s a book called Taking the War out of our Words: the art of powerful non-defensive communication that was written by a sister- friend somebody who is a very close person to my heart.
I’ve studied with her, her, her system of communication for years. It’s, it’s a life practice in the same way that The Way of Joy is. Because what she’s done is she’s taken the idea of being centered, grounded open-hearted and yet having boundaries and looking at what boundaries are, which is a whole other conversation and put it into language.
How do we dismantle basically a war attitude. Whenever we get defensive, we go into different war types of responses where we’re sabotaging ourselves or we’re defending ourselves, or we’re trying to prove something or prove the other person’s wrong. What happens when we get defensive? That, that for me is the language of chi.
It’s the language of, I am, as opposed to you. Can’t, like I said earlier, so that would be one book that we it’s not, I mean, we quote each other in our books, but it’s not the same material, but it’s related in terms of this concept. How do we emanate from our best self or how do we emanate our heart energy in a way that is not just sort of woo and not just about love everybody or, or spiritual bypassing really about how do we ground ourselves in the authenticity of who we are.
Go back to that place of centering, like you were talking about earlier and then move from there. So that was the language for it. There’s a lot of Qi Gong books. So if people are interested in, Qi Gong and particularly for medical Qi Gong, medical Qi Gong, the most popular Qi Gong here in this country.
There’s Roger Yanka, Ken Cohen, Daisy Lee. There there’s a lot of teachers out there that have written books or that are teachers that I would highly recommend, but I don’t know anyone who’s sort of done this. And then I took these because I took these concepts of heaven, human and earth, inspiration, love and joy, grounding and empowerment.
And broke those down into three different triads, which I’m not going to get into the complexity right now, but that have to do with these different themes. Like I said, circle is open and the spirals or boundaries dissolve barriers, or how do we embrace wholeness? There’s a there’s there’s different practices that we can do that help explore that in our lives.
It’s really my own take. That’s why there isn’t anything like it, it’s something it’s my own personal contribution, like offering to the large, vast, very forgiving system that is Dao, because I also had to ask myself as a white woman, what does it mean for me as a white European woman to be doing these Chinese practices?
Because I don’t want to be appropriating anything. So I’ve studied with a lot of traditional masters. But I really feel like it’s very important as a Western woman. I can only understand what I understand through my filters and to own that. It’s my filter. I’m not trying to pretend I’m carrying forward a lineage.
I don’t have that capacity, but I do have the capacity to create something from what I’ve learned, how the, how the forms, how the practice has taught me.
Share a Tip
Judy: I would appreciate it. If you would share one tip. When I ask you something a little differently. One tip when authors go to talk about their book and I’ve had this experience too, I can read other people’s words.
I can perform other people’s words and you get me up there to perform my words and. Oh, I’d rather be under the bus. And it’s, it’s really interesting because I can, I can do workshops, not a problem, but you get me to try to read and it’s like, oh, what, what would you share with us that could help make it easier and more enjoyable.
Vicki: I love that question because it’s so important, right? When we’re, when we’re wanting to share this life commitment that we’ve done that by pouring something into a book it’s really important how we convey it so that people get to receive it, receive it, the gift that you’re offering. There’s a few different things.
I tend to go to the body first just because I tend to be very kinesthetic and I’m body-based so this is where I would use some Qi Gong principles or concepts. The first one that I would do, especially if somebody is preparing to go onto a stage, they’re about to do their first reading. So it’s so big.
I remember the reading from my book and it was there. It was, so there was so many, there was, you know, a few hundred people there. It was, it was so intimidating. So I did these practices myself, which has first of all:
to lengthen your spine. Is this going to sound? It sounds so obvious, but we know that good posture is good.
Right. We know that we want to stand tall and all that, but when we lengthen our spine, we actually start to open up pathways that help to clear out that brain fog that comes with when we’re feeling intimidated or scared. Stage fright or shy. So to have a sense that I’m lengthening because when we’re scared, we tend to hunker down, right.
We tend to compress our spine. So you want to lengthen your spine. Energy actually moves between the bones of your spine through your vertebrae, around your vertebrae. So that allows you then to be able to speak from a place of more centered.
When we open this way, open the crown and then focus on our feet on the ground and really realize we have feet on the ground.
Sometimes I’ll have people. Around before they go onstage, just stomp their feet so that they remember that there’s something grounding there that they can do.
The next thing is so the most important thing is to open up where the gut clenches, right? The gut clenches, when, when we’re scared or shy, or we don’t quite know how to convey what we want to convey.
Another easy trick is to just place your hands on your heart before you go on stage and just took, take a moment to focus in on why you wrote that book, what it was that compelled you to help other business owners. If you’re a business, you know, written a busy business owner manual, or if you have whatever it is that you’re, you’re sharing and teaching, what is that reason why?
And then to circle your hands over your heart. Three to nine times, I recommend nine times in each direction. So that until you start to feel that your chest feels a little warmer from your hands, that’s going to also help relax the heart, right? Because the heart is the center of impatience and a sense of also sense of not connecting right when we don’t want we do it when we’re scared like that, we’re not connecting. So we want to soften that so that we can remember that what we’re doing is about the people that we’re wanting to serve. It’s not about how people perceive me or what their analysis is going to be of what I read from my book.
It’s not about that. It’s about, here’s what I want you to know. For example, in my case, I want you to know that joy is an endless resource that you can access any time and it’s your birthright. It’s something you’re born with, right. Every baby has joy. So if that was what I’m doing, I’m talking to you about that.
I’m not trying to prove anything about me. So that’s that’s a second thing that you can do.
A third thing that you can do is, you know, some people do that power pose, you know, doing something physical. Yeah. Right. Something physical stamping your feet is really good for grounding. The other thing I like to do is called the shower where you just taking your hands up and then bringing energy down through the top of your head.
These you’re smiling and nodding. This is in probably every Qi Gong system I’ve ever studied over the last 50 years. You’re going to just draw the sense of the, the, the sense that you’re not alone, that there’s something bigger guiding you. It’s a sense of like, who are your angels, your spirit guides, God, Goddess has higher power.
However you think about that. Or even if you don’t have a sense of spirituality as though you’re up in the cosmos, looking down at your life here, which is so small, right? We’re a little ants when we’re up in that cosmic place to be able to have that sense of perspective so that when we’re coming here, then it doesn’t, then it’s not personal.
It’s about the message it’s about what are you offering? What are you giving to people?
Judy: Oh, I, I just been feeling so happy because I know too, what you’re, when you’re talking about lengthening your spine, you’re also opening up your diaphragm so that your voice can come out and you’re right. Absolutely. Right.
When we’re scared we go, like, you know, we pull in and then of course. If you’ve ever been frightened, that’s the first thing that happens is that your breath has gone, right? So you you’re giving us some. Kind of flowing ways to, you know, feel connected.
Vicki: Yes, yes. And the breath, like you say, the breath is, is the essence, right?
The breath is your life. That is you coming forward. Your breath is your voice also, it’s your breath of what’s coming forward. So, yes, exactly. When we lengthen, we open the diaphragm and we are able to have oxygen oxygenate our whole system.
Judy: Oh, I love it. Well, how, I mean, I think you really described how you’ve been using your book and your book came out of questions that your students asked.
If we were to help you reach the people you want to connect with. How could we do that?
Where to Find Vicki
Vicki: Check out my website, probably. If, if you’re interested in for yourself around what, one of the things I sometimes do is just a free energy read. I can look at people and I can pretty quickly assess where they’re stuck and where there’s flow. And the stuckness is actually super important. Right?
Stagnation is the, the core problem, both in Western and Eastern medicine for any disease, whether or mental, emotional spiritual, physical, this is stagnation, right? That’s what that we were talking about with fear, that, that, so if people want to ask me for a quick read go to yourpowerpresence.com or if you’re looking at what is, what are some stories that I can tell that will help convey my book quickly so that people, because one of the main, I work a lot with speakers and I work a lot with people who are in front of an audience. And one of the main mistakes people make is either that there’s too much detail. They go on and on and it’s almost like they get lost in the weeds, or it’s not enough detail.
It’s so dry that it’s like reciting a resume or CV and people, you lose people that way. So finding out what are the details that matter and what don’t, doesn’t what helps you paint the picture so that when you’re speaking, people can go into the movie of what you’re talking about, not just hear the information.
So it’s not data flowing one way that is unilateral, but there’s that reciprocity that we’re talking about that happens when we tell stories in such a way that evoke empathy and connection. So this is, this is the work that I do a lot in the world. And if you want to hear more, find out more about how I could support you, particularly those of you who are authors, www.yourpowerpresence.com.
You can also check out my web Facebook page. That’s energy matters most, if you do a search for energy matters most you’ll find my energy matters page, where we have a whole lot of people who are doing different exchanges about what moves your energy and how do you do it? Because of course there’s myriad of ways and they’re all valuable.
Judy: Absolutely. Is there anything I haven’t asked or that you haven’t shared yet that you would like to share with the audience?
Vicki: I just really appreciate this conversation because I think this conversation is a way in which energy just has flowed. Right? We don’t, we didn’t necessarily know what, where, what territory we’re going to.
I didn’t know what stories I would tell. That sense of ease being able to be centered. I want that for all of you, everybody, whether you’re on podcasts or on YouTube channels or you’re, you’re in front of a live audience or a small audience in your living room, which can sometimes be the most challenging.
I want for you to have that sense of access to that joy as a fuel so that you can convey what you need to convey with passion, presence, and power.
Judy: Oh, Vicki, you have been just a delight and I am so happy that, you know, we’ve gotten to know each other and I’m looking forward to doing more with you because I really do believe you’ve got, you’ve been able to blend the physical practice with being onstage, being, having that presence and being so willing to share that with other people that makes me very happy. So I will be sure to have your links in the notes.
Author Spotlight on Vicki Dello Joio
And with that, I appreciate having another episode of Author Spotlight, this one with Vicki. And if you’d like to check out more come to bookmarketingmentor.com.
And with that, this is Judy Baker Book Marketing Mentor signing off. Thank you.
Vicki: Thank you.
