New Children’s Book I
Am Awesome! Teaches the Power of Embracing Our
God-Given Confidence
A recent study by University of
Washington researchers shows that by age five children have a sense of
self-esteem comparable in strength to that of adults. That’s a significant
finding given that self-esteem then tends to
remain relatively stable throughout a person’s life.
Ryan Maule, motivational speaker and host of the
popular Expect Awesome Podcast, is taking that seriously. He wants to make sure
that all children get the positive self-esteem they need early so they can be
the type of adults that live up to their God-given potential.
Explains Ryan, “I was brought up in churches where
confidence was seen as a prideful thing that needed to be discarded and
exchanged for humility. I don’t think that’s what God intended at all. We were
created by an awesome God who created an ever-evolving awesome creation that
needs to live up to the potential that God intended for us. How can we fully
believe in God’s awesome power if we can’t believe in ourselves while living
according to his power?”
After helping his own daughter overcome issues of
poor self-esteem, Ryan wanted to create a way to improve children’s self-esteem
in a format that is understandable and relatable to them. The result is his new children’s book, I
Am Awesome!(ISBN: 978-1-9736-8105-2),
which helps kids build confidence by teaching them just how awesome they truly
are.
I Am Awesome! tells the story of two robots
named Grace and Zeal who live in Goodland, a land created by an Inventor where
everyone and everything is Good. When Grace and Zeal meet a new invention who
claims to be Awesome and not just Good they set off for the Inventor’s workshop
to get some answers. There they discover the truth – that they are worth more
than they ever realized.
“Ultimately with I Am Awesome! I
want to teach children that it’s not just a good thing to have confidence, it’s
what God wants!” adds Ryan. “He wants you to live an awesome life with Him by
your side through it all.”
Guest Post
3 Secrets to Teaching Your Kids to Choose Confidence Over Fear
By Ryan Maule, author of the children’s book I Am Awesome!
Being a parent of a child in grade school means constantly sitting on the edge of your seat. Changes are happening all the time that affect the way your child reacts and responds to everyday life situations. This makes parenting overwhelming, feeling like you’re just sitting around waiting to come up with answers to issues you didn’t realize would come up in the first place.
One of those changes seen regularly is a loss in self-esteem or confidence. Many parents face the dilemma of seeing confidence deplete with little to no understanding of what’s going on or how it happened. Most of the time we don’t even notice until the confidence has dropped so far that we wonder how it will ever recover!
So, what happened? If you’re like me, it’s easy to remember the moments where your child looked like they were absolutely unstoppable. I’ve seen my daughter take on roller coasters that made me nauseas, introduce herself to a group of strangers where I hoped to just blend in and get ignored, and perform, sing, and dance in front of crowds that make even the most confident of parents wonder “where did this kid come from?!” For a while it seemed like the only thing that scared her was Santa Claus.
But then, without notice or warning, she doesn’t have that confidence anymore. She doesn’t want to perform, she’s withdrawn, she doesn’t want to go on even simple child rides, or stand out at school or in small groups.
Where did the confidence go?
The reality is that these depletions in confidence are normal and common throughout not only the growing up process, but throughout your child’s entire life. These life tests never go away. The trick is to be able to recognize and label the problem that is always getting in the way. It can be called many things and summed up into one word: fear.
Fear is the main reason your children lose some or most of their self-confidence. It can be discovering the fear of death, the fear of judgement, the fear of disapproval, the fear of disappointment, the fear of embarrassment, or even the fear of simply failing. They could even just be scared in general. Fear is always present and will never fully go away. Fear is the amplifier of all the negative outcomes in every situation that we hold in the back of our mind.
The secret is to teach our children how to react to fear in order to maintain and build their confidence. To do this, I have three easy secrets to help your kids choose confidence over fear.
1. Teach Your Children to Recognize and Admit Their Fears
Most situations where confidence is attacked are never recognized because we allow ourselves to get away with lying to each other. Instead of properly saying “I’m afraid of” or “I’m scared to,” we allow bad excuses and “I just don’t want to’s” to be acceptable answers. Teaching your kids to identify the thoughts and feelings that are fear-related helps them to create the potential for a stronger, more confident response.
2. Make A Rule of No Hypotheticals
This secret is one that all families should use and applies to both adults and children. Hypotheticals are imaginary negative outcomes and more commonly, fantasy worst-case scenarios. It’s so easy to think up disasters and failures and play them out like a movie in your mind. The answer is to not allow them. No hypotheticals means basing your decision on only the things that are facts and that you already know. By not allowing your worst-case scenario to impact your decision, you create opportunities where positive outcomes are truly possible.
3. Discuss Past Successes!
When you’re in the moment, it’s hard to remember past experience. Sometimes all you need is a little reminder of great moments of past confidence to inspire more instances of future confidence!
“Do you remember that time you did this same thing and it went perfectly?!”
“Mom and I were so proud of you the last time you handled a situation like this!”
“You are awesome at this!”
“This is nothing for you!”
“You could do this in your sleep!”
By drawing on past successes, your children will start to see beyond the fear and see themselves conquering the world!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RYAN MAULE is a nationally
recognized and highly sought-after motivational speaker, host of the popular
Expect Awesome Podcast, and the president of Integrity Doctors, the world’s
largest chiropractic business organization. Over the last 15 years Ryan has
traveled the world spreading the message of expecting awesome and building a
stronger self-image in order to gain a God-powered confidence. Ryan is happily
married to his awesome wife Amber and they live in Florida with their two
awesome kids, Summer Grace and Nolan Zeal.
I am so excited that Hilary Weeks is playing a concert in Ogden as part of her 6-city tour this March. We have our tickets; are you coming?
Come see Hilary Weeks perform live with her killer band in Ogden on March 14 and hear some of the music from the 2019 Live All In subscription songs plus many of her fan favorites! You can see the whole tour schedule and get your tickets at HilaryWeeks.com.
Come attend this years’ LDS Film Festival February 24-29th at the Scera Center for the Arts. View the schedule and learn more at www.ldsfilmfestival.org
From their website: “The LDS Film Festival was founded in 2001 by Austrian filmmaker Christian Vuissa, who envisioned a place for LDS filmmakers to network with each other and showcase their work to an appreciative audience. The festival is independently organized and not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since 2006, the festival has found a perfect venue at the Scera Center for the Arts in Orem, Utah.
The LDS Film Festival strives to annually present a diverse spectrum of films that represent the status quo of current LDS filmmaking. At the same time, the LDS Film Festival seeks to discuss what LDS filmmaking should be or could be. The festival’s LDS Film Forum presents papers by LDS scholars and academics that deal with different theoretical aspects of Mormon filmmaking. Discourses, discussions and exposure to different ideas and thoughts are all encouraged.
The LDS Film Festival has grown tremendously over the last few years. What began as a short film festival, is now a major event that showcases an impressive array of feature films, special screenings and short films. Over the last ten years, attendance has been steady, averaging 4000-7000 visitors each year. Since its inception, the LDS Film Festival has premiered dozens of theatrical releases and screened hundreds of films. Regional, national, and international media have all reported from and about the festival, including The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and Premiere Magazine.
The LDS Film Festival also offers a unique atmosphere with dozens of filmmakers attending the festival and mingling with each other and the audience. Experienced filmmakers share their knowledge with younger filmmakers in informative presentations, and almost every screening at the festival is followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers. Additionally, the festival draws industry professionals, distributors, and broadcast media looking for content.”
A serious, entertaining, profoundly moving religious movie. Rookie missionary Brandon Allen (Matthew Brown) confronts the challenges of missionary life in Los Angeles, soon realizing that his most important convert may be himself.
Yesterday we sat and watched the movie God’s Army to celebrate the LDS Film Festival’s opening night. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. The film addresses anti-Mormon literature, blacks and the priesthood, doubts about serving, older missionaries, and serious health issues while on a mission. There are several “real-life” moments with lots of humor sprinkled in. Overall, it has a more dramatic tone. My oldest though it highlighted too much of the bad behavior of missionaries. I enjoyed the scenes which built faith and showed miracles as well as the message of wearing out one’s life in the service of God. I loved the message of “find out for yourself” through prayer.
Content: seizure, toilet scenes, minor violence, punching, questioning of faith, prostitutes. Recommend for older teens or adults.
Raised in a family he bore little resemblance to, Randy was jokingly referred to as the "milkman's son." This warm and candid memoir chronicles the unraveling of a family secret, which begins with Randy's dad having dreams about deceased relatives urging him to complete their family tree. Randy agrees to help with the genealogy, but after his searching leads to a dead end, he takes a commercially available DNA test. The results reveal a possible genetic match to a sister, which begins a familial quest that forever changes the author's life.
Featuring a cast of vivid characters richly drawn from two distinct families, The Milkman's Son reveals one man's family tree, pulling back layers of new information as he gets closer to the truth--a biological father, siblings, and family members he never knew. This is a story of accepting, forgiving, and reuniting. Most importantly, it's about the bonds that connect us and the unconditional love that makes us feel like we belong.
Review
This book was relatable to me as I have helped several of our cousins and DNA matches locate their birth families using genetic data. Written as a memoir, it is the tale of a man who goes about trying to break down brick walls for his father and finds something else all together. I could feel the authors pain at others making light of his situation and nickname, but later his acceptance of who he is and how he came to know his roots. I really hope we hear more about his mother’s story and reaction in the future. There was also a bit of a disconnect in emotion portrayed to the readers between the writer and his biological father as a result of the medical conditions involved. Because his extended bio family accept and envelop him you can feel it coming through in other ways. I loved the discussion of jealousy and tension between bio and half siblings, as well as the differences in culture between the place where he was raised and the East Coast. There’s even a mention of Tastykakes!
Any genetic genealogist will enjoy this memoir. It was a bit slow in pacing through a few parts, but overall, I found it to be an interesting look at what can and does happen with Ancestry DNA testers. Thank you Shadow Mountain for the sneak peek!
About the Author
RANDY LINDSAY is a world traveler. Which sounds impressive until you realize the worlds he visits exist only in his mind and on the pages of his novels. He claims to prefer this method of sightseeing because he can stop at any time, go to the kitchen, and indulge his ice cream addiction. When he isn’t busy making things up he likes going to movies with his wife to watch what other people have made up and plays board games with his children who are in the habit of making up the rules as they go along.
From the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi comes the first novel in a brand-new series set at an elite international boarding school, that’s a contemporary spin on Beauty and the Beast.
Will the princess save the beast?
For Princess Jaya Rao, nothing is more important than family. When the loathsome Emerson clan steps up their centuries-old feud to target Jaya’s little sister, nothing will keep Jaya from exacting her revenge. Then Jaya finds out she’ll be attending the same elite boarding school as Grey Emerson, and it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. She knows what she must do: Make Grey fall in love with her and break his heart. But much to Jaya’s annoyance, Grey’s brooding demeanor and lupine blue eyes have drawn her in. There’s simply no way she and her sworn enemy could find their fairy-tale ending…right?
His Lordship Grey Emerson is a misanthrope. Thanks to an ancient curse by a Rao matriarch, Grey knows he’s doomed once he turns eighteen. Sequestered away in the mountains at St. Rosetta’s International Academy, he’s lived an isolated existence—until Jaya Rao bursts into his life, but he can't shake the feeling that she’s hiding something. Something that might just have to do with the rose-shaped ruby pendant around her neck…
As the stars conspire to keep them apart, Jaya and Grey grapple with questions of love, loyalty, and whether it’s possible to write your own happy ending.
I’m about a third of the way through the advanced reader’s copy of Curses and Kisses which releases today. So far, so good! Elite boradning school students, a mysterious curse, and teens navigating their loyalty.
Content: mild swearing, underage drinking.
About the Author
Sandhya Menon is the New York Times bestselling author of several novels with lots of kissing, girl power, and swoony boys. Her books have been featured in several cool places, including on The Today Show, Teen Vogue, NPR Book Review, Buzzfeed, and Seventeen. A full-time dog servant and part-time writer, she makes her home in the foggy mountains of Colorado.
Movie Synopsis: Gabriel Ngandu is a young Congolese revolutionary running from the terrible mistakes of his past. His journey of escape leads him to new experiences and even a new religion that challenges long-held beliefs about his destiny and world around him. He find himself torn between the influences and expectations of two very different father figures- Mwabila, his revolutionary leader, and President Kabasubabu, his new religious leader. Called to serve as a missionary, he is sent back to his native village to build an orphanage with Jason Martin, an American who also has a tragic and secret past. Together, they struggle to understand and overcome their histories, cultures, and prejudices to serve the people around them.
Caught between enmity and reconciliation, revenge or forgiveness, intolerance or understanding, they begin to see the potential for a better; more peaceful future for themselves and for the Congo. Worlds finally collide when explosions rock the new orphanage and Kabasubabu is kidnapped by Mwabila’s revolutionaries. Gabriel is faced with choosing between the two different worlds of these father figures… or finding his own path toward a new world inspired by understanding and redemption.
The last couple of days we’ve had the opportunity to stream the Living Scriptures in our home with their new live service. Much more than cartoons, it’s been a game changer. There are many titles to choose from and inspirational movies we can streamwithout worrying about the content. We are using it in our school day and as a part of Come, Follow Me gospel study. Highly recommend for every family. We are going to dig in this week and let you know what we loved on Faceboook and Twitter.
Streaming Service Details: Good clean fun! With hundreds of movies and audio stories especially for Latter-day Saint families, you’ll never run out of good things to watch. Enjoy anytime on your favorite devices. Available for browsers, tablets, smart phones, Roku, Chromecast, Kindle Fire, Apple TV, Android TV and Fire TV.
What’s on Living Scriptures? Enjoy animated scriptures stories, Latter-day Saint produced comedies and dramas, church inspirational films, values-based children’s shows and much more. There are thousands of titles to choose from with new titles added every week!
Hundreds of High Quality Videos & Audio Stories Experience the scriptures and church history like never before! Young and old will better understand the stories from the Book of Mormon, Bible and Church History. Access our growing collection of Latter-day Saint produced and family friendly movies and shows, with new titles added weekly. Browse our extensive library – your streaming membership gives you instant access to all titles!
This movie has an incredible message about kindess and love in the midst of heavy persecution. Willard Bean was called on a 24 year mission to Palmyra, New York with his wife during a time when members of the Chrurch of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints were hated. Neighbors ostracized them for their religious beliefs without getting to know them or giving them a chance. Their life is one of perserverence and service. LOVE, LOVE, LOVED it and recommend this movie to everyone. Family friendly. Thanks to Living Scriptures Streaming, we were able to experience one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long while. …Five ⭐️ stars.
I am so
excited that SLOW DANCING ON MAIN STREET by Courtney Giardina is available now and
that I get to share the news!
If you
haven’t yet heard about this wonderful book by Author Courtney Giardina, be sure to
check out all the details below.
This blitz
also includes a giveaway for a $25 Starbucks Gift Card and signed finished copies of SLOW DANCING ON MAIN STREET AND BEHIND THE STRINGS, courtesy of Courtney and Rockstar Book Tours. So if you’d like a chance to win, enter in
the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post.
About The
Book:
Title: SLOW DANCING ON MAIN STREET (Behind the Strings Book 2)
When Celia Westbrooke was forced to face her past in the heart of Music City, she didn’t expect to find Jesse Rockford tangled up in the middle of it. Jesse’s blue eyes swept her into a whirlwind romance that not only cost her the trust of her best friend, but led her to the last place she thought she’d end up – alone. With Christmas around the corner, it’s the perfect excuse for Celia to escape the bright lights of Nashville for her hometown of Hamden. Deep in the Tennessee mountains Celia can’t help but wish Jesse was there with her, but she knows there is someone else she must fix things with first if she’ll ever have a chance at getting Jesse back. Logan Kent returns home to Hamden for the first Christmas in years where he’ll soon learn that even when you run, you can’t always hide. Celia is determined to show Logan that there is still hope for their friendship even in the midst of a broken heart. She brings Logan for a walk down memory lane, hoping to rekindle what has been lost, but too much damage may already have been done.How will it end for Celia and Logan? Will Celia find her way back into Jesse’s heart? Or will one final secret mean the end of it all?
Teaser:
About Courtney:
Throughout the years Courtney has wanted to be many things. Her aspirations have ranged from Olympics gymnast and actress to a pirate. Yes, a pirate. Growing up she vacationed in the Thousand Islands where every year the town of Alexandria Bay holds a Pirate’s Weekend. That is where her love of pirates began. Unfortunately, Courtney’s dream of becoming of being a pirate never came to fruition, but as a writer she still gets to play make believe.
Courtney published her first novel in 2013. Tear Stained Beaches defined the staple of what her self-publishing mantra would become, strong, independent women finding their place in the world. She delivers that message in her following two novels, Holding on to Georgia and Behind the Strings.
She has been asked to speak at local book clubs, on podcasts and empowering websites. Besides working on her 4th novel to release in 2020, Courtney spends time developing content that lays the ground work to inspire others to dream big and believe in themselves because life is too short to wonder, “what if.”
I had the opportunity last weekend to attend a Pop up Event featuring Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt and Jenny Jin. The Montage Deer Valley was beautiful, with spectacular views and delicious appetizers. BookSparks were wonderful hosts.
Katherine’s 4th Book The Gift of Forgiveness is due to be released by Penguin March 10, 2020.
Synopsis
A fresh, inspiring book on learning how to forgive–with firsthand stories from those who have learned to let go of resentment and find peace
“When we learn to embrace forgiveness, it opens us up to healing, hope, and a new world of possibility.” –Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt
Written with grace and understanding and based on more than twenty in-depth interviews and stories as well as personal reflections from Schwarzenegger Pratt herself, The Gift of Forgiveness is about one of the most difficult challenges in life–learning to forgive. Here, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt shows us what we can learn from those who have struggled with forgiveness, some still struggling, and others who have been able to forgive what might seem truly unforgivable. The book features experiences from those well-known and unknown, including Elizabeth Smart, who learned to forgive her captors; Sue Klebold, whose son, Dylan, was one of the Columbine shooters, learning empathy and how to forgive herself; Chris Williams, who forgave the drunken teenager who killed his wife and child; and of course Schwarzenegger Pratt’s own challenges and path to forgiveness in her own life. All provide different journeys to forgiveness and the process–sometimes slow and thorny, sometimes almost instantaneous–by which they learned to forgive and let go.
The Gift of Forgiveness is a perfect blend of personal insights, powerful quotations, and hard-won wisdom for those seeking a way to live with greater acceptance, grace, and peace.
Can’t wait to read it!
Katherine describing the process and interviews.
The influencers who attended were able to shop the shelves of advanced Reading Copies and finished books. Here’s what we had to choose from…
