NL: Hi everyone! My name is Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show. Today on the show, I’m going to be talking with a dynamo of a woman who has had a really inspiring life. She’s overcome quite a few challenges and been able to do things like create a new radio network; she’s a best-selling author. She even was a promoter of world champion kickboxing, so she’s had quite the journey. I’m looking forward for her to share that with you today. But before we do that, I just want to remind you that if you are watching this on Facebook live, or on our YouTube channel, after the show is over- then after the show is finished just click the link below this video so you can take the 30 second quiz, so we can figure out what is holding you back from success and help you break through that.  So, please help me in introduce my special guest today Frankie Picasso. How are you Frankie?

FP: I’m wonderful, Natalie. You’re so healthy.

NL: I know, I’m on fire today. I had a really good sleep last night after only getting three hours of sleep the night before. So I’m like jumping out of my skin. Awesome.

So yes, I have alluded earlier to the fact that you’ve had quite the journey in your lifetime and you’ve been able to accomplish so much. Just take us through some of the highlights of the things that have happened in your life that have helped you to become the dynamo person that you are.

FP: I love it. Well I think the very first thing I have to start with is my Dad because my dad was the motivating factor for me to believe that I could do anything I wanted to do. I mean, how fantastic is that for somebody to put that in your head? I can do anything I want and it doesn’t matter that you’re a girl even better. So, I believed him. He never lied to me- as far as I know. So every time I wanted to do something, whether I had education for it or not, I said to myself, “Can you do this, Frankie?”. And I go, “Yup, I can do it”. And I went ahead and I did it and people would go, “How could you do that? You didn’t have the education for it .You didn’t have the background for it”. I go,  “But, in my head, I knew I could do it”. So there you go. You alluded to me being the first female kickboxing promoter in the world and managing a 12-time champion. That was very special and I was working in the boxing industry. Paul had come to me and said, “Umm… Would you guys take me on?” And the guys I worked with- purest boxers- they go,  “No”.  I go, “Take me to a show. Let me see what it’s all about”. They took me to the show. I loved it; fell in love. I go, “Yeah. I’ll put you on a world championship for you” and I did it. It was the first time I’ve ever negotiated television- ESPN. I wrote the scripts. I got all the fighters; I matched them all. I did the whole thing- everything. Every little job I did by myself and I said, “Wow, I can do that.” It was successful and it was really good. So that was something that was very special to me. Right after that, I got a call from the Solicitor General from the government of Ontario and they said, “Hey. Could you put on a showcase for us. Just  a showcase”. I’m like, “Yeah. I can probably do that”. They went ahead and I did that too.  I ended up working for a public sector for about seven and a half years until a major motorcycle crash took me out. I was in the hospital for six and a half months and at that point I lost everything that I identified myself with- husband, job, dragon boating where I was on the National Dragon Boat team. I was a drummer in a band- in a blues band. Everybody had just come and everything was taken away. I was left in this hospital bed going, “who am I?” So often we identify ourselves by all the things we have, but rarely do we identify ourselves by all things we don’t have. So I had to go through that journey of “the dark night of the soul”, as they call it, and figure out “who’s Frankie?” Who do I want to be. I have a chance to recreate the Phoenix- who is on fire. Who will I come out as? Just before the accident I knew the universe had been talking to me and I kept going, “I know you want something, but I don’t know what you want. Tell me. Be more clear”. So you get taken out. When you get taken out by the universe now you just have to listen. I go,  “Okay”. Now all these signs would pop up and I go, “Okay. Right road. Right road. Somebody comes to me and says, “You’re going to be a life coach”. I go, “Life coach? What’s that?” I haven’t heard about coaches. They hadn’t really been that prevalent yet. And I go, “Okay, I like that because I don’t like to do everything that everybody else is doing. Nobody’s doing it” At that time, nobody was doing it and I liked it, so I thought, “Okay, I can do that”. I took all the courses I could; I went to all the accredited schools and I took everything. Then I taught coaching and I love coaching. I think I’m just a coach, an innate coach. You know, that person that people meet you for five minutes and tell you their life story, right? So it’s just there. But I don’t want to be a coach for - I’d like to be a coach for the masses, but not an individual coach anymore. I think that’s what I love about the radio- why I started the radio. Again, I took a hiatus and I heard the universe speaking to me and said, “You’re going to start a radio network that is going to show people how to change the world” because I saw myself as a change specialist. I love change. Change is something I do, I’m really good at and I’m used to reinventing myself every two years anyway. I know that it scares a lot of people, but you know the Chinese have two characters for change- danger and opportunity. Both of those appeal to me. So, okay I’m going to do that. I can start a radio network and I can find people in the world who are changing the world and help them, support them, be that person who lifts them up from underneath and showcases them to the other people who need to find them, basically. Right? So we created- I created the good Radio Network - Radio that does a world of good. I wanted it to go beyond talk radio and just radio that actually did real good things. So we gave out money, or relationships, or help people in all kinds of ways, whatever way that they need it; I’m there to support them.

NL: Right. So, alright let’s back up a little bit because, I mean, that was a lot .You sound a little bit like me where I bite off more than I can chew, then I just chew like hell. I don’t know exactly when I say yes to something – you know- exactly how it’s going to get done; I just figure it out.

FP: Yeah.

NL: Yeah, so you sound like a lot like that. But let’s go back to the time of the accident. So how old were you when you had that motorcycle accident?

FP: How old? I was 46… Yeah.

NL: 46. Right. So, you’re 46 years old. You’re in a hospital bed for six and a half months - and did you say you lost your husband?

FP: I went through divorce.

NL: Yeah, while you were still recovering?

FP: Went through divorce, lost my job, lost my band. I was on the senior master Dragon boat team. We were about eight days from going to Shanghai; lost that. Yeah, it was just a lot of loss and when I got home three days later my dog died. Loss, loss loss. The only thing I still had, Natalie, were my kids; they are still there.

NL: Right. I see. So walk me through this. I mean, how are you feeling at that time? Like what’s the emotion, what are the thoughts that are going through your mind?

FP: I knew I’d be okay and I just said you have to get back on. Like my dad was always, “You get back on the horse. Get back on the horse.” So I’m going to get back on the horse- literally and figuratively. I got back on a bike as soon as I left the hospital. But I had to pull up my bootstraps and I said, “You have to reinvent. You have to become something. You’re not going to sit in a hospital bed and vegetate. You’re not going to feel sorry for yourself. You’re going to do something because you’ve got kids at home who need you and you need to support them. That’s what’s going in my head and I’m fighting with lawyers. I’m fighting with insurance companies who go, “We don’t want to pay you... Like prove it. Prove it that you’re sick”. I’m like,  “Hello”, you know, “I’ve got two broken legs and a pelvis”. So..

NL: So, how do you go from, “Okay, well I need to reinvent and there’s a bit of urgency about it because I’ve got kids that are depending on me”. How did you figure out what it was that you wanted to do from there?

FP: Good question. As I said, I went through that “dark night of the soul” and it was very interesting. I had a nurse come to me one night and started to talk about Yogananda. She goes, “I’m going to see the Dalai Lama” and then I go, “Great. Good for you. I was just reading a book”. She says, “I’m going mention you”. I go, “If you get in his audience, how fantastic”. So she came back in my room like at one of the morning and she goes, “I saw the Dalai Lama and he gave me this bracelet for you”. I’m like, “What?” So she gave this bracelet and it was like every time I wished on this bracelet things would come true- like a magic bracelet. It’s crazy, crazy. Like, “Oh, I have a question” and I walk down the hall and there’s a Buddhist monk. What is this Buddhist monk doing in my rehab hospital? Right? Just like just all these different things. It was really cool how it all played it out. I thought, “okay”. Then I decided the staff were so fantastic that I asked if I could put on a presentation for them and talk to them about- remind them that what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, and how fantastic it is from my perspective (being a patient) what they do. Because going from a trauma hospital where everything was “no no no” to a rehab hospital that was, “If it takes ten people, we’ll get you up. Don’t worry. We’re going to do it”. It was all, “We can do this”. From my mental state that was fantastic. I hadn’t experienced that for a long time and so I needed them to remember why they got into that business and how important it was from all of the patients, and how much gratitude I had for them. So that was really powerful. Okay. I’m getting back up. I’m speaking again and talking to a group of people. And, well, I was in a wheelchair thing, but I was still doing it.  That was powerful and they came up and they were crying after. They said, “Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for that. Now I remember the first day I came to work and how excited I was. That’s I think important to show people gratitude.

NL. Yeah. Absolutely. So, obviously whatever you’ve been doing since then has led into this radio show and the radio network. I mean, it’s not just radio like we are talking about really coming from a place of deep generosity and deep service. What gave you the idea for this?

FP: Well, I always wanted to be on the radio. Nine years old I was sent away for the national Institute of Broadcasting records. I had a record player, my little mini record player that I would take with me. I’d listen to this record and I just wanted to be a journalist- a TV personality, or radio personality. Then the dream got forgotten. You want to be that, you know, you’re a girl. You’re a teenager- boys, blah blah blah. Okay. So, I was teaching coaching and one of my students- I had finished coaching them, finished teaching- and he contacted me and he says, “Frankie, do you want to start a radio station with me?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I do”. Because two weeks prior, it was New Year’s, I wrote up my list and said, “This year I’m going to be a radio host”. So not even two weeks later, done. Manifest a radio station. Well his thing was very difficult, technologically for the host to get into their computers and he would have to go into one of their computers and hook them all up. They didn’t get it. Call blog talk. I said, “Hey, I got 20 hosts that- 20 coaches- who want to be on air. Can you just hook them up?” Pick up the phone and you’re on air. So it’s very simple, but I loved it. I fell in love with it the second I did it. I ended up having like 7 different radio shows that year- from relationship, even the bachelor, to a marketing one, to my mid-life mojo one for people in the middle life, and all that stuff.  I just took to it like - I don’t know- fish to water. Go forward a few years, like I said I took a few years off, I got a little bored with it. Just talking the same people; it’s not the same people, but just telling people’s stories and not really having a reason for it anymore. So I took some time off and I meditated. I got that download from the universe saying, “Okay. You’re going to start something. I changed the world. You’re going to find these people who are changing the world, even if they’re one person. I want you to go out there and motivate people to change the world”. 911 had happened already. People- CNN- was just showing all this negative stuff over and over and over. I got really tired of it and I thought that it was putting too much negative airwaves out there, people weren’t recovering, and they needed to begin to focus on positive things. I thought, “You have to put positive stuff out there and encourage people to listen to it” because people all around me were going, “What can I do to change the world? What can I do to change politics? What can I do? Nothing I can do”. And I go, “There’s so much you can do. You just even thinking about doing it is doing something”. They didn’t get it and I needed them to get it. And so I created the Good Radio and I said it’s going to be talk radio and it does a world of good and it has to really do a world of good. It has to go beyond just talking about doing good things and I believe in having a reputation. I believe that you do what you say you’re going to do; that it’s ethical and it’s moral. Hopefully, I believe that’s what I’m doing, and I don’t know if you can see over here a little bit. I’ve got some donkeys that we sponsor at the sanctuary and just stuff like that. So, I got donkeys.  I got animals. I got dogs and lions, and tigers and bears, and monkeys, and all the animals that don’t have a voice. I have a voice for them. All the children who need- I’m an artist and so I paint. Through my painting I pay for cleft palate surgery through Mercy Ships for children. I thought that’s a really quick win; it’s a quick fix and in about 45 minutes a child has their life back, a mother has their child back, they’re part of the society again. They’re inclusive again and that is money well spent.

NL: Yeah. Yeah. I know it’s such an incredible project. So if people wanted to connect with you, Frankie, either go through the radio network- and I know that you’ve written several books. You’re a best -selling author. I mean, you have such a world of knowledge and wisdom. How can people connect with you?

FP: You can join me at the goodradionetwork.com. They can write to me at [email protected], or frankiepaintspet.com, or just [email protected]. People can come on Amazon, of course, and look for my books there.

NL: Yeah. We’ll make sure that we post a link here for people to be able to go through that, but I highly recommend that you check out the Good Radio Network because it’s amazing. If you want to- we always talk about how do you get into a high vibration? How do make yourself feel good? Well just tap into this radio network. I’m know that’ll be a little injection into you day. So thank you, Frankie, for joining me darling. It’s been awesome talking to you.

FP: Did I let you talk at all?

NL: I got a couple of words in. It’s ok. All good. So, guys, I encourage you to click on the link, go through to Frankie’s website, and go through to the Good Radio Network. Make sure that once the show is over, click the link below the video so that you can take our 30-second quiz to figure out what’s holding you back from success. Until next time. Remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We’ll see you soon.

FP: Thank you, Natalie.