You Are Who You Choose to Be

By Jill Fratpietro

This book was written for those who truly want to achieve their goals and live the life they desire, but who struggle to take action and make it happen.

It is a guide to determining the values that are most important to you—your reasons for action. Most importantly, the chapters within are intended to inspire you to recognize the power of choice and that you are who you choose to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Nov 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228884323

Jill Fratpietro

Jill Fratpietro is a driven, award-winning leader in the insurance industry who has used her action-oriented mindset to create success for herself and those around her for over two decades. Jill has developed a reputation as the person who chooses to "make things happen," and offers a unique perspective within the self-development genre. In addition to her work in the employee benefits field, Jill is fiercely devoted to her family as a wife and a mother to her three children.

Book preview

You Are Who You Choose To Be

Jill Fratpietro

You Are Who You Choose To Be

Copyright © 2022 by Jill Fratpietro

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-8431-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-8430-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-8432-3 (eBook)

Dedication

To Andrew, Ace, Ivy, and Desmond

For choosing to give me your unwavering love and support—always.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 - What IF?

Chapter 2 - There Are No Wrong Choices, Only Different Experiences

Chapter 3 - Fear of Being Judged

Chapter 4 - Are You a B*#$& or Are You a Go-Getter?

Chapter 5 - Who Do You Identify With?

Chapter 6 - You Are Your Greatest Strength

Chapter 7 - There’s Always a Choice

Chapter 8 - One Small Step at a Time

Chapter 9 - Time to Do What I Say!

Chapter 10 - Make It Happen!

Foreword

In November 2021 I attended Jack Canfield’s virtual Breakthrough to Success conference. I was surrounded by people from all over the world who wanted to grow—personally and/or professionally—they each had their own dreams and goals they wanted to achieve. As a relentless high achiever myself, this was one of the main reasons I wanted to attend the conference—to surround myself with like-minded people. There were multiple breakout groups during the conference over three full days, and each breakout session had its own theme or topic we were discussing. In each group, I heard about the lives of these strangers and what they wanted to achieve. They allowed themselves to be vulnerable, and many were emotional as they described their current situation. Some were in a career that was simply a job to them, and they wanted to follow their passion instead. Others were in toxic relationships and desperately wanted the courage to get out and support themselves independently. Some were simply overwhelmed—with life in general, their family, their work, the pandemic. They described this overwhelmed feeling as preventing them from taking any action towards even the smallest goals. During this conference, two epiphanies happened for me:

Epiphany #1: What I realized is that every single group had participants who described that they didn’t follow through on things they said they wanted to do, and they desperately wanted to achieve their goals but were not currently choosing to make that happen. They were not living the life that they wanted for themselves and didn’t know why. They also didn’t know how to change their perspective to achieve their goals.

Epiphany #2: I had set a goal to write a book, without knowing the topic. I am driven to help others succeed, to make a difference because I care. I wanted to help. My ability to view everything as a choice and the action-oriented mindset behind it can help someone . . . this was my book.

I am writing this book for two reasons:

1.For those who struggle with following through, taking action, choosing to make things happen—I care. I genuinely care. I am intrinsically driven to make things happen to help others succeed and to make a difference. I have built my career and business on this passion. Every single day I see and hear about people who regret not taking action, or wish that they too, can make things happen to achieve their goals and live their best life. Is this you? If my experience resonates and inspires even one single person, I will have made that difference.

2.I set a goal to write this book. Period. You will learn as you read that if I say I’m going to do something, there is no option, it is not negotiable. I own it. I do it. I wanted to challenge myself. Setting a stretch goal means getting wayyyy outside my comfort zone. I work sixty plus hours a week outside of the home, I have a husband and three kids, and we’re still navigating this worldwide pandemic within our lives. Do I have time to write a book? Many people would say no to that question. I would respond with, Yes, absolutely. I chose to make the time to write this book.

The chapters that follow describe some of the perceived obstacles that often stop people from choosing to achieve their goals and creating the life they want to live. My intent is to help provide a different perspective on those perceived obstacles. By writing this book, I hope to inspire you to be the author of your own story and realize that you are who you choose to be.

CHAPTER 1

What IF?

Allow yourself to experience whatever your heart desires as if this is your one and only chance to take the ride of your life.

~ Jen Sincero

The Problem with What IF

What IF can be a form of futurizing, and as a result, paralysis. Futurizing is expecting the absolute worst outcomes of what the future holds, before they even happen.

What IF they think I’m a bitch if I push harder for what is needed?  I won’t push this any further than I already have.

What IF I fail?  I don’t even want to try.

What IF I can’t find someone to talk to at the event?  I’m not going to go just to be stuck standing there all alone.

What IF I end up hating the new job?  I’m just going to stay here.

What IF I dump them and I don’t find anyone else who will love me?  I don’t want to end up all alone . . . I have to stay with them.

I can’t even count how many times I have heard others (and myself!) say . . . BUT, what IF . . . [insert the absolute worst possible scenario you can ever think of] happens? I mean, I work in insurance, so managing risk is literally what I do all day, every day. However, there is a massive difference between managing risk due to the what-if, and avoiding everything at all costs because of the what-if.

In life, people most often regret what they have not done, not what they have done—not taking a risk, not taking a chance, not going for the new job, not traveling more, not having the courage to leave a toxic relationship.

For twenty years, I worked in business development as an employee benefits wholesaler at a national insurance carrier. I was at the top of my field, I was compensated well, and I was devoted to making a difference in my clients’ success.

I truly loved what I did and found immense fulfillment in making the role completely my own by focusing on my core values: fiercely caring for and advocating for my clients and making things happen to drive their success. I vehemently opposed any semblance of self-serving salesy tactics because that isn’t who I am or who I ever wanted to be. This authentic, nontraditional way that I approached sales is what made me a successful wholesaler. The clients’ success was my success, and as a result, the company’s success.

But even though I was doing really well in my role, for years I battled this constant feeling that I was not fulfilling my potential. I was meant to do more; I was meant to be more. My values were uniquely my own, and it was (and still is) extremely important for me to honor those values. I so badly wanted to unleash everything I was capable of and help clients and my team become even more successful—all while incorporating those values that propelled my every action.

What IF I left the company and hated a new job? What IF I went somewhere and they didn’t share the same values as me? What IF I left and still didn’t have the opportunity to make the difference I wanted to make? What IF by leaving, I let my current clients and team members down? What IF people judged me for leaving a twenty-year career? So many what-if questions seeped into my thought process, while my intuition kept telling me, louder and louder, that I was meant to fulfill my potential. I have binders, journals, and documents that I created over the last ten to thirteen years with all of the things I wanted to do, the difference I would make, and the success I was aiming to achieve. Within one notebook, I wrote: There is no heavier burden than unfulfilled potential. I circled that sentence and highlighted it. Then I put the notebook back on my shelf and went back to doing my job.

This went on for years, until one day I was asked by Insurance Business Canada to moderate a panel as part of the Women in Insurance conference, which had an audience of over six hundred people. The theme of my particular panel was Taking a Risk in Your Career. I had consciously reinvented my own current role to align with myself and my values in nontraditional ways, so felt this corresponded really well with the topic.

This opportunity allowed me to interview leaders from across Canada and hear their personal stories of how they navigated their career paths and the risks they took to get to where they are today. They outlined obstacles that were in their way and how they overcame those obstacles, and detailed the successes that resulted from their choices. For my part, I included motivational quotes throughout the panel and crafted questions around making intentional choices and taking action. I even bought and mailed journals to participants that said Take a Risk or Lose the Chance on the front cover.

Afterward, I got a number of messages and emails telling me how inspirational the panel was, how I personally had also inspired some of them to take action in their own lives. As I sat at my computer reading email after email telling me how inspirational I was, I suddenly felt like a fraud. Here I was telling people to take risks and craft the lives of their