Website: https://carabrookins.com Rise: How a House Built a Family Audio Book and Paperback: https://amzn.to/2RopdrA Cara Brookins is best known for being the mom who built her own house using YouTube tutorials. She has been entertaining, educating, and inspiring audiences with her keynotes and presentations since 2004. She’s the author of eight books, including Rise, How a House Built a family, which tells the story of building her 3500 square foot house with the help of her four children by watching YouTube tutorials and googling things like foundation work, plumbing, and gas lines. News of Cara's family story went viral in more than 75 countries and was viewed two billion times. Rise has now been optioned to become a major motion picture. Inspiring audiences to build bigger lives remains Cara's greatest passion.   Build A Life You Want http://learntruehealth.com/build-a-life-you-want To build a life you want is what we should all aim for. Life is short. And it is up to us to make the most of it, regardless of what situation we are in. My guest today, Author of Rise: How a House Built a Family, Cara Brookins is such an inspiration. From dealing with domestic violence to building her own house, she has defied the odds and proved that it is indeed possible to build a life you want.  Domestic Violence Cara Brookins weathered through many storms before she became who she is today. She was a victim of extreme domestic violence when she married her first husband who slowly descended into having full-blown paranoid schizophrenia. Because he became dangerous, they divorced. But for ten years after that, he kept coming back and tormented Cara and her children. Then Cara Brookins met another guy, who seemed to be the right answer. They eventually married, but he also ended up physically abusive. After two terrible marriages and children who were aged 17, 15, 11, and two at that time, the experience affected her two older kids. The situation turned even more severe since they now needed a place to live. Building A House Her failed marriages and the threat of being homeless gave Cara Brookins the idea of perhaps building a house herself.  They were living in a house that was up for sale that time and could not afford to keep it. She believed that it was primarily the need more than the inspiration to make their lives better. So, in the Fall of 2007, when Youtube was a brand-new website then, Cara Brookins started to research. Cara Brookins was a computer programmer by profession, and that helped a lot. At first, she started watching videos for work to learn new computer languages. And then she saw videos on how to build a house. Broaching the idea to her kids, they were open to try it. They only had money to buy a piece of land and building materials but not enough money to hire people to build their house.  Getting Started Cara Brookins says people helped along the way. Building the house took 20-hour days for nine months straight. She had to make sure they were on schedule because she had a 9-month construction loan. “In the beginning when we first had this idea, it didn’t seem radical. People were stunned, but my kids were already beaten down for more than a decade at that point. There was always somebody in control. And there was always this layer of fear. There was no action we could take that would make it better,” recalls Cara Brookins.  She adds, “This idea of building a house was the first time that gave us the opportunity to go out and take physical action to visibly and tangibly make our lives better.”  Challenges Before building a house, Cara Brookins and her kids were stuck in a crippling survival mode. They didn’t have a close family that could help them through the trauma. “You kind of pull inside yourself, each one of you and each day. We had to quickly learn not only how to communicate what we need and our ideas. And we also learned how to anticipate one another’s needs and talents,” Cara Brookins said.  She adds, “The