Author Pat Alva-Kraker is Dr. Brad Miller’s guest on Episode 146 of The Beyond Adversity Podcast.

Pat Alva-Kraker (formerly Alva-Green) has experienced many ups and downs during her life. Instead of giving up, she fought. She was her own catalyst for change and was determined to create the life she envisioned—and deserved.

She talks to Brad about her success in the corporate world which instead of fulfilling her left her drained and unhappy. Beyond that, she faced great adversity in a diagnosis of cancer, a layoff from her job, and the grief of the untimely death of her husband.

In this, in-depth conversation, she tells of the decisions she made to reinvent her life and choose elation as she celebrates living an empowered life through the healing power of new beginnings.

The result was writing the book “Katherine’s Quest - One Woman’s Journey to Elation” and launching Majestic Coaching Group <https://www.majesticcoachinggroup.com> designed 

to mentor female entrepreneurs to make a positive, joyful impact in the world.

Reinvention and choosing elation are the focus of Dr. Brad Miller’s conversation with Author Pat Alva-Kraker on Episode 146 of The Beyond Adversity Podcast.

The Beyond Adversity Podcast exists to help people to navigate adverse life events (depression, divorce, disease, debt, death) and emerge to a life of peace, prosperity, and purpose and is published weekly by Dr. Brad Miller at drbradmiller.com

https://www.majesticcoachinggroup.com

Dr. Brad Miller here with you on beyond

adversity the podcast where we help you to navigate adverse

conditions in your life and to come out to a place of peace,

prosperity and purpose. And we do that by talking to you some

great leaders and some great folks who are authors and pro

people who can provide you with some help in your life. And

that's the case or today is we have author and business life

strategist Pat Alva craker with us to share with us a little bit

about her life. She's had her share of challenges in her in

her life, in her family life and in health related things. And

but she's now developed a process through her book about

called one woman's her book is called Katherine's quest, one

woman's journey to the elation. So we're going to find out all

about elation today. So Pat, Welcome to Beyond adversity.

Thank you, Brad. It's awesome. We're glad that you're here

today. And you've got quite a fascinating story about how you

have dealt with things in your life. And now you're a

successful in the business world and a coach and strategist. But

it's not always been the case. You've had some some challenges

to deal with. Tell us a little bit about your background, your

story about some of the challenges that you had to face

in your life? Yes,

thank you. And you're one of the things you

focus on several things that that are common to us as being

on our journey and actually learning the lessons that we're

learning. And I relate to several of them that you have on

your list. Certainly, disease is one of them. at the young age of

44, I learned that I had breast cancer, and heavily on my 26

year thriver. But that's certainly that's awesome. Yeah,

it's it shouldn't be in my boots it. It made me come to realize

that I wanted to get a better understanding of what is it that

got me here? What decisions was I making, what beliefs, what

habits did I have? That got me to this point. And so there was

a lot of reflection, that was that took place during that time

of healing, which did include some of the traditional chemo

and radiation. And then I decided to take responsibility

for my own healing and began to use alternative medicine in the

process, or in conjunction with traditional Medicaid, medical,

really chemo and radiation. So I use massage, I learned how to

use oils, I even became a Reiki therapist in the process of

healing myself, because I felt that it was going to be really

my responsibility to heal myself. And what I learned in

the process of my journey to healing myself is that I had

really put myself on the bottom of the list. My self care habits

were just they weren't there, I was pouring into others, and

helping others helping family helping friends, and really

didn't take the time to take care of myself. I had a

stressful job, and was doing a lot of traveling. And I just

didn't make time for myself I just gave from really I gained

from an empty cup. Okay, doesn't work. So I see the the, my

journey with cancer as a alarm, a wake up call, to tell me that

I need to align my job, my career, my health, with the

things that really matter. So it rain, it really made me stop and

think of what is it that was really bringing me joy and what

was not. And how was I going to shift in my life to make myself

number one on top of the list so that I was giving to others from

a full cup, and I was taking the time to take care of myself. So

I started making changes in my career and stopped the travel

and got to a place where I wasn't traveling and all and

really got my life back and was able to really prosper in a

career that I then thoroughly enjoyed and really started

noting the little things that I was doing. That was taking me

from where I was to where I wanted to be. And that was the

discipline of having a very powerful morning routine. Okay,

oh, my routine is a mind body and soul routine. And it's these

this is a practice that I teach my clients it's the first hour

of your day is the most powerful hour. Your day, you'll learn a

lot about yourself about about yourself, and how you're

empowering yourself in the first hour. So when I started to do

was I decided to bring in meditation, which is something

that you and I agree is very important in people's lives.

Being still, and being able to hear the whispers that our

higher self that spirits trying to convey to us, I learned about

the importance of affirmations, and really using affirmations to

heal myself. And one of those is that my body supports everything

I want to do in life.

Wow, that's awesome. So, yeah, your body

supports what you want to do in life. So you have to have

Stephen Covey calls that sharpening the saw, we have to

sharpen the saw in order to you know, get through the rest of

your day and to achieve things. And I think that that's great.

So tell us a bit about what place you came from and what

motivated you. You sound like you, you know, you had this

health issue, you had some you lost a husband as well. And you

had some simple things. But where were you? What motivated

you to take some bold action here? What really got you go on

here? What was there some episode or some situation where

you kind of had, you know, a bad point, a tipping point? Yeah,

the tipping point. Yeah, I would say the

tipping point was when my husband died at an early age.

And at the time, my husband and I were running a 200 acre exotic

animal ranch. And when he passed, I then became was a sole

risk, the sole was the sole responsible person for making

this rat, this ranch, work and, and thrive. We did have a

loss and sounds pretty, pretty intensive, just I

don't know much about that world. But it sounds pretty

intensive.

We were feeding 450 animals. And I had a ranch

hand. And the two of us had to make it work while I was still

in my corporate job. And I was still and I was doing the

coaching on the side. And a dear friend of mine said, he says

you're either going to pick yourself up, you're either going

to crawl and die, you're going to get in bed and crawl and die.

Are you going to pick yourself up from the bootstraps? Which

one are you going to do? Okay. And I said, I'm going to pick

myself up from the bootstraps. So I made that decision that in

there that I was really going to have to be a better leader of my

life, that self leadership was really going to be a number one

component of how I shifted from being in this place of sadness,

depression, and feeling on a plate that was just overwhelmed

with responsibility to one where I was learning how to manage my

emotions, being able to prioritize, and being able to

really trust myself. And some of my teachers in that process,

where all the animals that I had knew that I had potbelly pigs

and I had donkeys that I was really, really close to. And

it's really amazing how they can tune in to you, and how they

embraced me and how I watched them as they thrived because I

had to be very intimate, in grow in rate taking care of them,

because I had to notice every single thing about them to

determine if they were healthy, if they were suffering if their

feet were okay if they were eating. And I began to tune in

the six senses.

And it's fascinating how you're part of

your healing was the process of interacting with other living

things, the animals as a part of your healing and wholeness

process. And that that's great. Tell us what it was about you.

You were mentioned some practices like meditative

practices and things like this, and I'm a big believer in

drawing. For us to get through adversity, we have to not only

take some of the bold actions you took to break out of that

pattern, you know, both pull yourself up by the bootstraps,

as you said, but to draw on some. It's not all about you, we

have we boo pull ourselves up about the bootstraps, we also

have to draw on a higher power I believe. Tell us a little bit

about how you do that and how that process works for you.

So yes, I absolutely believe in higher

power and believe in my higher self. And one of the things that

that became a very strong pensive principle for me in the

way I live my life is that I don't have to know the how of a

situation. I just need to trust the process of life and know

that I've been given the answers. So when I went to

spirit I said I don't know how I'm going to make all of this

work the ranch my career, working for corporate but I'm

going to trust you that you will show me the how you will show me

the how and what I'm going to Do as I'm going to be still. And

I'm going to ask, what is the next thing for me to do? And

then I'm going to wait for you to guide me. And then I'm going

to go and do that.

So you were seeking, one of the

terminologies I've used for this type of thing is leadings, you

know, like a spiritual eating or a, or a conscious sense of

consciousness from your unconscious? Absolutely. So did

that work out for you? What I'm getting at did you did? You

know, sometimes people get, you know, frustrated, they wait, and

they wait, and they wait, and they think, well, that's never

gonna happen. But how did that work for you? Did you have a

sense of guidance and direction and discernment?

I can tell you that. I in some, I did have a

situation where I learned it the hard way.

Where I was given guidance, it was I had these, I was

traveling, and I had these beautiful earrings that have

been a gift. And in my guidance, Spirit said, don't take those

earrings. Leave them here at home. And I just what if I take

these earrings, it'll be the one thing that I can wear with

everything, and blah, blah, blah. And so I didn't pay

attention, and I lost one of them on my trip. And I said, I

will never doubt what is told to me, I'm never in I'm told X, Y

and Z and it becomes crystal clear. I no longer doubt it, I

just do it. I just do it. Because I've learned the hard

way that when I think that I know better.

And some people don't, some people call that

intuition or whatever, or leading different types of ways

we can do that. But also, many people ignore those things, you

know, they just kind of push them aside and take all that

stuff in our head is that a kind of whatever I ate something bad,

or whatever it would be, you know, just some, they brush it

off. But what I'm hearing you say here, Pat, is to be a good

listener to you know, be intuitive about the things that

are being shared with you from

from a higher level. And to follow and follow your

message. Don't doubt it? Yeah.

Another piece of this, I think it's important to

pad is the kind of the emotional wherewithal in order to get

through stuff. I call it the emotional feel that helps us to

get through things. And many times that comes through

relationships. And you mentioned how you lost your husband, and

you had some all kinds of other things happening. Tell us about

how relationships good or bad, but hopefully more good than

bad, helped you in this process of navigating all these things

that you mentioned here about the business and our ranch, and

you know, you had your health problems, you lost your husband.

But tell me about positive relationships for loving,

affirming emotional relationships that may have

helped you in this process are bidding up to hold you

accountable?

Absolutely. The what I've learned is that,

especially when I lost the ranch, and I was doing

everything, by myself, is that there was no way that I was

going to really come out on the other side without asking for

help.

There's no way

there's no way I was going to be able to handle

all those responsibilities. And I had to learn how to ask for

help. And be open to receiving help. Because in life, in order

to accomplish big things and actually get healed from

situations, we must open up our heart and others love on us and

pour on us in order to start making those baby steps to

healing and coming on the other side.

Can you be a little more specific about how any

person or situation or came alongside you or you reached out

to someone or they reached out to you how that played out.

So we know that the ranch and Randy was really

close with my husband, they work together and managing the ranch.

And they did divide and conquer if you will. And when I took me

the total responsibility. Randy and I had to become really

close. And in working together. Not only were we both sad, of

the loss of dogs, and realize that in order for us to move

forward, we had to be able to count on each other. So I had to

count on him to help me take care of the animals that had to

count on his expertise. And I had to count on him to be a

shoulder that I could cry on. That when things got really

really bad. I had a bad day that I would go I could go to Randy

and say, You know what, I just need to cry and we'll just we'll

just let me cry. And and just hold me and just give me a hug.

And we began to be that, that, that shoulder for each other

without any judgment knowing that Part of our pain was to

actually express the pain and be comfortable and feel safe with

someone to be able to do that with Yes,

well also then that that takes a relationship much

beyond any kind of an employer employee type of thing or

working together, it goes to a deeper level in order to have

healing in order to have get it through adverse conditions, like

a death in the family or disease or financial issues. We just

need that when he people who are on our side, and we can be

emotional with, you know, emotions is the fuel that helps

drive us to change, I believe, and are a big part of it. And

that's such an important thing. Have you been able to do that

for other other folks, either in your coaching or in your life,

being able to be the advocate for others,

I have been an advocate for others. Definitely,

I've been an advocate for for women who have gone through

breast cancer, I've made available, made myself

available. And getting myself involved in cancer care services

and working with women, and helping them just cope and be be

there to help actually, you know, facilitate their their

healing through Reiki. And so I poured my fan to that particular

community of women who have cancer so that we can with

another partner by a side be able to get through the process.

And what I find is really, in the business strategy work in

the business coaching work, is that the women that thrive the

most that are most successful are those that really know how

to lead themselves. And when you're not a lead yourself, you

are a better leader on the outside with your teams and the

community. So I focus a lot on the inside. I focus a lot on

give, helping them get clear, helping them take Be courageous

enough to take the next step, helping them realize that

they're exactly where they need to be.

Sir, go ahead, finish your thought there.

Well, so many times, we tend to compare

ourselves and we compare our chapter one to somebody else's

chapter five. And one of the things about being a leader and

really growing in your business is that you have your own sacred

path that's been laid out for you. And it's, it's when you

embrace that, then you're you're open to learning the lessons,

and you're open to honoring the path that you're on. And there

is no comparison.

Yeah. And you're focused now. You are a business

leader and strategist and you focus a lot on with women

entrepreneurs, and you've talked about that pathway. You just

mentioned it a second ago and your your book is called journey

to elation. And elation means to me means you know, like an

ecstatic state one where you have just pure joy, pure joy.

And yet you've mentioned silver, you know, episodes where you

didn't have joy, you had a lot of grief and a lot of other

things going on. So what are what are when you work with

folks? What are some of the ways that they're going to what are

some of the steps they're going to take on this journey to

elation? gaggy be more love more specific of if a woman comes to

you and wants a little help here on a business strategy, but also

has to learn more not only business it's you know, it's

kind of life and how to have some joy in your life. What are

they gonna learn? What are they gonna learn from your book or

from your coaching or from what you have to offer that can help

them get to this point of elation

or realization right? Like when you have your,

your first baby your grandchild, you swim with the dolphins, that

level of elation? Yes. In my in my program, what I do is we do

we start with the inner work that with the inner work, and I

help them get clarity on what it is that they actually want out

of life, not only in their business, but also in their

life, and help them be clear on how those two actually work

together. Because once women are very clear on what they want out

of life and out of their business, then the next step is

really putting the plan together and executing. And why encourage

them to start taking the baby steps because in that

encouragement to take that bold step, you start becoming

confident and then you're all of a sudden you're beginning to

thrive. Then we also take a look at their specific blueprint, I

may Human Design Specialist. So Human Design is a combination of

DNA, your birthday to astrology, and what it does is it lays out

a blueprint of what makes you successful in your business

based on your constitution. So they we will have a conversation

on their specific blueprint and they will learn how they best

make decisions, how they best work in teams, how they best

like to connect I got like, like to learn how to get things done.

And once they understand what their constitution is and what

their their true alignment is, then they grow their business

from that space.

Well give us some specifics on this. You mentioned

baby steps, for instance. And maybe you could even speak

about, you know, maybe hypothetically about some folks

you've worked with, what are some examples of some of these

baby steps that you advocate for people to take or, you know, fun

things you mentioned earlier was like a morning routine. But help

us out a little bit if if I send a person to you a woman

entrepreneur to what are they going to learn from you some of

the specifics?

Okay, so definitely I talked about the

the morning, which is going to be one of the ones that I work I

work with women on, and I help them create their own their

individual morning routine. And that rote routine that they

create is going to have a moment of silence, affirmation,

visualizing what they want, a form of movement, or exercise,

reading, and journaling. So that's one of the first steps

that I'm going to ask them to take every morning, so that they

start establishing a grounded morning a day where they have

clarity of what needs to be done. So that whatever happens

in their day, in the middle of day, they know exactly how

they're going to start their day. And it's in full control of

aligning, aligning the spirit, and being very clear on the

things that need to get done. When you start your morning in

that way, it's a very powerful morning that allows you to move

closer to your goals when you start it that way. And then I

teach them to live their life through intention. So I teach

them a process that includes getting very clear about the

intention of something that they're doing. Let's say they're

going to a meeting and they want the meeting to have a certain

outcome. I teach them a process that says, Okay, what is the

intention of this meeting? What is it that you want the outcome

of this meeting to be? And then I asked them, How do you want to

feel while you're in that meeting? You want to feel

confident, you want to feel articulate, you want to feel

connected? You know, you want to feel that you're you're

connecting with your higher source, how do you want to feel?

And by the way, how do you want the people in your meeting to

feel, let's, let's talk about the energy and they're in

interaction with you and, and their level of attention and

commitment. And so those three, those three elements go into a

discussion of, let's set your intention. And then we're going

to start doing that every time you have an activity every time

you pick up the phone, every time we have a meeting or a

proposal, and we'd have a conversation with with someone,

we're going to go through this intention exercise.

So this is up to people actually develop, they

write something down, they have some sort of exercise where they

share and something. So they have a tangible tool to use.

That is a tangible tool that they use

for everything going forward. I mean, I even

use it when I go shopping. I said.

So it's not just it's not just a business meeting

thing, it's your

lounge, it is a life practice. It is a live

practice of setting intention, and asking for what it is that

they want as an outcome. And then what I invite them to do is

I asked them, well, you set your intention. Now I want you to do

that separate yourself, detach yourself from that request, and

allow spirit, God, great, something, whatever that is for

you source to give you that or something better.

And that's where we're going with the simulation

with the joyful life here. So sounds like you've been, you

know, you have a coaching practice here of majestic

coaching. And you have your book, majestic coaching group

calm is your website. And then but tell us about somebody,

let's be specific for a minute about somebody you've worked

with how they have had some of these outcomes that you have

mentioned, because if you know if I would prefer, you know,

certain people I work with to you, I want to have some

understanding that you know, there's a good chance they're

going to have some good outcome here. So can you tell us what

about somebody you've worked with? Maybe they've had they've

had some good outcome?

Yes. So definitely. Yeah, many times

I'll use Mary as an example. Let me say Mary, so American to me

and said she was ready to make the jump from corporate into

intrapreneurship. And we started with clarity, right. So as I

said, what, what kind of women or clients do you want to work

with and and what you want to do so at the very beginning, the

answers were, well, I want to work with women entrepreneurs.

And when you say that your scope of what you can do is huge. And

I said, Okay, what we need to do, in order for you to be

successful, it's important that you narrow your scope to the

type of women that you want to support. So then it when she

became clear, she says, Well, I want to I want to work with

women who are in the healing business. Okay, so that moves

women brought from entrepreneurs to women who have healing

businesses. Okay, so now we're looking at women who have

healing businesses, what type of healing? Are you talking about?

Is it traditional medicine? Is it alternative medicine? Is it

mind body and soul medicine? What kind of healing is a

particular person providing? So then she got it, narrowed it

down? Well, I want to work with Reiki healers, I said, Okay, so

then there's all type of Reiki healers, what is your ideal

client look like? is you have a certain type of personality that

you love working, that lights your fire when your work when

you're with them? How would you describe that person to me? And

then, you know, Mary will say, Well, I want to work someone, I

want to work with the woman who has a Reiki business, who is

coachable, who is willing to experiment and work with me on

growing their business, okay? I want women who can pay for me, I

want women who are spiritual, I want to work with women who are

fun to be with. I want women so I get that I have them really

narrow down. What does that woman look like feel like? What

are they do? What are the Hangout? How do they spend their

money? Do they even invest in themselves? So then we get them

to where they're really, really clear about who it is to work

with. And I and then I asked him, What do you think your gift

is? Where's your gift? it are you is your gift and helping

them package and marketing themselves? Is your gift and

helping them come up with new designs? What is your gift and

she said, I love marketing. I did that when I was in corporate

and I want to help women with marketing. Okay, so now we know

women entrepreneurs and healing specifically in with Reiki women

who are open to are coachable, blah, blah, blah, and you are

going to help them with their marketing? And we say yes, Okay,

perfect. Okay, so let's put together some offerings at

different tiers, to help your client work with you to get to

know you first, and then have them invest their money in

deeper, more, more sophisticated programs, so that they can get a

flavor of you first and then continue to work with you. So

then we help them I help them put the product there all their

packages together all their offerings together. And then we

say okay, how we're going to get this word out? What What is it

that you like to do? How do you like to communicate? Do you like

to go on video? Would you like to write? Do you like to make

presentations? What is your favorite way of communicating,

and let's use that favorite way of communicating to connect with

your ideal client. So then once they say well, you know what I

love being on video, I love being on camera, then I then we

sit in let's put a strategy together that's associated with

social media that starts introducing you and getting you

in front of your ideal client.

So it sounds like you're you have a process here

that just use Mary as your example here who was able to

kind of filter out some of the things she didn't care for in

the corporate world. But focus into something she did enjoy the

marketing and so on, but also then to focus and zero in on

clarify the target market and have some fun doing it. That's

to me that's the elation part. Right?

That is the elation part. Absolutely. And she is

thriving. She's She's, she's a six figure, entrepreneur,

coaching women in the healing business, specifically Reiki,

and she has online courses, she is doing very well. And it's it

was all just going through the process that I just talked you

through. And of course, in between that time, you know,

there's doubt, and there's fear. And so we deal with those as we

take those baby steps.

Well, that's the coaching part of it. That's the

relationship building part of it, you know, like, I like to

talk about this kind of progression here, you have to

take the action she had to make reach out to you in some form or

another and somebody might want to pick up your book, whatever

that would be and then we have to do the the spiritual aspect

of it or the calling Higher Power and then that relationship

building and then there is the manifestation of the, the

disciplines, you know, the morning routine, other things

like that in order to have come out to the other side to come

out to elation. So that's, that's a good goal to have,

especially in these days when we have, you know a lot of dark

stuff, a lot of problems, a lot of things to challenges whether

it's a COVID crisis or any number of things that are

happening in the world right now,

lots of job

losses, many people,

a lot of women are losing jobs, or they've been

at home and they're realizing you know what I rather, I've

never spent so much time with my kids, or with my spouse, and I

didn't, you know, I didn't realize somewhat how I didn't

really know them. And I want a job that allows me to spend time

with my family. And women are opening businesses left and

right, more than ever before.

Well, that's awesome. And that that is

awesome. And that's what your focus is, I love your one of

things that says in your, in your website is to help women

entrepreneurs make a positive joyful impact on the world. And

I love that things that you share there. So. So Pat Alva,

craker How can people be in contact with you if they want to

learn more about you and your book and what you have to offer?

And see how you can impact their life to have elation?

Oh, thank you, Brad for asking that question.

majestic coaching group.com is the website. And if you're just

now learning about my book, Catherine's quest, you can

actually download the first chapter of the book from my

website and experience a little bit about who I am. I make

myself available to my clients and prospects. And I open up my

calendar for people to schedule a strategic call, where we can

sit down and get to know each other and actually begin an

initial conversation on how I might be able to help you. And

that's for free. So that when you go outside, you can make a

call, a 30 minute call and we can have a conversation on how

we might be able to work together and how I can help you.

Awesome. Certainly. Yeah.

Well, that's good to hear and some some good

things here from Palo Alto craker. She's the author of

Katherine's quest, one woman's journey to elation and her

coaching program. You can find it at majestic coaching.

group.com Pat, thank you for being our guest today on beyond