EPIC Impact: Transform Your Message Into a Movement

Storytelling

May 27

Chapter 1 Preview

The moment everything changed and why it can for you too.

I used to walk past mirrors and not recognize the woman staring back, hollow-eyed, unfamiliar, like a stranger wearing my face.

Now I clutched a clipboard with trembling hands in the Department of Social Services waiting room. The overhead lights buzzed and flickered like they hadn't worked right in years. Toddlers wailed. A woman beside me whispered a prayer in Spanish, her voice barely audible above the chaos.

I wasn't supposed to be here.

Just months earlier, I was the soccer mom who never missed a game, the devoted wife planning anniversary trips, the Bible study leader with all the right answers for other women's struggles. Now I couldn't answer how I'd feed my own children next week.

What brought me to that cracked vinyl chair wasn't circumstance—it was the complete unraveling of everything I thought defined me. A marriage destroyed by betrayal. Financial security vanished overnight. The future I had carefully planned, gone.

I had been a devoted mother who packed lunches with handwritten notes, kissed scraped knees, and read bedtime stories in character voices. I mentored women through late-night phone calls, quietly becoming a pillar in my community. I led with compassion, gave without hesitation, and showed up for everyone.

Somewhere along the way, I had disappeared into the roles I thought would keep everything together. I was 31. No degree. No savings. No plan. Only a brittle hope that I could somehow rebuild from the wreckage.

What changed everything? A story.

Not just any story…a structured story that would eventually become the framework I'm about to share with you.

The Humiliation I Wasn't Prepared For

Instead of my sons coming home to me after school, I was now watching the neighbor's children to make ends meet. The guilt was suffocating, choosing between being present for my own boys or earning just enough to keep the lights on.

The worst part? Through the neighbor's window, I could see my own front yard where my boys practiced soccer alone. Some days it felt like watching my life through glass—caring for someone else's children while mine waited for me to come home.

Then came the scholarship application for their soccer club.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard at the question: "Why do you need financial assistance?"

What I wanted to type: "My jackass husband decided to live a double life and I was the last to find out."

What I actually wrote: "Our family is in need."

Five words to summarize the complete obliteration of our former life.

But inside my head, the real conversation raged: God, am I really that stupid? How did I miss all the signs? How could he look into my eyes every day, tell me how blessed he was, brag to friends about his perfect family, while living a lie?

The Story That Tried to Break Me—And How I Took the Pen Back

I juggled side jobs—babysitting, flipping thrift store finds on eBay, anything to survive. We lived off food stamps and Medicaid. Every night I tucked my boys into bed with whispered prayers and promises I wasn't sure I could keep.

I knew education was my only way out of the black hole threatening to swallow us whole. If I didn't fight for a future, this cycle would repeat forever.

Then one night, after the boys were asleep, I picked up a pen. Not to vent. Not to journal. But to tell the truth on paper.

A Women's Leadership Foundation scholarship. I'd made it through the first round. Now they wanted an in-person interview—eight hours away. No Zoom. No exceptions.

And I had exactly zero paid time off left at my low-wage job. My boss was already frustrated with my constant absences—court dates, doctor's visits, the messy reality of rebuilding a broken life. Nevermind I had no family in the area to help me with the boys. One more absence could cost me the only steady income I had.

I couldn't afford to lose my job. But I also couldn't miss this opportunity.

Eight Hours to Everything or Nothing

Eight hours of interstate stretched ahead of me, every mile pulsing with self-doubt. The radio crackled with static—broken signals searching for something clear to hold onto. My hands gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles went white. What if I'm not enough? What if they see right through me?

I walked into that conference room clutching a three-ring binder—literally the only proof I had that I deserved to be there.

Five accomplished women sat across a polished mahogany table, their eyes kind but unreadable. The air conditioning hummed. Someone's pen clicked against the table. My hands trembled as I opened that binder.

I didn't hand them a polished resume. I didn't pitch perfection.

I told my story.

Raw. Unfiltered. Everything.

I brought them into my world: the shame of relying on food stamps when my $15-an-hour job didn’t cover monthly expenses. The desperation of babysitting other people's children at night while my own boys did homework alone. The terror of racing to my son's concussion appointments, wondering if each headache meant permanent damage.

I spoke of empty fridges and late-night essays, of hospital visits and hallway breakdowns, of court dates followed by sideline cheers at soccer games. I shared how I was fighting—not just for a scholarship, but for a future I refused to surrender.

But I didn't stop there. I painted them a picture of the woman I was determined to become—not just for me, but for my sons who were watching their mother either crumble or rise.

What I didn't realize then: I wasn't just telling any story. I was instinctively using what would later become the EPIC Framework—engaging them with authentic struggle, persuading with concrete details, inspiring with vision, and closing with absolute clarity about what I needed.

Their faces changed. They leaned forward. They were with me. Or so I thought?

But the week that followed was pure agony.

Was it enough? Was I enough?

The answer came in a phone call that would either validate everything I'd risked—or confirm my worst fears about not being enough.

What happened next didn't just change my life. It became the exact framework that's helped hundreds of leaders, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs turn their stories into movements.

You've reached the end of the preview. The full story—and the complete EPIC Framework that grew from it—is waiting for you.

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