Vision Pros Live Podcast
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What is your vision? Featuring Dawn Sanders. Podcast Session 1.
2,323 words · 3 speakers
When you decided and you thought about, hey, I'm about to write this book up of my own experiences, my ministry journey. Tell me about your vision for the book.
Wow, well. My vision for the book is to help people rebuild their lives after a soul-crushing, life-altering disappointment or transition.
Yeah.
What I experienced when I was going through mine is after I finished grieving my losses.
Hmm.
What worked for me before didn't work.
And I thought to myself, there are other people have, who have reached a level of success in their lives who are now finding themselves struggling. I didn't think that that was a new thing.
Um, and would need to find new tools, new strategies. But at the same time, you know, we're sold a bill of goods, at least in the United States, where, you know, you go to school, you get your degree, you get married, you buy a home, you have the career, and they don't tell you, you're gonna have to go to school again. They don't tell you, you might have to get married. Or, and I shouldn't say have to, but you, you might experience more than one marriage for many reasons. I was divorced and I, I'm a widow now, right? And so you go through things multiple times, but not expecting it. You kind of go, I'm got, you know, I got married and you're thinking it's, it'll be for life, meaning your life, not the life of your partner. And you go check, check, check.
And then here you are, having reached these levels of success, right? Because you checked these boxes off, now finding yourself with a whole bunch of empty boxes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and I'm, I'm sitting here like, oh, you, you're preaching to me. Because at the end of the day, it's crazy because you go through life and then you do, like you stated, you have these certain tools, but it's very interesting. It made me think of a toolbox. You start off with something super small, right? Because it's cute, it does the basic, it has your screwdriver, your flathead. And then you get a bigger project, which is something in life that just takes this turn. And now you need a drill and you need this and you need that. So that's where my head went. It's like, okay, sometimes this little box isn't gonna deal with something so big. And then you might have to hire someone, which is.
You know what, let me find a book. Let me find a book that I can read when I'm alone and I need to try to work on this myself. And so in my mind, that's what I imagine your book to be. So what are some of the the tools that you have in the book that can help others?
Well, it's amazing what you're saying because I actually incre- have something that I call God's creative toolbox. I have God's framework that's a part of God's creative process, things that God used. And so people who are familiar with the Genesis one creation story know that God created by speaking. He spoke things into being, but he spoke different things each day into being. And when you you know, you, so you'll start with a vision that you'll start talking about, right? But you will talk about it differently than you talked about your last vision, right? You won't talk about it the same way. And so I, I one hundred percent agree with what you're saying. I also believe that
the systems and the structures that you had for maybe your last vision or even your last book, right, might not necessarily be the processes and the structures that you'll use for this one. And one of the things I found really shocking that was different was my support system. Before, my mother was a great support to me and she's still with me, thank goodness, but my mother's ninety seven years old. And prior to my, my husband passing, I started noticing that our relationship was changing, that I was becoming a support to her more than she was a support to me. And that was fine, but I needed support, right?
And if my mother wasn't going to support me, who was going to be my support in this new season? And so I say to people that this, this, the tools that you had before, meaning the people that supported you before. Might not necessarily support you in the same way. It's not necessarily that they're gone.
Right. My mother, I feel like is still my greatest cheerleader, right? But she's not the one I go to with all of my problems anymore because I don't want to stress her out with all of the stuff that I'm dealing with.
Yes. And then so as far as that goes, and you're right, you know, at the, at that age, I, I remember knowing or hearing the fact that of course, when you born, you're a baby, but also when the end is coming, you go back to childlike ways. And so I guess we wouldn't depend on our children to care for us and that has to reverse, which brings so much more or so many more challenges in you that says, okay, that support system is gone. Like you stated, now what? So when, when that occurred and then it took a shift, who was your support system then?
At first it was my husband, but one of those unexpected trying losses that I went through was the unexpected death of my husband when he had a heart attack one afternoon while jogging.
Wow. My sincere condolences. I can't, I can't imagine. And I know that life just, man, it blows up sometimes. And there's a, yeah, yeah, I don't know what toolbox could actually fix that, but God, you know, and I think that at that point, that's probably the only security, the blanket, the Kleenex, the everything is all him because no worldly person could have ever fixed your mind to say, hey, this is, this is for a reason. And as you, when that did occur and now you have a book, where did you find your strength at?
Well, it was in the word of God, you know, being a minister and someone who, like I said, I knew for a long time that I would be sharing the word. I call myself a Bible teacher more often than I call myself a speaker, was that I went to the word first for myself. I'll just be honest about that. I wasn't really thinking about how was I going to help anybody else. I needed to help Dawn today. And sometimes that's where you are, right? It's just, it's just about me, not because I'm not thinking about other people, but we do really have to take care of ourselves first in order to be a blessing to anyone else. And at that point in time in my life, I wasn't in a position to help other people.
But I found in scripture that it wasn't just for me, which is not unusual, right? That after I got my healing and got found that process, I saw a universal applicative application for what I saw in the scripture.
Yeah. And, and I'm sure that that, that was the, the biggest step and thing that you could do in order to rebuilding. And, and I mean, rebuilding is, is long-term. That, I mean, I'm sitting here and the smile in my head is because I believe and I'm a strong believer in God. But the, the tingles in my body says that that rebuilding is not easy. And I'm sitting here thinking as a realtor, which I'm a full-time realtor, we got to start with the foundation, which is God. But building a house and a home is not that easy. So as you continue to do this and you continue to promote your book and still be in ministry, what next?
Wow, you know, before I go on to what next, I really want to pick up on what you were just saying about the foundation too. Because one of the things I found was that your foundation changes. As someone who's in real estate, you wouldn't build the same foundation for every single house. And so God took me to a different stage of my life. And I realized along the way, and this is not at first, right? I thought I was going to connect with God the way I used. To right, I used to read the Bible for, you know, chapters of the Bible a day. I used to pray for sometimes hours, journal, most, write multiple pages. But at this stage in my life, you know, I might have only written the date in my journal, right?
And if I got there, reading the Bible, meaning actually looking at words with my eyes. I listened to the Bible, right? Because I couldn't focus enough to, you know, read the Bible. And so I just want people to know that even your relationship with God, even the foundation, right? Might be different in this new season. It's not that you're not going to have a foundation. Like you said, you have to have a firm foundation. But it may look and feel different in the next stage of your life than it did in the previous stage of your life. Um, but to answer your question about what's next is I'm actually working on some new products. Right? Uh, I'm working on a meditation starter kit.
Around exactly what I was just saying, because when I came out of my um, healing and and grieving process. I was having trouble focusing on scripture. And so I said, you know, people need resources that aren't just reading. Resources, right? And so let me provide some meditation where, you know, today I might only be able to think about God. I might not be able to read or write, right? Or even talk about God. I might just need to just think about him for a minute. Right? And help people in their thought process because our minds can be a really ugly and negative place after loss. And so to help them focus um, in more positive and correct ways about God.
Along with that meditation starter kit, I'm also um, creating a prayer routine starter kit. That is a kind of like a step two to the meditation starter kit.
That is awesome. So is it, will it be like a video or is it all gonna be audible?
It's gonna be both, video and audio. Yep. And so for those people who like, like video, right? Will have that oper- that option. But for people who only, you know, if you're in your car driving and can't really watch, you can listen. And it will provide, the meditations will be simply meditations. But the prayer routine starter kit is going to have devotions, it's gonna have journal prompts, it'll have some video teachings that will start out that are like a minute, maybe two minutes long, and then gradually get a little bit longer to help people grow and move through the process.
Yes, and it's, it's funny because when I started meditating, I always thought it was like a, you can't think about anything else and you're supposed to be in your zen. And I'm like, I'm not in my zen. I got a headache, I really don't wanna do this, but I'm gonna try to focus. So I really love the fact that you said, it'll start with some basics and then grow, because thereafter, there becomes this, this system that it begins to work for you. And not to mention to meditate on the word, and having that with you when needed, you know? Um, so I, I love that for you. So when can we expect that?
I'm hoping to have it out this summer.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm teaching a class at my church this spring, right? And I'm gonna share it with them first, so that we can, um, you know, perfect it. And, cause I want it to be really good when I, um, share it with everybody. But I'm really hoping that at the conclusion of the class, I'll be able to share it with people this summer.
Ah, well, that, I'm, I'm super stoked about it. Um, I, I love the fact that I get to hear it and now the audience gets to hear it. Um, please share with them where they can find any of your information at, and if you have any social media handles as well.
Yes, I'm at Dawn Mann Sanders dot com. That's Dawn, D-A-W-N, Mann, M-A-N-N, Sanders, S-A-N-D-E-R-S dot com. And it's the same on all of my social media handles. I'm on, um, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and LinkedIn.
Nice. Well, I thank you so much. I'm super excited about your book. Also, where can you get it at?
Oh, you can get it wherever books are sold. It's at Amazon, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, Target, and some, you know, lots of other outlets as well.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
