Meet Heidi Alldredge

We recently connected with Heidi Alldredge and have shared our conversation below.

Heidi, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
I actually wasn’t a very positive person. In fact I was complaining so much, and waiting to be happy, that I had a friend tell me I was just too negative to be around her anymore. I was shocked. I started to wonder if other people who were dealing with hardships were happy anyway and I found that they were! Those positive people were world changers too. So I started a radio talk show to interview people who have taken life’s lemons and made lemonade- in other words they have overcome a terrible hardship, tragedy or trial and are making our world better because of it. I wanted to be like them. I learned about positivity and that happiness wasn’t a goal or in the next big purchase, it was a way to travel through life! I became a certified happiness trainer. Now I teach optimism and happiness and that you can have peace and true joy in your life no matter what you are dealing with.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I teach about happiness. I use five different tools to help people elevate their happiness which are: focusing on gratitude, taking care of our body, forgiving ourself and others, questioning our thoughts, and seeing life as a gift! I teach community education in person at our local university. I will also be teaching online this fall. I’ve hosted Heidi’s LemonAid Stand Podcast since 2020. It was started back in 1999 as a radio talk show and lasted one year until I quit to take a break to have a baby. Then 20 years later we are in a pandemic and I thought it was a great time to bring back the LemonAid Stand but in podcast form this time! I have interviewed over 400 lemonAid Makers! They are the most inspiring people I have ever met. I have taken notes, learned valuable life lessons and tips, and made changes in my own thinking because of things I have learned from all of them. I am so blessed to hear and record their stories to share with others!
I’m also a motivational speaker. I speak at events from living rooms to ballrooms and anywhere any people gather who want to elevate their happiness. I give useful tips and share relatable stories during my engaging and inspiring keynote presentation! I get great feedback that the participants really enjoy what I share! I also love it when people talk to me after my presentation and share either their own personal motivational story or tell me how what I taught really changed them.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I have enjoyed being consistent. Once you start doing something new it’s hard, and you might want to give up, or you get discouraged but I would set reminders and make appointments for myself with myself on my calendar to be able to stay on track and focused on my goals. Just showing up is half the battle. I have learned that you won’t know everything and you won’t be perfect at it so just start where you are! Don’t put it off. Be willing to be bad at it, and then learn and adjust as you go. Learn from others who have done it before. I got advice from a podcaster before starting my podcast and then I got advice from other podcasters as I went a long. I also love to give advice to anyone wanting to start podcasting. People are usually very willing to share their knowledge, you aren’t alone!
Be willing to share your talents for free in the beginning just to give yourself more practice and more exposure. I still occasionally do free speaking gigs and usually get a paying gig booked from it. By serving and helping others you will be blessed in many ways. Don’t do it for yourself, do it for others.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
I first learned about happiness from the movie The Secret. From that I learned about Marci Shimoff and her book “Happy For No Reason” and I had to know more. Then I learned from her and took her certification class and I started teaching Habits of Happiness. Her advice was life changing for me. I love the idea of being happy for no reason, just because! I was always thinking I will be happy once I had kids, or built the dream house, or got the perfect job, but I would achieve those things and then decide happiness was in the next goal or idea! Marci showed me that happiness is already in us. There are ways we can recognize and then elevate our happiness, peace and joy-so that is what I love teaching to others now!

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