LGBT+ Pride Month - Thank You

I am so grateful for all of the people that were involved with the Pride Month series. There are so many stories that people have to tell and I could do this series every day for the rest of my life and not hear them all. Pride means something so uniquely different to each and every person. If I talked to 1000 different people I would get 1000 different stories. Each and everyone of them so unique to each person.

I will continue to use my voice to spread awareness and education for the LGBTQ+ community. Until the day comes when it is finally not an issue and there is truly love and acceptance. Everyone deserves to be able to live the life that is authentic and be free to love and show that love for the person that they have chosen to be with.

If you are reading this, and battling with your own identity and worried that you are different and that you will lose all the people in your life if you live as your authentic self, know that I love you. I am here and there are so many more out there that are here for you. Be your authentic self always.

Have an amazing day!

Hello, I hope you are all having an amazing day. I wanted to make a video specifically to say thank you to the 10 individuals that came in and gave of their time to be part of my pride month series. Telling your stories, there is no way for us to ever know how many lives will end up being touched and changed. That someone that's out there that's struggling with their identity to figure out who they are and being told that they are wrong, you giving of your time and you telling that story can have so much effect down the road that we just don't know, and that just means so much to me that each of you would be willing to be part of that.

So thank you. Tell what pride month means to you so that we can hopefully change at least one life. We can save one person. It's so, so important to me as someone that dealt with fear and hate as a kid that we put that message out there and we lead by example. We show people, "Hey, it's okay to be who you are. Not everyone is going to be accepting of that. Not everyone's going to be loving of that, but what's important is that we're loving, we are accepting." We show compassion and kindness and love every single day so that over time we change hearts, we change minds and save lives.

A very special thank you to Bobby Jo Valentine for providing me with the acoustic tracks that was the backing of all of the interviews in this series. I had reached out to Bobby when he was here performing with Turtle Creek Chorale and wanting to get him in for the interview series, but unfortunately with timing and stuff, it just didn't work out. I couldn't get him in. But I reached out to him and was like, "I would really love to use the acoustic version of Strong Enough as the backing for the interviews," and without even batting an eye, he's like, "Give me your email address. I will send you the acoustics for all of the entire album."

And that alone just meant everything, that he was willing to take his baby, those songs that he spent time creating, and he just, he offered them up to me. I mean there's not a lot of people that are willing to do something like that. As an artist, I completely understand the need to receive compensation for the work that you put into it, so that he was willing to just gift that to be part of this project, it was truly moving. I appreciate it so much and I love that even though I wasn't able to get him in for an interview, he was still able to be part of it because he is just the most amazing soul. Just kindness. I don't know that I've met many people in my life exude kindness and generosity in the way that he does. If you're not familiar with Bobby Jo Valentine, go check him out. You can find him on his website, bobbyjovalentine.com. Just get to know him.

Again, thank you to everybody that was involved in this project. It means so much to me, truly. And I look forward to doing more interview series like this in the future because I think there's a lot of important conversations that still need to be had. And I think there's a lot of people that have stories to be told that need to be heard. I hope you all have an amazing day. I will talk with you later. Bye.

Thank you to Tim Seelig, Terry Loftis, Denise Lee, Paige Dixon, Candace Valenzuela, Jeanne Rubin, Lorie Burch, Sean Baugh, BJ Cleveland, and Bob McCranie for being part of this. Super huge thank you to Bobby Jo Valentine for supplying me with the music that was used throughout this entire series.