Jan. 30, 2025

Unlocking Forgiveness A Step-by-Step Journey to Freedom

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In this episode, we welcome Katharine Giovanni, an award-winning author and founder of the concierge industry. Katherine shares her journey from the concierge world to becoming a forgiveness coach, discussing her unique step-by-step approach to forgiveness. Discover how her method can help you let go of anger and find peace, and learn about her upcoming projects and books focused on self-forgiveness and healing. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that encourages you to embrace joy and lead a fulfilling life!
https://www.KatharineGiovanni.com
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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> Curveball>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today we are joined by award winning, three time bestselling author, Katherine Giovanni.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>She is also one of the founders of the concierge industry. So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and, you know, how she got into the concierge industry and, you know, everything that she's got upcoming and what we can be on the lookout for. So, Kathryn, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Speaker C>Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Speaker C>Well, my latest. My.

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> Speaker C>The latest version of myself is I'm a forgiveness coach. And I have written a bunch of books, 12, I think.

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> Speaker C>But I'm really here to. I retired from the independent concierge industry, uh, in 2020 and wrote a bunch of business books, and now I'm writing books to help people, uh, on their path. And my latest book is on forgiveness.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, two questions for you. The first one, what is it? What. What, uh, do you do as a forgiveness coach?

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> Speaker C>Well, everybody on the planet, your parents, your teachers, your pastor, everybody tells you that you need to forgive, which is fair.

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> Speaker C>Nobody teaches you how. And what if you don't want to? What if it's an unforgivable thing that they've done to you? Then what do you do?

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> Speaker C>So I figured out a number of years ago with some friends of mine exactly how to forgive in the special sauce that everybody's forgetting.

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> Speaker C>And I've come up with a step by step system that helps people forgive. But the trick is everybody listening to this broadcast, including you, on a 10 scale, with 10 being an unforgivable dumpster fire and one being the easiest person in the world to forgive. Everybody. 10 out of 10 people, you're thinking of your unforgivable person. And at the end of the day, Curtis, that's why everybody has a problem forgiving, because they don't want to.

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> Curveball>All.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Ah, right. Well, before we get into your books and writing and everything, talk about your experience in the, uh, concierge industry. For those who don't know what that industry is and what it does, let us know and tell us about your time into it and why you decide to make a pivot.

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> Speaker C>Well, a concierge will do. I used to say the yellow pages, but that's because I'm old. So a concierge will do anything on Google, shall we say, as long as it's legal, moral and ethical, A, uh, concierge will do it. Now this is an independent concierge. Everybody is used to a hotel concierge, which has been in the world for decades. But about 30 years ago, a group of hotel concierge thought, well, if I can do this in the hotel world, I bet I can bring it to mainstream America. And they did very, they did just that. When I came along, there was maybe 20 concierge companies in the United States and they are your new personal assistant.

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> Speaker C>They're like Uber delivers and Uber Eats, except they'll deliver anything. And they. When I came on, there was 20.

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> Speaker C>And I was an independent. I was a, uh, median event planner back in those days. And I just fell into it, really by accident. I found this article in Entrepreneur magazine because there were no classes on this back then. It wasn't even an industry.

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> Speaker C>And I realized that we were doing more concierge work than meeting planning. So I pooed it. And in those days we had dial up modems and computers that were the size of a Buick and there really was no Google. So really we got our company up and running.

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> Speaker C>And don't ask me to do this again, but my husband looked at me, I've even been married 33 years, and he said, well, you're very clever. You create a website. I had no idea how to do it. So I read the Microsoft Word help file and I figured out how to do a website and I got it online.

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> Speaker C>And from then on, I got telephone calls from all over saying, could you just help me figure out what to charge? Could you just help me? I'd like to start this business. It looks great. So I was helping them out for free until I was asked that million dollar question, why are you doing it for free? And that's how the whole thing started. From there, I created an association, the first of its kind, because it was just a bunch of random people. And I thought, well, if I could just corral them into a group, we might be able to start something. And that's how it started. And I retired from the industry in 2020.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, let's talk about your forgiveness method. Explain to listeners what it is and why do you feel like, uh, your method is different than anybody else's?

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> Speaker C>Well, my method is different because I have a method I, I've yet to find, really a step by step, do this, do this, do this out there. Um, for be before I go into the method. And I love sharing the method. First of all, just because I forgive you doesn't mean I want a relationship with you. I probably don't, to be honest. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean I'm giving you a pass. It doesn't mean all of a sudden I'm giving in and saying, okay, you were right. I think that stems from our childhood. When the teacher looks at everybody and says, okay, now forgive each other and go play. I think that's where it stems from. But it's wrong. Just because I forgive you doesn't mean you were right.

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> Speaker C>You're still wrong. You're still probably a dumpster fire. Forgiveness. The formal definition to me is I want you out of my head, period. I want to stop thinking about you, I want to stop dreaming about you. I don't want to go into a bakery and smell the a piece of cake. And now all of a sudden I've got a memory about you. I want you out of my head. And that's what my system is designed to do. We also have been taught well, you can forgive and forget.

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> Speaker C>Okay, I'm uh, originally, I live in the south now, but I'm originally from New York City. And your girl here, I'm not forgetting anything. Nobody can forget.

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> Speaker C>We all remember the stuff. But the trick behind my system is you won't forget what happened. But I, using the method that I've come up with, you can. It will neutralize the emotional reaction. So you won't care. You can go on Facebook or social media, or you can go to a party and see the person and you won't care. You won't think good, you won't think bad. You literally won't care. And that's what I'm looking for.

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> Speaker C>That's the freedom I'm looking for. Because now in your brain now you can focus on music.

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> Speaker C>You can focus on a money making opportunity. You can focus on maybe your dream relationship just walked into the room. M why are you noticing these things now? Because you're not focused on the anger anymore and you are paying attention.

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> Speaker C>You're paying attention to the world around you.

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> Speaker C>And you weren't before because you were so focused on your anger. That's what this system will bring. That's what this system offers. It offers peace. But the special suss to the whole thing is energy.

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> Speaker C>Einstein proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It just turns in from one thing to another. Music is a form of energy and it just magically flows through the universe, invisibly, if you will, through radio, through, you know, through the computer. You and I are talking right now. That's energy.

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> Speaker C>Everything on our planet has energy around it. And I have people coming to me all the time and saying, you know, I did do the work and I have forgiven them. Yeah, you did. But they're not staying forgiven, are they? No, they. They keep coming up and I keep getting angry. Well, that's because you didn't forgive the energy around the person.

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> Speaker C>And that's. That's the secret. It's energy.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, speaking of that, is it even possible to forgive the unforgivable or what people would consider as the unforgivable?

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> Speaker C>Yes and no. In my humble opinion. There are people, places and things, and I did say places and things that are unforgivable.

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> Speaker C>And you don't have to forgive the darkest of the dark, the most unforgivable act. You don't have to because there are other things you can forgive before you even get to that dumpster fire, quite honestly. And everybody's level of pain is different. What you think is unforgivable? I might think, okay, well, I could probably forgive that. So everybody's different. But if you think it's truly, truly unforgivable, you don't have to forgive that person. What I do want you to do is I'm going to have you pick apart the memory. So the system is designed that on that 10 scale I talked about earlier, with 10 being unforgivable and one being easy. I want you to start with your number ones.

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> Speaker C>I want you to start with the easy people. The person who took your toy in the sandbox when you were a kid. I'm not kidding. The person who cut you off on I95 south, you can forgive that person. The person who stole your lunch from the company for refrigerator every day. Hope you can forgive this person.

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> Speaker C>How about the person in the grocery store on aisle four who cuts you off? Forgive that person. Do the easy ones first. Work your way up to the hard ones. And when you get to those unforgivable hard ones, and I have worksheets and all sorts of things in the book, but once you get the unforgivables, I want you to pick apart the memory. Remember everything has energy around it. And the mantra I'm going to have you say is, I completely forgive Curtis. I forgive the energy around Curtis. I completely forgive myself. I forgive the energy around myself. I completely forgive the energy around the entire thing. And I'm going to have you put Your hand on your heart. Because the words are just for us humans. It's the energy behind the words that has the power. And then I'm going to have you check in with your body. Is this person still a number 2, 3 level anger or did it go down to. Did it go down to a one or did it jump up to a seven? Why would it do that? Why are you more angry? Well, because the brain is a beautiful, wonderful healing tool and it protects you and it's looking at you saying, ooh, Curtis is ready. I'm going to open that back closet in his head. Yeah, he's ready. Let's do this.

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> Speaker C>And you're going to be flooded with memories you didn't even know were there. But when it comes to your unforgivables, I want you to pick apart the memory. So let's use one of my own examples from my own life. Childhood, uh, bully. I was horribly bullied in school. Come from a rough background. Alcoholism, my parents, on and on and on it goes. Tried to commit suicide in the eighth grade. I mean it was just, it was rough. But. So I picked my childhood bully from grammar school. And uh, I wasn't ready to forgive the bully because I wasn't 60 something year old. 60, you know, I wasn't in my 60s. It was my 50s when I did this. My 50 something year old woman thinking of something that happened in the 19 early 70s.

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> Speaker C>It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Yet I was, it was like a movie playing in the back of my head. I couldn't get to shut up. So I decided I'm going to pick apart the memory.

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> Speaker C>So I couldn't forgive the bully. I couldn't even forgive the energy around the bully. So I forgave the school. I forgave the building that where the school was. I forgave the energy around the building.

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> Speaker C>I forgave the park. I forgave the table, the desk, the chair, the bed. I forgave this. I gave, forgave the people that stood around in the playground who watched me be bullied in energy around all these things that my forgiveness system is kind of a marathon.

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> Speaker C>It's not a sprint, but I was able to get that bullied from a 10 down to a 9. And I still hadn't forgiven the actual bully. So the unforgivable people, they're a bear, they're hard. That's why I want you to save them for last. But if you do the, the, the easy ones first, you're going to feel better. You're going to feel freer and lighter, and the world's going to look.

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> Speaker C>It's going to just feel better to you. And by the time you get to those unforgivables, you'll be prepared for them.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Do you have to forgive a person, uh, face to face m. To make your method work, or do you have to let them know?

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> Speaker C>I love this question. Okay. Another thing that I am as. I quit drinking 35 years ago.

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> Speaker C>It was one of the only New Year's resolutions I actually ever kept.

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> Speaker C>And when you go into AA and all these programs they want you to do, I think it's a fourth step, and they want you to forgive. And your girl here was shy. I'm an extroverted introvert now because I've taught myself how to do it. But back then, I was shy as a church mouse.

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> Speaker C>And so the ad, the. The thought of calling somebody up who would probably yell back at me just finished me. Didn't want to do it. The beauty of the system is forgiveness is selfish. You do it for you. You don't do it for them. You do it for you in the privacy of your own home. Nobody has to know. You don't have to reach out to them if you don't want to. If you want to try and repair the relationship, knock yourself out. Works for me. But forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean repair. Forgiveness means I want you out of my head so you don't have to call them.

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> Speaker C>In fact, it doesn't matter where they are. You're doing it for you. You're not doing it for them. And that leads me to the thought, you can forgive dead people.

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> Speaker C>Why? Because it doesn't matter where they are. They're alive and well in your head. You can forgive them, too. So when you're. I'm going to have you sit down and write a list of all the people you think you need to forgive, alive or dead. And then I'm going to have you rank them from 1 to 10. You could have 20 numbers, number threes if you want to. I don't care. And you could skip a number. It's all good to me. And then I'm going to have you sit alone in a room, and I want you to imagine the person that's in front of you. And then if you want to let them have it and say something, that's fine. And then I just want you to pretend that they left the room and then check in with your body and see if you're still mad. Did that number five person go down to a four. Did it jump? How do you feel?

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> Speaker C>Most people feel movement in their body. Most people, A lot of people feel their shoulders get lighter.

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> Speaker C>Eight out of 10 people get really tired. Like really tired. So I really want everybody to do this before they go to bed. But please, please, please only do 10 at. Because you'll make yourself sick. I'm not kidding.

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> Speaker C>You will literally make yourself sick if you do too many times because your body is going to have to transmute all that anger energy that it's been storing inside of you all. Uh, right.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, tell us about your, you know, as many as your books as you would like. You know, tell us where we can get them and what we can expect when we read them.

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> Speaker C>Well, if you're interested in the concierge industry and you want to start a concierge business, um, you can go onto Amazon and go buy the concierge manual, which will tell you everything you need to know.

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> Speaker C>Um, I also wrote a book about my cancer journey. I'm a cancer survivor, so there. If you.

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> Speaker C>I'm a 12 year breast cancer survivor, so there's a book called Rainbows and banana peels that talks about that I'm crazy. I write a lot of books.

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> Speaker C>I also wrote a book called the little bird on your shoulder, which is one of my favorites, which teaches you how to tap into your intuition and have a conversation with it. That was fun. And my latest book is the ultimate path to forgiveness, Unlocking your power that's available on Amazon. I also have the audiobook available because I understand that not everybody likes to read. So the audiobook, the e book and the paperback are all available for you.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Tell, uh, us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Speaker C>Well, the forgiveness book is the first book of three. The second book in the series, which I'm working on right now, is about how to forgive yourself. A lot of people, when they're writing their lists, their, their own name comes on the list and it's usually a 10. It's usually unforgivable. Uh, so I'm writing a book dedicated and how to forgive yourself. And there'll be a chapter in there to wait for it. How to forgive money.

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> Speaker C>Money is energy and a lot of people have a problem with it. So I'm going to have a chapter in there on how to forgive money to see if they can get that financial train started.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, so everybody can keep up with everything that you're up to.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Throw out your contact info.

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> Speaker C>Yeah, it's KathrynGiovanni.com and thanks to my mother, my first name is spelled a little odd. Thanks Mom. It's K A T H A R I n e giovanni.com and everything's on there. And if you want to follow me, I have a newsletter and you'll be Whenever the new books come out, I always blast my list and I never sell my list. It's just. The list is just mine. Not to worry.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We'll close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Speaker C>The only final thought I have is I just want people to know. And it's especially for the women listeners.

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> Speaker C>You're worthy enough to lead a life of joy. You're worthy enough to lead a life of love.

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> Speaker C>You were not meant to live in a refrigerator box on the street. You were not mean, meant to live in lack and negativity and hate. You're better that you were. You were born for better things.

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> Speaker C>And it's possible for you. And it's even if you don't think you have anything to forgive. A lot of men will tell me that. They'll say, I don't have anybody to forgive. Okay, today you like football?

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> Speaker C>Yes. Okay, well, did your football team lose last week? As a matter of fact, they did forgive the football team.

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> Speaker C>You could forgive anything. You could forgive politicians.

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> Speaker C>Dare I say you can forgive the war in the Middle East. What's it going to do for the war in the Middle East? Absolutely nothing. But it's going to do an awful lot for you and you are worthy enough to live a life of peace and joy.

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> Speaker C>All.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Uh, right, ladies and gentlemen, Katherine Giovanni.com go check out everything that she's up to. Check out that forgiveness method. We all need to exercise some kind of forgiveness method, so make sure you follow, rate, review and share this to everybody you know. Jump on your favorite podcast app, check out the show, share it, Follow us, Leave us a review if you have any guest or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson 1978 att.net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>And Katherine, thank you for all that you do. And thank you for joining us.

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> Speaker C>Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

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> Curveball>For more information on the Living the dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com until next, uh, stay focused on living the dream. Dream.