What is your greatest epiphany in life?
The Original Video That Started It All
This is what I’ve been asking everyone from celebrities and world leaders to homemakers, teachers, writers, business people, psychologists, mayors, magicians, missionaries, music moguls, doctors, villagers in Africa and everyone in between…and this is why…
Once upon a time, I had a revelation that caused me to dramatically change my life. I realized I’d had what is known as an “epiphany.” The epiphanies I’m talking and asking about are not the everyday revelations or “aha moments” we might have, but the HUGE, the biggest, the most important realization we’ve ever had – the one that usually changes us in some way and has the greatest impact on our lives.
Out of curiosity, I started asking people if they had ever had such an experience. The stories people were telling me were so compelling, and I was getting so much out of them, that I decided to start recording and filming them. When I started discussing and showing them to people, they felt the same way so one thing led to another, and the Epiphany project was born!
The project is basically a compilation of interviews I’m doing with people from all different professions, nationalities, ages, beliefs and walks of life. The book, Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform was published by Random House/Crown Publishing’s Harmony Books and contains 50+ of the stories I collected over the past couple of years. Epiphany Channel is the website where the filmed interviews live, along with other interesting, fun stuff and content planned for the future (so stay tuned!) Not all of my interviews have been filmed so some are “book only” interviews, some are “film only” interviews and some are both.
The different stories you will find here and in the book range from dramatic miracles to short and simple realizations … some might make you laugh or cry, some might surprise and excite you, some may puzzle you and some may be exactly what you needed to hear at that moment in time. What I’ve found in experiencing and working with these stories is that all of them are profound and powerful in their own way. They tend, at the very least, to make you think. Many times you will find yourself thinking about them much later and finding deeper and different meaning and wisdom in them or suddenly realizing how what was shared applies to your life. Sometimes they will even cause you to have or remember some epiphanies of your own.
Epiphany Channel is here to encourage you to explore these stories for inspiration, insight and wisdom and to use as a resource. It is meant to be the “behind-the-scenes” to the book in that you can see photos and sometimes videos on people and contains links and bios on every remarkable person who was interviewed so you can find out even more about them and all they are doing. The site is also here to act as the hub of a community in which we can discuss epiphanies and share information and our stories. Not only do we want to know your stories as we grow the project, but more importantly, I have found that epiphanies contain some of our greatest wisdom and in sharing them with one another, we can learn so much about others, about life and about ourselves. In sharing your epiphanies, a great act of generosity is performed and in discussing them, many times discoveries and other epiphanies occur. It’s truly an amazing phenomenon that I hope you experience and that you’ll give us your feedback, suggestions and more stories when you do!
In my book or right here on Epiphany Channel, you can read about my epiphany that sparked the idea for this project and the patterns I have found about epiphanies, and you can even watch me talk about it in one of my TEDx talks! As I say, this project has been the greatest epiphany in my life thus far (realized while struggling to write the introduction during a terrible bout of writer’s block!). It has helped to transform my life and has led me to both learning and healing. The hope is that it might touch your life in some positive way as well.
Thank you very much for visiting Epiphany Channel. I am so grateful to everyone who has graciously shared their greatest life epiphanies with me, and now, with you, and look forward to sharing many, many more to come.
With great respect,
Elise Ballard
ELISE + EPIPHANY CHANNEL GO BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE NOBEL PRIZES
I used to shoot “behind the scenes” for people and love to know what goes on behind the scenes of what I read and see (thus THE INTERVIEW sections in my book and on the profile pages of my EPIPHANY PEOPLE). This fun, short video is a taste of what we experienced when Ariane de Bonvoisin and I went to the Nobel Prizes to find out about Nobel Prize Laureates’ epiphanies, attend the Peace Prize Award ceremonies and much, much more!
BEHIND THE SCENES OF EPIPHANY: THE EARLY DAYS – The Interview with Craig Newmark
This video is a brief introduction to the project and a quirky glimpse behind the scenes of my interview with Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. There isn’t much footage of me around because I’m usually the one shooting the interviews, so we thought this is just fun to go behind the scenes of one of the earliest interviews of the Epiphany Project!
