Can you share a story about what brought you to this particular career path?

I don’t think I chose this career path as much as I kept following what God put in front of me.

For most of my life, I have been a builder. I see possibility in people, businesses, communities, and ideas, and I have this almost uncontrollable desire to help bring that possibility to life. But for many years, I didn’t understand that there was a common thread running through everything I was doing.

Then I started doing my own deeper work.

I began asking myself who I was underneath all the roles I had learned to play, the wife, mother, leader, entrepreneur, achiever, the woman who could always figure it out.

That’s where BECOME was born.

And then God called me to write She Forgot She Was Free.

When I walked into the discovery session with my publisher, I didn’t even know what the book was going to be about. We prayed together, and then something happened that I can only describe as God taking over. The framework of the book began pouring out onto her whiteboard.

I went home and wrote the memoir portion in three days.

That was when I understood that my whole life had been preparing me for this work.

The book, BECOME, the experiences I create for women, they are all connected by the same purpose: helping women stop believing they need to become someone else and start remembering who they have always been.

Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?

One of the most interesting things about my career is how many times I have been willing to begin again.

I have walked away from things that looked successful from the outside because I knew they were no longer mine. I have built things from nothing, watched things fall apart, changed directions, started over, and had seasons where I had absolutely no idea what was coming next.

There was a time when I might have looked at those reinventions as evidence that I couldn’t get it right.

Today, I see them completely differently.

I wasn’t starting over. I was being cultivated.

Every version of my career taught me something I needed for the next one. Business taught me how to build. Leadership taught me how to see possibility in people. Failure taught me humility. Loss taught me discernment. Starting over taught me courage. And all of it eventually gave me the language for the work I do today.

That’s one of the biggest truths in my book: sometimes the thing you thought was taking you off course was actually preparing you for where you were always meant to go.

 

What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey writing your book?

Telling the truth without trying to make the truth prettier.

I’m not talking about factual truth. I’m talking about emotional truth.

When you’re writing about your own life, there is a temptation to explain yourself. To justify decisions. To make yourself look wiser in the past than you actually were. To protect people. To protect yourself.

I didn’t want to do that.

I wanted the woman reading this book to recognize herself in my humanity, and that meant I had to let her see mine.

There were memories I had to revisit differently. There were moments when I had to acknowledge where I had been performing, where I had abandoned pieces of myself, where ego had been involved, where fear had made decisions for me, and where I simply didn’t know then what I know now.

The challenge was allowing the woman I am today to love the woman I was then without rewriting her.

That became one of the most healing parts of writing the book.

What is the main empowering lesson you want your readers to take away after finishing your book?

You are WHOLE right now.

Not after you lose the weight.

Not after you make more money.

Not when the relationship is fixed.

Not when you’re more confident, more successful, more disciplined, more spiritual, or finally have everything figured out.

Right now.

So much of what women are sold is based on the idea that there is something wrong with us that needs to be fixed. I reject that.

The woman you were before the world got loud is still there. She didn’t disappear. She got buried underneath expectations, responsibilities, disappointments, survival, and all the identities you learned to perform.

You don’t need to become someone new.

You need to remember who you have always been.

That is what I hope a woman feels when she closes this book, not that she has another list of things she needs to fix, but that she has permission to come home to herself.

 

What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer?

Listening and studying. 

I don’t know that I would even call myself a great writer. I would call myself a storyteller who finally became willing to listen.

Add that to being good at studying and recognizing patterns in people. 

I study people. I listen to the words they use and the words they avoid. I began to listen and study my own life. I listen when something keeps tugging at me. And most importantly, I listen for God.

When I wrote this book, I wasn’t sitting at my computer trying to sound profound. I (honestly God) was identifying patterns to tell the truth about what I had lived and what I now understood were programming from where we base all of our decisions from. 

When something came, I wrote it.

There were days when I wrote for nearly 15 hours because the story was pouring out faster than I could process it.

So if there is a habit behind my writing, it is getting quiet enough to hear what wants to be said, and then having the courage not to edit the life out of it.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I already started it.

BECOME.

But the irony of the name is that I don’t believe women need to become someone else.

I want to create a movement of women who remember.

Women who remember that they are whole before they achieve another thing.

Women who stop shrinking themselves to make other people comfortable.

Women who choose themselves without believing that choosing themselves means they have to stop loving or serving everyone else.

Women who ask God, “Show me what is mine,” and then have the courage to move when He answers.

And women who turn around and do the same for another woman.

Because I don’t believe transformation is supposed to stop with us.

Imagine what happens when a woman remembers who she is. It changes how she mothers. How she loves. How she leads. How she builds. How she walks into a room. How she uses her voice. How she treats other women. What she teaches her daughters and granddaughters.

That’s the movement I want to spend the rest of my life building.

Not millions of women trying to become someone better.

Millions of women remembering they were already free.

She Forgot She Was Free is an invitation to remember the woman you were before fear, expectations, achievement, disappointment, and survival convinced you to forget.

In this deeply personal and transformational book, two-time best-selling author and founder of The BECOME Method™, Giselle Mascarenhas, shares the lessons, questions, and revelations that led her back to her truest self. Rather than offering quick fixes or another self-help checklist, she invites readers into a journey of honest reflection, identity, healing, and intentional growth. Through compelling stories and practical insights, readers are challenged to release limiting beliefs, reconnect with their authentic voice, and rediscover the freedom that has been within them all along.

Rooted in the principles of The BECOME Method™, She Forgot She Was Free equips readers with a powerful way to move beyond simply surviving and begin living with clarity, courage, and purpose. Whether you’re navigating a season of transition, rebuilding after loss, or simply sensing there is more waiting for you, this book will remind you that the life you long for doesn’t begin by becoming someone new, it begins by remembering who you have always been.

Because the person you are searching for has never been lost.

She has simply been waiting for you to remember her.

╰┈➤Book Details 

● Title: She Forgot She Was Free
● Author: Giselle Mascarenhas
● Genre: Self Help
● Sub-genre: Inner Child Self Help/Transformational Self Help/Motivational Self Help
● Language:English
● Pages: 132
● Paperback ISBN: ‎ 979-8234125965
● ASIN: B0H6M1PSHT
● Publisher: Mija Media House
● Publication Date: June 23, 2026
● Price: Hardcover $37.99, Paperback $25.81, Kindle $9.99
● Amazon: https://a.co/d/04aiKYWO
● Purchase Signed Copy: https://signedcopy.netlify.app/

Your book, Lost Valley, Lost Innocence, had to have been an incredibly intense process due to the fact you were writing about deeply personal trauma. How did you navigate the emotional toll of revisiting these memories while structuring them into a narrative for the public?

 

It was a process of stopping and starting. I cried, became angry, and sometimes struggled to get the words out. My wife, Darlene, stayed with me through the rewrite. Her support mattered enormously; I could face memories I had carried alone for so long with someone beside me.

In shaping the narrative, I kept returning to what Greg and I understood as boys. We did not recognize everything that was happening to us as grooming. Attention could feel like affection, and belonging could make danger difficult to see. The adult perspective in the book helps explain that confusion.

Humor and ordinary childhood experiences also belong to the story. They help readers know the boys we were and understand how the abuse entered our lives.

 

Your childhood friend Greg Connor is central to this story. How did his memory and your bond influence the perspective and tone you chose to maintain throughout the book?

 

Greg’s friendship shaped the way I remembered those years. Before Lost Valley, we had built forts, shared secrets, and created a world that belonged to us. He knew how to make me laugh when I thought I would never laugh again.

I wanted his humor and energy to remain alive on the page. Laughter and pain sit close together in the book because they did in our lives.

Our bond kept the story personal. I wanted readers to care about Greg and understand how abuse strained a friendship that had meant so much to us.

 

 

A major theme in your book is institutional betrayal. What specific changes or accountability measures do you believe organizations like the Boy Scouts of America still need to implement today to truly protect children?

 

Scouting America already has rules for background checks, training, two-adult leadership, restrictions on private adult-child contact, and reporting suspected abuse to authorities. I want those safeguards consistently enforced in every local unit, with evidence that they are working.

I would press for independent reviews that examine whether concerns reach the proper authorities promptly, whether children are protected while concerns are investigated, and whether leaders complete corrective actions. Families should be able to read meaningful findings while children’s and survivors’ identities remain protected.

There must also be safe reporting channels beyond local leadership, protection against retaliation, and consequences for anyone who conceals abuse. Survivors should have a meaningful role in evaluating safeguards and training.

An organization should be able to show what happened after a warning: who acted, how children were protected, and whether failures were corrected.

Current Scouting policies: Safeguards and reporting and required training.

 

When the St. Louis Boy Scout Council blocked you from speaking to active troops years ago, what did that communicate to you about institutional self-preservation versus child safety?

 

In 1988, I was a father and a Den Leader offering to help Scouts recognize grooming. A Council representative rejected my proposal. As I recall his response in the book, he told me that “such delicate matters belong at home, not in a public forum.”

To me, that put discomfort about discussing abuse ahead of the opportunity to warn children. I knew how easily danger could hide behind a trusted adult’s attention, and I wanted boys to have words and warnings that Greg and I had lacked.

I still believed in Scouting’s ideals. The rejection showed me how far an institution could fall short of the values it taught. Afterward, I began writing my story at night.

 

 

What is the primary message you hope fellow survivors of childhood trauma and trafficking take away after reading your firsthand account?

 

The responsibility belongs to the adults who exploited you. Being frightened, staying silent, or feeling attached to someone who hurt you does not make you responsible for what they did. I needed decades to begin understanding that about my own life.

I also want survivors to know that their experiences matter, whether they speak publicly, seek support privately, or are still trying to find words. They deserve to decide what they share and with whom.

I spent years fearing how my family would see me if they knew. Other survivors may recognize that fear. I hope my account helps them feel less alone and gives them some room to question the shame they have carried.

 

What’s next for you?

 

I’m working on the audiobook and continuing to reach readers through interviews and outreach. I’m also working toward adapting Lost Valley — Lost Innocence as a minimum eight-episode limited streaming series, with enough time to explore the friendship between Greg and me and the consequences of what happened.

My priority is getting the story into people’s hands. If readers believe the book has merit, an honest review or a recommendation can help it reach another survivor or someone responsible for a child’s safety.

Two best friends. One hidden network. A childhood stolen under the cover of Scouting.

 

From 1964 to 1967, Kenny Tipton and Greg Connor were barely teenagers when men they had been taught to trust groomed and sexually exploited them through Boy Scout camps, trips, and activities.

 

What began at Lost Valley Boy Scout Camp outside St. Louis grew into an organized network that carried the boys through more than twenty states and into the hands of businessmen, law-enforcement officers, politicians, priests, educators, and other powerful men.

 

To survive, Kenny and Greg depended on each other. They made rules, kept secret records, negotiated with predators, and used intelligence, loyalty, and dark humor to hold on to some measure of control. As the danger escalated, they became caught in blackmail, betrayal, violence, and crimes that would haunt Kenny for decades.

 

Lost Valley – Lost Innocence is Ken Tipton’s firsthand account of stolen childhoods, institutional failure, buried secrets, and the lifelong consequences of survival.

 

But at its heart is something the men who exploited them could not take away: the friendship between two boys who protected one another when the adults around them would not.

 

Decades later, Ken finally breaks the silence.

 

Told with brutal honesty and unexpected humor, this is a survivor memoir about friendship, resilience, guilt, and the courage required to confront the past.

 

Some stories are difficult to believe because they are too horrifying to imagine.

 

This one happened.

 

Lost Valley – Lost Innocence is available at Amazon.

 

╰┈➤Book Details 

🏕 Title: Lost Valley –  Lost Innocence
🏕 Author: Ken Tipton
🏕 Genre: Memoir
🏕 Sub-genre: Sexual Assault/True Crime
🏕 Language:English
🏕 Pages: 365
🏕 Paperback ISBN: 979-8234067685
🏕 Publisher: TBRIS Media, Inc.
🏕 Publication Date: June 22, 2026
🏕 Price: Hardcover $27.99, Paperback $18.99, Kindle $7.99, FREE with Kindle Unlimited