Kevin Stafford 0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the conversations with Coach’s podcast. Once again, as you can probably tell from the sound of my voice, I am smiling because I’ve already been having an excellent conversation you just too bad, you’re gonna have to listen to our next episode. I’m already I’ve already decided I’m having Christine Meier back on, she has been an absolute delight. It was honestly just an effort to keep reminding myself that this needed to be recorded. I just wanted to keep talking with her. So we’re gonna continue the conversation here for your benefit as well. Let me introduce you a little bit to Christine. Christine has been on the podcast before but before I was the host, so this is kind of one of those returning guests. First time meetups. I love these. These are great. Christine coaches thought leaders and influencers who are deeply interested in confidently creating their life, through the masterful understanding of their own empowerment. Her clients are passionate, life loving humans, who already have a track record of success, who understand that coaching is not a luxury, and that hiring her will exponentially affect their lives in powerful and positive ways. There’s lots more to say. But I think it’s just time to start the conversation or restart the conversation, Christine. It’s a pleasure. It’s already a pleasure to meet you. And I’m so glad you’re here for the podcast today.
Christine Meyer 1:08
My clients, I’m really happy to have met you now and to be here again.
Kevin Stafford 1:13
So we were we were kind of like talking a little bit via email and talking a little bit before I hit record about what to talk about. And a lot of times when I first meet a coach, I like to dig into their biography like how they got their starters, a coach, what their coaching practices like, but since you’ve already been on before and kind of talked about that, and the conversation will probably go there naturally anyway. But we were noodling on a topic that I find I have just since you laid it on me, I found it continually fascinating. And it’s the idea of one’s thoughts, a person’s thoughts being their reservations for the future. And I kept, I’ve been thinking about all the different concepts and analogies to pull from that. So why don’t you start talking about how, how that line that concept informs your coaching. And let’s just continue our back and forth?
Christine Meyer 1:58
Well, it informs my coaching in every single sense of the word, because that’s really what I am always imparting to my clients, and also what I remind myself of in my own life, I coach others, but I’m also coaching myself constantly, and reminding myself of what my mood and attitude asking myself what my mood and attitude is in this moment and what kind of reservation I’m making in the future. And so what I mean by your thoughts are like making a reservation into your future is really that your thoughts? The power that you have is now and what you’re thinking about and speaking about right now is perpetuating something is in the process of creating something. And so we often there’s, there’s so much to observe out in the world, good and bad air quotes here good and bad, positive and negative. And, and there’s so much to observe in our own lives and in the lives of others that are close to us. And oftentimes, the conversation goes to what’s not working, the conversation goes to what you’re having an issue, what with the conversation goes to the things that you want to improve what you’re actually complaining about. And so and so when you when you want to take a trip, when you want to take a vacation, you would clickety click, click, click on your computer and make a reservation for where you want to go the time that you want to go. And the places that you want to see possibly while you’re there. And and your thoughts are the same, your thoughts are making a future reservation for you. And the more you talk about it, the more you think about it, the more you’re perpetuating it, and the more you’re guaranteeing the that event to happen. And so I like to ask what reservation what kind of reservation Are you making, if you want to go to a beautiful restaurant, you’re you’re not going to make physically make the reservation at a restaurant that you don’t want to go to you are going to take the time to make the reservation for where you want to go. So my question is, why aren’t we doing that more deliberately with our thoughts and our attention?
Kevin Stafford 4:07
Absolutely, it’s I love it’s, it’s, it’s a way to make something that a lot of people have trouble really wrapping their minds around really getting their hands on, it’s probably a better way to say it because it makes it tangible. A lot of times when you’re thinking about when you’re thinking about your thoughts, I mean, just think about that phrase I just uttered thinking about your thoughts. It gets very philosophical, when you start to encounter it at the beginning. And it’s I think it’s such an important element of what coaching really does provide is it takes some of those things that are at least for you in some ways for a person a little intangible or at least hard to get their hands on their minds around to really grapple with or manipulate or move in the way that they want and move it and used so that’s a such a perfect analogy. Like I said, I’ve been loving it ever since you first shared it with me really does bring it brings it into something that people have an experience with. They’re like Oh, I understand what that feels like when I make the wrong reservation or I make the reservation for you know, a place name. blank and there’s this other place that’s like one letter different. And oops, I mixed up the reservations. And now I’m at this restaurant or that one. I just loved like all the different kind of tangible. It’s like, Oops, I wasn’t very intentional. I can maybe I kind of like, didn’t think about this, maybe I didn’t think it through maybe I didn’t read the reviews. And I’ve ended up with an experience I ultimately didn’t want. How can I avoid that in the future? I’ll just I’ll do my I’ll read the reviews, I’ll do the research. Maybe I’ll call ahead and make sure all the different ways in which you’ve experienced that disappointment of a failed reservation or a subpar experience. And then just thinking about how your thoughts are doing that for you, when you’re setting your goals, when you’re setting yourself up, when you’re allowing yourself to think or dwell in certain ways. You’re making a reservation for a future place that you might be a future moment. Yeah.
Christine Meyer 5:49
Yeah. And and I like to introduce it at this place in the conversation. Also, it’s about what kind of reservations are you making with your kids? What kind of reservation reservations are you making with your partner? What kind of reservations are you making with your business? What kind of reservations are you making with yourself in terms of moving through time, and how you feel about aging, again, air quotes. And so there are all kinds of future reservations that you’re making about your day to day day to day day to day interactions and things that you think about that you’re not going to like that you’re not you’re not taking any time to really ask yourself, Do I like this reservation? Do I like what I’m creating in my future? Do I like what I’m experiencing now. And, and I like to think of in terms of avoiding something, because anything that you think about, you’re not avoiding it, avoiding it, you’re including it, okay, and so so what kind of future reservations Do you want to make with your relationships with your kids, if you’re talking about your kids, in in a particular way, and talking about how much they’re misbehaving or how, what crappy grains they’re getting, or, or or though some of those things are realities, right? Some of those things are things that you are experiencing, but at some point, you have to get off of, of the problem, focus the the the things that you’re hung up on, and start imagining and feeling for and creating more of that which you do want in your now. Because ultimately, it will, the more you talk about it, the more propensity you have to talk about it, and the easier it becomes to talk about it. And so you’re wearing you’re you’re carving a well worn path to that future reservation. So I’d love to hear what this idea intrigued you, I’d love to hear more how you understood it and and if you since our first email about it, if you how you thought it, what I meant, and how you interpreted it. And if you’ve applied it for yourself, what was intriguing to you about this?
Kevin Stafford 7:56
Yeah, there’s kind of kind of a two part that really like both a sort of a conceptual aspect to it. And then sort of a biological aspect to it, because I think about and I’ll my limited understanding of like neuroscience, for example, and, and psychology and the way certain thoughts and the way the brain works, where certain certain pathways can become more readily capable of passing energy, light thought, you know, the actual, like, physically the brain synapses, the more that they’re used, and how we’re just at the beginning of understanding how that works in the human brain, especially around from bigger to bigger issues and bigger topics like deep trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, Addiction Addictions, certain like things that we’re kind of beginning to understand that concept of the well worn groove. And that by itself is just like, that opens up a whole world of, of human discovery that I love to think about. And I love to see how it applies to my own life and the lives of those I care about love. At the same time, it gets me thinking a lot about something, quite frankly, that I do think about and examine quite a bit. And that’s intention. And that’s how, like, where, and how much of a lack of intention again, even even the way I’m talking about it is a little bit vague. And I find it that I find that to be a an obstacle when trying to communicate with myself as well as with other people about the nature of intention and how it’s so important to be living intentionally. And the thing that really drew me to this analogy is the way that it makes a, a sort of a difficult to grasp concept like intention intentionality is something that’s talked about a lot, but not very well understood or well applied. And gives it gives it some consequences. It gives it to meet something that you can really be like, you can kind of feel in your in your gut and in your heart and be like ooh, yeah, I guess I’m not living very intentionally. I’m not making decisions, not thinking things through and like reckoning with the consequences. And I’m allowing myself to stay locked into intentions that maybe I like created for myself a long time ago. I just keep doubling down on them, largely not largely just due to inattention, I’m just allowing them to remain and that allowance is becoming its own kind of decision, its own kind of intention. And so I’m getting into those grooves, another word for group is getting into those ruts that I, you know, it’s that it’s hard for me to hop out of park for me to even see that I’m in because again, my perspective has completely changed by the fact that I’m, I’m down in a rut, I’m just kind of stuck in a groove. And so when I look around, it’s hard to see where I might be going. Whereas when a coach comes in, and this, of course, because my brain always goes to like how a coach can really help you get out of ruts like this, a coach can come into your situation, not in that same rut, see the same things you’re seeing. And they also see what the world looks like outside of that, right. And they kind of they can look back, as you, you know, are vulnerable with them. And as you allow them to see into your life, they can look back and say, Oh, you’ve been in this little rut for a while. Here’s what I’m seeing. What are you now what are you seeing? What are you experiencing? And then the coach comes back with that question. It’s like, so what about, what about this? What if you just climbed out of that rut? What then and then that that guidance that a coach provides that quit after that right question at the right time, can be exactly what you need to interrupt, to get out of that rut to like to pause and realize, hey, wait a minute, I could do things differently. And so I’d like and that I even as I’m describing it, I’m feeling a little bit of that tingle of the realization that that there’s this really nothing quite like it and why I’m such a, as everyone here who’s listening will know it’s such a such an avid proselytizer for coaching, because of that, because of that moment.
Christine Meyer 11:35
That’s great. And, and so to your point, I like to give, I like to give a broad perspective of what could be happening, that’s some universal foundations about things. And then I like to make it tangible. I’d like to make it practical. Because if it’s just left out there, it’s just theory. It’s just theory. And there are multiple ways of applying things that I might be coaching someone on, certainly, and I will, I will weave that into their preferences and their, their tendencies and so on. So I’ll find individual ways for you to apply this and sometimes universal ways, but certainly when we’re thinking about your thoughts are like making a future reservation into your future. And you wonder, well, how Yeah, okay, great. That’s great knowledge. I got it. That makes sense. Now, how do I apply that? How do I use that information and actually apply it and and the way you start sort of internalizing it, and recognizing what kind of future reservation you’re making is, by the, by how you’re feeling right now, in this moment, as I’m thinking about this, as I’m talking about this, as I’m, as I’m imagining this, or having a nightmare on purpose, I like to say in this moment, how am I feeling you see an end often people riegert They’re having, it’s like having a nightmare on purpose. They’re thinking about future with concern, worry, stress, fear, whatever, whatever that might be. And I’m not ever implying that any of those emotions are wrong, what I want people to start understanding is that those emotions are indicators for you, those emotions are information for you to say, I’m feeling fearful right now. That doesn’t mean that the, the reservation I’m making right now, because I’m having a moment of fear is going to happen, the thing that I’m fearing is going to happen. That means my fear is an indicator that I’m in the process of making a reservation, I’ve just maybe flipped open My Computer and and I’m just about to get on online to make a reservation for a flight that I don’t really want to take. And so I like to have people then start understanding that your emotions are constantly providing you with information about what kind of reservations you’re going to make in the future. And if you keep visiting that emotion, if you keep visiting that perspective, and, and feedback of emotion. If you keep visiting that thought and feedback of emotion in the same way consistently, then yeah, some things are going to start coming into your experience that feel like that reservation that matched the reservation you made. And so caring about how you feel is really important than caring about caring about how you feel, using your emotions as information not as a reason to beat yourself up and not as a reason to wear it all over your sleeve, and hang around in it longer. But it’s a choice because your life right now is a series of choices that you’ve made before. You didn’t get here without making choices either. Either obliviously, making choices, or intentionally to your point making choices. And so if you take your now and you think of those things, my life, the creation of my life, I’m the creation of my life and I’m also the creator of my life. I’ve created me so far. Are and I continue to create me from here and now. And I’m also creating my life and the contents and the results of it. And so if I think of, if I make how I feel important, I take my, my emotional guidance, feedback, and then I make a decision. Do I want to stay on this reservation? Is this the kind of reservation that I want to make? And if I decide in that moment? Well, yeah, it is. Because I’m in my rut, and I can’t get out, then then fine. At least I have the understanding that if I continue this, I’m making that reservation is getting closer. And if I say no, I that’s not really what I want, then then I can start again, some some methods of approach would be alright, then what can I think about right now that feels better than this? How good can I feel? Could I feel better than this? What else could I look at? And think about that feels better? So you start asking yourself, I wrote some questions down? How happy can I be? How good can I feel what feels good to think about right now? What can I remember? From my past that feels good? What can I think about into my future that I’m looking forward to and the other day I gave this analogy of, of sunshine, clouds and rainbows. And, and there, there’s a, there’s a sort of a practical application, what we were just talking about in terms of understanding how you feel. If you sit in your now and I asked you to pick a subject that feels like sunshine. Hmm. I got one. Okay. And then so you have an emotion associated with that. You maybe have a few. But if you were to pick one emotion, to go with that subject, what is it?
Kevin Stafford 16:55
Affection is the first word that came to mind. But it’s not strong enough. It’s sort of just a warmth, compassion. I was thinking about my love of animals and how I
Christine Meyer 17:04
was thinking what came across was love. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That that I
Kevin Stafford 17:08
think you’re away from that word because of how how overused how, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Very well,
Christine Meyer 17:15
very much overused and used in the wrong context and misunderstood. I love you so much. I’m really worried about you. That can’t be possible.
Kevin Stafford 17:24
That wasn’t a great example. Okay.
Christine Meyer 17:27
Okay. So so then, so then the cloud, I asked you to think of a subject that feels like a cloud. Okay, if you don’t have one,
Kevin Stafford 17:38
I’ve got one. Yeah.
Christine Meyer 17:40
And then one feeling word associated with that cloud.
Kevin Stafford 17:47
First word, I’m willing to share the first word of mine was was confusion. Okay. And then resentment comes right after that.
Christine Meyer 17:58
That’s interesting. You’ve been in a loop of confusion. And then you keep Ah, yeah, and so you resent your? Alright, so we’ve got that. All right, then rainbow something, something that you’re looking forward to, in your future, a subject, an event, that kind of thing? Something that you’re looking forward to in your future? And and what feeling emotion what emotion Do you have around that? Oh.
Kevin Stafford 18:31
Active hope, with a with a strong feeling of hope, because hope is like something that I want to be happening in the future. It’s something that is it’s present and future. It’s, it’s, it’s like it’s a vector. And so there’s something less passive than hope, something more active than just hope, in action, and that might be better anticipation, weariness, immediately with full eager, ergo, eager, eager, and, honestly, I’m thinking about the way this podcast has developed. But it doesn’t mean that and by say that it’s podcasts, I mean, talking with coaches, and I’m just like, I’ve drawn so much from it. It’s so presently delightful, and it’s honestly, it’s become something that I look forward to on such a regular basis. I mean, just look at me right now. I’m getting so much out of this conversation completely personally. I love and it’s just like, whenever, like, whenever I think about it, I just think of this. Honestly, I thought of the arc of a rainbow. And I was like, hi, Wait, are we forward? That’s exactly what it made me feel.
Christine Meyer 19:34
Okay, so the point of what I just had you do really is to, to, to blend it with what we were just talking about in terms of making a reservation for your future and then how you know what you’re reserving in your future by paying attention how you’re feeling. So I wanted to demonstrate to you that your thought about the sunshine felt good. That sunshine subject your thoughts About the clouds subject didn’t feel good. Your thought about the rainbow subject felt good. And so that as a demonstration to where your thoughts are going, you’re having feeling responses to all of those things. And that subject where you feel confusion, the idea, certainly my approach and my offering here is, is that you don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about that subject. Because it causes you confusion. And a lot of people want to get on that subject and say, Well, I want clarity about that subject, or that’s not usually what comes out of their mouth, what they’re doing is saying, I’m so confused, I’m so confused, I’m so confused, I can’t figure it out, or I haven’t been able to figure it out. And this goes on perpetually in motion. And so as you do that, you are, in essence making more reservations in your future about that subject in confusion. So you say, Well, how do I get out of the confusion? I say, well think about your rainbow, or think about your sunshine. And yeah, but I’m not addressing the confusion. I know we’ll get there. Because once if you think enough about your rainbow and or your sunshine, then that has to elevate you that has to lift you out of your rut to help you access thoughts that are not feeling so confusing. So and and into the loop of resentment thereafter. And so that’s the idea to recognize that wherever your thoughts go, you have are having a feeling response, and you want to start recognizing where your landmines are, so that you you, again, we’re not gaslighting anything, we’re not saying ignoring how you feel. In fact, we’re taking the most important feedback that you can ever get for yourself, which are your motions and saying, that’s a lot landmine right now, let’s not go there. Because, again, let’s do an analogy. You wouldn’t purposely walk into a landmine, would you? No. No. And sometimes if you’re not too far into the rut that you’re you’re usually in relative to the subject, then you can say, all right, well, I just found my I just asked myself how I’m feeling. And I’m recognizing the confusion is there, but I didn’t, I didn’t get really going on in this moment. Is there something to the questions that I was saying earlier? Is there something that that I can think about this? Whatever this subject is that feels slightly better? Well, yeah, I’m not confused about in there all the time. That’s, that’s a little bit better. And that’s all whatever I’m ever asking anyone to do is that little bit? Okay, well, so I’m not confused about it all the time. And I found myself confused about it for a while. But you know, what, there have been other subjects in my life where I was confused, and I am no longer and so I see that staying in this in this perpetual motion of confusion and focusing on it from that vantage point is not really helpful to me. And so I’m, I’m kind of actually now that I’m thinking about and I’m kind of feeling hopeful that this confusion to this too shall pass. What’s for lunch now, like, then off you go, right? Off you go, where’s my coffee, we’re, whatever, off you go. But you made that effort, that little effort to ship that into a better feeling place was extremely productive, nothing has changed, your thing hasn’t been solved. We didn’t come up with a solution. We didn’t make it go away or anything but you showed yourself that through your focus. You can affect how you feel and you can shift how you feel and you can start making more of those future reservations that you want period I
Kevin Stafford 23:45
have so many more things I want to talk about with you because this has been I looked up at the clock while we were doing this and I just realized I’ve I’ve been both a good and a bad host because we’ve been talking for 45 minutes already been for 25 on the recording we basically I just completely lost track of time in all the right ways. And if it wasn’t already snoring I was definitely not snoring if it was sealed already but it’s even more sealed now I’m having you back on at least like a half dozen more. This conversation is I think this speaks very well to you and who you are as a coach because you it just an over the course of the conversation you demonstrated so in in this crystalline beautiful fashion, exactly how your how your coaching can work. And thank you, thank you for providing that for me. Give me the opportunity to submit to it because it was really just like, oh, okay, we’re going this way. This is great. I’m gonna lean into it. And honestly, like I’ve yeah, I’ve my perspective is slightly shifted. Because you you said you helped me to summon those, those thoughts and those feelings up in a in a different way that I’m done. I’m used to summoning them up. So I mean, yeah, there’s a long way around it, just saying. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This was an amazing conversation. This was an amazing exercise. I think this is an amazing episode of the podcast. I think this is really like just It is chock full of goodness for the audience. And I am I am 100% sliding into your LinkedIn DMS and like probably in like April or May and then maybe later on in the summer and then Oh which falls it leaves are changing let’s I wonder what Christine’s doing
Christine Meyer 25:17
the year What is she doing now? Let’s have a wrap up, made a reservation into her future to be here.
Kevin Stafford 25:24
Yeah, making a reservation for your time and my future. Before I let you go and I do really need to let you go. But where where can people get more of you? Where can people find out more about you? Where can people learn more? Where can people connect with you? Do you have like a preferred like active social media where it’s just like hey, message me here you have a website people can go to to opt in for stuff like Where can people get more of this?
Christine Meyer 25:48
Well, my website is Christine Meyer coaching.com. I have kept it. I’ve written a book that was called Keep it simple, smarty pants. So just to demonstrate that everywhere I am everywhere you look, I’m Christine Meyer coaching. So LinkedIn, I’m on their Instagram, I’m on there and Facebook. I’m not really really, really active on Instagram or Facebook. But I’m there.
Kevin Stafford 26:12
Yeah, you’re available there. But the
Christine Meyer 26:15
avail I’m absolutely available there. I do check DMS and same thing with LinkedIn. And I do post regularly on LinkedIn.
Kevin Stafford 26:23
Excellent. Well, once again, for having me. Yeah, I’m so grateful. And I just this is this has been great. And now I have to rip the band aid off and hit the stop record button. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for everything that you do everything that you’ve done everything that you’re going to do. And I’m just again, I’m super stoked to get to meet you.
Christine Meyer 26:42
Likewise, I’m really happy we had this conversation
Kevin Stafford 26:45
and to the audience out there, you’ve been listening. You know what it’s all about, I hope I hope you got like a 10th of the benefit that I got from this conversation because if you did you’re gonna go right over to country Meyer coaching right now and find out more and in the meantime here on this feed, we will get a chance to talk to you again very soon.
