with guest Brenda Baird

Brenda is a highly sought-after Executive Leadership and Mentor Coach who is an exceptionally accomplished businessperson, with strong financial acumen, a well-regarded expert in leadership and talent development, very experienced in leading high-growth and fast-paced organizations, and a mentor coach of professional coaches.

www.brendabairdcoaching.com

Joe Bukartek empowers people to live intentionally. As host of the podcast, Intentionally Ever After [www.IntentionallyEverAfter.com], Joe is an ultramarathon runner and pickleball enthusiast, living at the beach with his family as part of his own curated intentional lifestyle.

As a board certified Intentional Lifestyle Coach, Joe helps individuals to have lives and careers that are wildly more fulfilling. Ready to curate a life of intention? Connect with Joe on his website [www.joebukartek.com] or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joebukartek/.]

Joe also helps emerging adults build lifelong success beyond the nest in his specialized program, Intention to Launch. This results-driven partnership guides participants as they prepare to leave home and discover their ideal lives. Ready to launch? Check out [www.IntentionToLaunch.com]

If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe, either on or off the air, visit https://www.joebukartek.com/contact

Check out more episodes at intentionallyeverafter.com

Transcript

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We think we might be living intentional by. I'm going to journal. I'm going to meditate. I'm going to you know, I'm going to walk every day. I'm going to do whatever the doing thing is. If you don't have the internal Who do I want to be and how do I want to show up in the world? Then all of that is a little skewed. This is intentionally ever after. Join Intentional Lifestyle coach Joe Booker Tech for a series of personal conversations and coaching sessions with various people about how living with intention shows up for them. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Intentionally Ever After. Today, I am very excited to be speaking with the masterful Brenda Baird. Brenda, welcome. Welcome, Joe. Wow, what an introduction. Thank you. Brenda, will you kindly introduce yourself to folks? I sure will. I'm a professional executive leadership coach. I live in Tennessee. I have a master certified coach credential, which is what you're referencing when you say masterful. Thank you very much for that. And I'm a grandmother and a wife and mom and all kinds of things that I wear as hats. But my pleasure to be with you today to talk about living intentionally. Great topic. Excellent. I'm so glad that you joined me and I'm excited to hear your version of Living intentionally. Brenda, I'd like to start doing these questions in a rapid fire mode if you are prepared to do so. Sure. Yeah. Ready? Okay. I do promise we will go back into each one so you can defend yourself. I'm sorry. So you can explain a little further. Your. Your responses here, Brenda, What does it mean to live intentionally? Yeah, that is such a powerful question, Joe, because when you ask me to be on the show and I thought about the topic, I just googled it just for a point of reference of what is the world see as living intentionally? And quite frankly, there was a whole lot of doing in the description. And I don't see living intentionally that way. I see living intentionally as being a state of mind, being that that's that's how I look at it. Oh, good. We're going to dig into that. Thank you. What is one change in habit that has had an exponential payoff? Oh, my gosh. Was the realization, Joe, that the world didn't circle around me and that the things that happened around me were about me. Greatest revelation in my whole life took me a really long time. Like I was in my fifties before I realized that not everything was about me. What if you said no to that has made a significant impact in your life? What I have said no to is this is related to that whole concept of the world does not circle around me and it is being able to say no to the things that I don't want to do. And so sometimes I turn away work. Sometimes I turn away social engagement engagements. Sometimes somebody asks me to do something and I'm able to say, I can't do that here now, but I might be able to do it later. And that has allowed me to stay more present. So that's the big takeaway from being able to set the boundaries and say no. And I think it's strengthened my relationships, quite frankly, and that would be another good place for us to talk more about. Awesome. What area in your life is just about perfect? I think perfect. You know, I don't buy into the concept of perfect Joe, but something that's working really well for me right now are my personal relationships with my immediate family. That is been the result of the pandemic. And I am eternally grateful for that. Who is someone you admire and what do you admire about them? Well, I was going to give you a leader that I have admired all of my life, and he has been an influential person for me. But just now, as you asked me that question again, what came up for me is my granddaughters, my two granddaughters, particularly the oldest one, Evelyn. She has a phenomenal way of just being present in the moment no matter what's happening. And I think we get that from being hanging around children. And she is curious and she really embraces the idea of non-judgmental and can so easily ask for what she wants and has just know no obstacles that keep her from doing that. So I know she's only four, but I really admire that. And in this childlike person who seems to have some skills that I wish I had more of what you imagine some people admire about you. I think generally what I hear from my clients, as well as my family and my friends, is my ability to listen and to just hold space while they while they speak and they can feel heard. And then I think from a business perspective, people would say that I have a a methodical way of listening and then coming to conclusions and finding solutions to complex problem. Those have always been there to sort of characteristics of me along with being trustworthy. That often appears on assessments or feedback forms, that sort of thing. So good listeners probably at the root of all of that. Brenda Baird This concludes the Rapidfire portion of this interview. Thank you very much. Rapid Fire and I survived. Oh, you did pretty well. You did pretty well. You gave gave a lot of sustenance here. We have a lot to chew on. So thank you for that. We do? Yeah. Back to it. Living intentionally. You alluded to the fact that when you looked it up, that looked into how the world might define it. It tended to have to do with the action, the doing more so than the being. But you feel differently. I do. Yeah. So I really spent most of my life from a very early age. I can remember whatever I was trying to achieve or get or work towards or accomplish. Everything was always outside of myself and many times I was met with feedback that wasn't stellar, results that were not on target. And for me personally, tremendous stress and what I realized was I'd gotten myself on this hamster wheel, even though I thought I was intentional about setting goals, I was being purposeful in the things I was doing. But I had entered into the world and orientated myself in a way in which I was there to get something. And that get something was just just to fill this hole in my own heart for something else that I needed. And so when we do that through this external view of the world, we think we might be living intentional by, I'm going to journal, I'm going to meditate, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to walk every day. I'm going to do whatever the doing thing is. If you don't have the internal Who do I want to be and how do I want to show up in the world, then all of that is a little skewed. And so it was a hard lesson to learn, but it is how I show up today is thinking about how do I want to show up and how do I want to be, and I find greater peace and less stress and actually greater results in the things that I'm trying to accomplish. So that's what I think about living intentionally, less worried about the outside. Get do what can I do and more about how can I be, how can I serve, what can I give? And I get better results from it. Yeah, No, I appreciate that different framing of it. I'm going to push back, if I may. Sure. Thank you. Okay, good. I'm with you. I'm with you on the the intent, the thought, the connection with what matters to you. And then what, though? Isn't there some action that results that matches that wouldn't that be part of living intentionally? Yes. Oh, absolutely. But I think what's most important is if I don't have the right mindset, if I don't come to whatever action it is that I'm going to take with the mindset of I am here to serve or give, I I'm here to share a part of me. I am here to show up in a way that I'm going to feel really good that's aligned with my values, that's aligned with the things that are important to me. What that does is opens up the many choices that I have to make in what action do I take and what things do I do, and at what veracity do I do them because I'm reaching for something that for me is more in alignment who I am. So there's absolutely an action step where to do list for me, things that I have to do, but it's all begins with the who do I want to be? And if you don't have that piece, you can get on that hamster wheel where you're trying to live in a way where you're going to get something. So I'm going to live in a way so that I can get to a place where I have no stress. You'll never find it. You'll just you'll get busier. You'll have more things to do. You'll have to meditate now, in a morning that feels very rushed in and you're stressed out about or I'm going to have to journal at the end of the day and I'm tired and I don't want to. This is the point that I'm trying to make. If you come to all the things you need to do in the day with how do I want to be and what do I have to give that? What do I want to get from this? You will get a different outcome. I guarantee you you will get a different outcome and it will be a sustainable outcome. That's the thing. That's that's key. Thank you for adding that piece. I think you're highlighting something. You can't take a shortcut to this, right? Because I think some of the practices and activities you're referencing, like the journaling or the meditation part, people might jump on board, be like, Well, I'm going to just jump in and do that, right? That's it. That's a bad practice by any means. But what you're saying, I think, is that without the reflection piece, first of all, do I want to be then that's that's just going to be simply a box to check, perhaps, or that's simply going to be a thing that you do would probably tell other people that you do it, because that's probably what you're going to get more from. Right? Is sharing the fact that you did all these things or put it on Instagram. That's right. Yeah. I'm going to create a reputation of someone who has all of these living intentionally habits. Well, so what if you're going to it with that mindset that I'm going to build a reputation that's getting something and you will never fulfill that mission? It's just not possible to do fleeting. And what happens often is let's just take the journaling idea. I want to I want to be able to journal. If you're not someone who expresses themselves through the written word, if that's not part of your value system, then journaling is going to become a chore and you might start out journaling and then eventually it won't happen anymore. And then you'll say, I don't know why I stopped journaling. That was really cool. You know, It made me look like I was really trying to keep my act together, but I couldn't keep it up. But if you're someone who expresses themselves through the written word, it's in alignment with who you are. It's how you want to be in the world. Then journaling just happens to you. You don't even have to carve out time for it. You're just doing it somewhere in your life. Yes, two questions are coming at me at once, and I don't know which one to ask you first. Okay, here we go. How do you calibrate back to that idea of who you want to be like when you get caught up in how you used to be prior to your fifties, perhaps when you're trying to go in after what you, you know, what do I get from this? If you catch yourself when you catch yourself feeling that way, perhaps, or in the midst of it, how do you calibrate back? I tell you, my body tells me. My body tells me as soon as I get out of alignment, soon as I start working, I am worried about the things that are none of my business. Quite frankly, my body gets tense in certain places. It also craves food that I shouldn't eat. It disrupts my sleep. I often will get a headache. So if I just stay in tune to my body schematically, I know if I've gotten off track. Do you have any somatic practices that you do on a regular basis? Yeah. So really is just quieting myself. I'm an early riser. This is something that has happened in my later years. I'm 62 and I've been doing this for probably, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 years now. I just have become an early riser and I covet that time, that early crack of dawn. Sometimes it's dark outside, sometimes the sun is just coming up and there's just a peacefulness in that. And so just getting in tuned with with that and just sitting quiet, you know, no screen time, no reading, no nothing, just sitting and being quiet. Some people call that meditation, but I actually have this practice of, you know, sitting on a pillow and closing my eyes or any of that just just being quiet in the world. I find that to be a great way to start the day. And then the other practice that I have is to go outside. So like after this call, I will just go outside and stand on my porch and I have the wonderful, beautiful view of the the woods and the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee to go out and look at. But that's what I do. That's wonderful. I'm also a fan of of the nothing of the morning Big fan nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Great. All right. So what happened, Brenda? What happened in your fifties that caused you to become enlightened? Yeah. Oh, I found myself one morning on the shower floor, and I didn't know how I got there. That's what happened to me. And we were living in South Florida at the time. I called my husband and said, I don't know what's going on. I have a bad headache. I just woke up on the shower floor. He came, ambulance the whole whole nine yards, CAT scans. Was it a stroke? Was it all of these terribly horrific things? And it was none of those. And my doctor said, why don't you take a couple of weeks off of work and get your thoughts together about why you think this might have happened? And my blood pressure was through the roof and I was taking medication to sleep and all these terrible things. And at the end of the two weeks, I went back to the doctor. Not much had changed and he said, I think you really need to step away and get your thoughts in place because all your blood work is in check, your blood pressure is high, you're not sleeping, something else is going on. And so I really had to do some big internal work to figure out. So, you know, for me, I thought it was a mental health issue. So I found a therapist to help me work through some things. But that was not completely it. And I'll tell you what, this is a true story. I was working in a corporation and I was so stressed out about that job, I just absolutely hated it. Things did not go the way that I wanted them to go. And I found myself in South Florida and I hated it. And everything around me was just to me at the time. I look back on it quite fondly now, but at the moment I really didn't. And one of the things that my job was going to require of me was to become a certified coach so that I could continue to build my leadership and talent development programs. I went to the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching, and they have residential models you have to go to. And I went to my third one, and as I was sitting through this weekend of self-exploration and understanding of energies and how we look at the world through these lenses that had been created by our experiences up until that moment. Oh gosh, it was like somebody just battered me over the head and said, you know, all this stuff, this crap you've been blaming on other people, you know where it starts. It starts in your own mind, and you better get that figured out. If you want to live longer and be happy and satisfied and fulfilled. And so I did some soul searching and I continued my coach training, which I now finally say saved my life because I believe that it did. Now, that didn't happen. I didn't go to that residential program and then say, Oh, I'm enlightened and I'm ready to walk away. Now. That was when I was like, I don't know. It's been almost ten, 15 years ago. All of that happened. It took a long time to get to this seat today where I can tell you I live intentionally by being something as opposed to doing something besides that really a majority of my life in doing space, I've got to do things in order to get the things that I need to be happy. And that was just not true. So it was becoming a coach that actually helped me through that and it's a lifelong journey. I'll work on it for the rest of my life. It's fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. I'm getting called back to a couple of things. This is the same couple of things the doctor telling you to get your thoughts in place. What kind of doctor is this? I know, but it the doctor that I needed to be in front of at that moment, the doctor who I said, What's wrong with me? And he looked me over medically and said nothing other than your worked up about something. I need to get your thoughts in order. And he was totally right. I mean, he couldn't give me the guidance I needed other than he just was just another assessment to say, you know, perhaps it's the way you're looking at your life. His recommendation was if you if he's happy, your job just quit this. Quit your job. That was his advice to me. And we also have to be careful along our journey of growth that we don't take everyone's advice because at the end of the day, the reality was that is what I did. I took a break, I took a leave from my job, and then eventually I quit my job. Today, though, after I've gone through my journey and I can look back on it fondly, to say all of those experiences make me who I am today. I could say that all of the challenges I felt in my corporate job were self-induced. So I wonder, had I not had a better perspective way back when, what might have turned out to be a different kind of career for me or a different kind of experience? I know it would have been a different experience if I hadn't internalized the behaviors of others being about me. So I know that to be true Now. The reality is I'm very grateful for all of it because it is who I am today and it's allowed me to have enough experience. I guess I'm a slow learner. Joe. It took me twice because prior to my corporate job I was self-employed. That was my first career and a similar kind of thing. I got a little burned out and ended up selling the business consequently, because it just it was just not fun anymore. And so I think had I had better control over who I was as a person and better mindset awareness, I think I don't know. A lot of things probably would be different, but I'm grateful for what I have now. Yeah, yeah. We can just take those experiences and imagine what we might have done differently. But at the same time, I'm what even though you likely would have experienced it differently and maybe wouldn't have had that brush with, you know, these medical challenges, right? Maybe it's still not what you would have wanted to do. Which leads us to the next question of what you say no to, which is you don't do what you don't want to do. And I love that. What do you mean by that? And I'm paraphrasing, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's one of the things that I put myself through when I sold my business businesses. It was almost this chaotic exercise, a mind mapping exercise of I wrote down on Flipkart. My whole house was filled with Flipkart and I had written down all the things that I did as a business owner, as a volunteer, as a community leader, as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister. I had all these things like everywhere. All these were the things that were pulling at me that was making me feel overwhelmed and burned out. And I looked at them and I thought, No wonder you feel chaotic. Look at this chaotic life. You built this place where you just have to be on stage all the time. You have to just produce all the time in order to keep up the accolades, to keep you feeling good. It's terrible. And then I took a red marker and circled the things that I enjoy where the things that you what are the things you did that you enjoyed and that quickly got down to like four or five things. One of those things being my family, my immediate family, my extended family, all the extended family go ahead. That we don't have enough time. But my immediate family, my children and my husband and my friends, my close friends, and how dear they were to me. And then the things about work that I really enjoyed and that was around helping others to leadership was something that was always of of interest to me. And that person that I admired, I knew him during this time of my business days. Yeah. So I thought that meant something. And so then I began to pursue avenues that got me network in a way that got me to this corporation in town where I was able to, you know, be an executive leader there. But it still wasn't completely what I wanted to do. It it was closer, but not completely. And then when I was in training, that's when I realized that the thing that I wanted to do was to help people have the same sort of breakthroughs that I was having like this. This is what it is so far that's been consistent for me. I have to say it kind of changes When I first when I first got into coaching, I thought, well, I'm going to coach new leaders that was familiar to me. And then as I was coaching, I started to attract people who were like me, people who were in leadership roles, who were finding themselves burned out or dissatisfied. And so I did that for, I don't know, probably ten years, and I still do that. But now in getting my master's certification in coaching, this place where you you've been coaching for a while, you have a lot of experience and a lot of training. I also help other coaches to become good coaches too, because I really do believe the society, the world society would be better off if everyone had a coach and the world needs more coaching now. It would be fabulous, wouldn't it? Really would. Yeah. I've just seen what impact it has had on my life. The therapy was good. It helped me identify some things. It also helped me to get more into my emotions. What was I actually feeling? Where did it come from? But then you can get kind of caught in the trap of sort of Walgreen in that. And I call it my pity pod. I just, you know, I could have stayed there forever blaming my mom and dad. Right. But it's always accessible. Those things are always available for us, right? Just right there. Yeah. Yeah. But what I've decided to do is to just look back on it and be thankful for it, give it some some grace that they did the best they could do with what they had as I did those first 50 years and now decide who do I want to be and how do I find fulfillment today and stay intentional about that through. That's great. Related question I hope feels related. Even if not, I appreciate you thinking about it. Who coaches you, if anyone? Yeah, I have. I actually have three coaches that are for a variety of different things. I have a personal coach who is just a coach that I turn to for help me think through this. I'm feeling this. I don't know why. And then I have a coach, super supervisor sort of thing that I turn to to say, you know, I'm having a client that's triggering this in me and it's a different kind of conversation. And then I also have a mentor coach that just helps me continue to build my skills. So yeah, so the, the personal, the core of who Brenda is has a coach, her coaching skill and how do I keep building skills. So I had three coaches actually and it's great. That's great. So that's why you want more coaches in the world because you're taking up a bunch. You don't have enough. That's right. Okay. That's pretty selfish, but. Okay, so the theme of relationships. Yeah. Was in a bunch of your answers so far. And then the rapid fire. So saying no to what you don't want to be doing and then talking about what in your life feels just about perfect. Talking about relationships. Yeah. Kind of frame up relationships for me and how how they matter too. Yeah. I have always been someone who's a bit extroverted and have an ability to network and connect with other people. But not all of those people share the same energy level as me. And so I found some people to be a little exhausting. So part of me saying no is the time that I spend with people who take from me as opposed to give to me and the relationships that I hold most dear today are the ones that these are the people that no matter what I have done, I know I can call them and they love me no matter what. It doesn't matter to them about anything. They're just there to love me. And so my children fall into that and my husband and I have a couple of really I'm blessed to have two or three really close, dear friends that I know. And no matter what happens, I can, I can call them. Yeah. So relationships are very important to me in the pandemic. A lot of people talk about how their family sort of fell apart. Our family actually grew closer because I think we realized we had kind of been taking advantage or we were kind of I don't know where word is taken for granted. That's the word. Thank you. The idea that we could always come together where I could call on you or we could get together at the drop of a hat. Right. And that was no longer the case. My daughter had a two year old. She was pregnant. Her husband was is an er air, and they lived in Illinois. I was in Tennessee. My husband is a few years older than me. Like we were people who could have been really impacted by the negative side of the pandemic. And as a family we came together to say, how do we want to how are we going to handle this as a family? This is a big thing. We've never been through before, and it just enriched our communication. It enriched our society to connect. So for a bit, it was via Zoom and FaceTime and those kinds of things. And now today we're back live and in person. And and we had to really prioritize family because my daughter was pregnant. My husband and I needed to be available for them should she have some sort of complication or when she was ready to give birth, we needed to go help take care of the two year old. So I'm grateful for the pandemic. I know it was a terrible, terrible thing. So much loss and pain and suffering and people have walked out of it not feeling like they were able to do what we did. But from my experience, it's really helped to enrich my relationships. And I'm grateful. It was fantastic. It sounds like you had an all hands staff meeting to come together and reassess the expectations, the rules, the roles, the responsibilities, what everyone would do. Yeah, everyone seemed to be on the same page they did, and we all lived our independent, separate lives, there's no doubt about it. But we they were calling it a bubble and our bubble was really tight there for a while where, you know, if, for example, if my son had to travel for some reason, he lives right in Illinois, right next to my daughter. So he was kind of first emergency contact. But honestly, we just stayed connected so that no matter what the circumstance, we kind of knew what each other was doing and and what support the other one needed from the other. And it it really it was beautiful for us. Will appreciate each other. That's fabulous. That's fabulous. How have things shifted now that we're, as you said, back in person? Yeah it's it's the same it's sustained itself and I think that that it has allowed us to reprioritize what's most important to us. And I don't think you go through, you know, so one of us, my daughter's husband, you know, he was on the front line every day in the E.R., Right. So he was seeing the worst of it and the the emotional pressure he went under. So he was the one who really needed our support the most. And he's the one who worried the most about all of us. And it's just been sustainable as a group of people. We've just decided how we want to how we want to be as a family and it's sustained. That's great. Is there anything that has shifted since the pandemic for you, whether it's specific to the relationship, sir or otherwise? You? I know I'm thinking about it, which means it's a really good question, Joe. Right. Silence is our reward has been totally unrelated. And you're like, why is the ask me that? That's still a possibility. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a I don't have a good answer for that. I'm sorry. No need. I'm sorry. Yeah. Perhaps it's so ingrained now. Subconsciously, it's just part. Maybe it's now. Could be like I said to you before, when we spoke, I don't often think about the past. I don't like, ruminate on the little things. You know, I don't spend a lot of going back. So it must be must be something little. The profound thing is the relationship thing. But yeah, yeah, I mean, meat. Yeah, I eat healthier now. So, you know, I walked through the pandemic and ended up losing something like £75. So. I'm sorry. Hang on. I know, I know what. So that that shifted that that's not in front of mind. That way. I would tell everyone I would walk through the streets. You know, I used to be £75 heavier. That's incredible. Yeah. It's a been a wonderful, wonderful outcome for me. Yeah, that is wonderful. Just do you mind giving us at least two and a half minutes on that? Well, so, you know, it's been that all happened in the last 18 months. Just an awareness of how you take care of yourself, how you take care of your body, what puts you into high risk, what made you susceptible to these things that were totally out of your control? And there are big pieces of it in which are in my sphere of influence. And I do have control over it. And so I just we just had to make a shift in approach, how we eat and why we eat. Oh, my gosh, the way why I ate that was I was kind of a the other big like if you think about I got to climb over this this obstacle and this obstacle and this obstacle to get a healthy mindset. Why I ate was this last thing I really needed to overcome. And so, ah yeah, spent a lot of time on the psychology behind why, why I ate and what I ate and what I was trying to do. And it was get Joe. It was to get a feeling that I was in control. And I'm not I'm only in control of this body. I'm in this mind that I have I don't have control over politics or the world or people's views or how people behave. I don't have a control over any of that. And eating a candy bar because they annoy me isn't going to help them help anything. I got to get to the you know, get to the reason. What is it about this experience I'm having with the person that I don't agree with that has me so worked up that I'm going to turn to food? Yes. And, you know, it's wow, that makes all the sense in the world. A can imagine. That was obvious. You know, when you were starting out right now, did you have a particular resource that you used other than your willpower to turn things around? Several things, actually. My position was one of them who said, you know, you're kind of embarking on a place here with your bloodwork, with your glucose number. You're not diabetic, but keep it up and you will be. And that startled me. And, you know, hearing that some of those markers, you know, being overweight, being diabetic, that those things made you you know, they call them co-morbidity characteristics, Right? And when someone tells you you have those, you're like, what? And so oh, so committed, kill you or this could kill you. Basically. That's that's like they don't want to die. I don't want to go. So let's let's think about what how did you get here, Brenda? How did you get to this place And so it was with his help. And then there's a software called Noom that has a lot of quick psychology readings about like, why people eat the way they do and help me to redefine what foods I could choose and how they how they better fuel my body. And it was shifting how I how I looked at what I was eating. So again, I could have and I did follow many diets throughout the years, you know, go to Jenny Craig, lots of things to try, say, oh, my gosh, I've tried them. All right. Restrict diets, all of that. Again, it was the doing that something outside of you, the doing. And it wasn't until I really spent some really dedicated time thinking about the beating of eating, how do I want to be when I eat? What is it that I want to eat? Why, that's really what shifted and made all the difference. So it's another way back around. Well done. Well, Noom is not official sponsor of the podcast, by the way, but yeah. So they do not know. They are not a sponsor of me either. They're just a that was just the same position that helped you. Who told you to get your thoughts in place? No different, Doctor. Yeah, man, We were going to have an endorsement from that guy that was my doctor in Florida who said, Get your thoughts together. And then this doctor said, You better get your eating in order. So listen to the doctor in there. Major takeaway. Yeah, Get a good doctor who will give you the really good information. But I guess in an indirect way, when you think about it he was telling me to you better get your get your act together. Yeah. To look to it deeper. Right. To look internally basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Awkward transition number two. Okay. Tell me about your admiration for the childlike ability to be present in particular that your granddaughter Evelyn exhibits. Oh, these two beautiful spirits, Evelyn and Violet. The presence that this childlike presence that they have. When you watch it and you experience it, it really, really, really made me realize that so much of those first 50 some years of my life, I didn't play enough. I was always worried about something and whatever that something was, I needed to either control it or protect myself from it. And so watching these two young girls growing up in a loving environment, these great parents, my son is an awesome uncle for these young girls. And I think we're pretty good grandparents, too. And and my son in law. So the family, another set of people who are just really phenomenal, loving people, it just has you come to realize that they're enthused as and for like the presence they have in the moment, that if you squash that in them, they'll grow up to be just like I was. And so seeing it in its raw form is just really been like, Oh, that's beautiful. I want more of that. I want to be fully present to whatever is happening where great reminders. Yeah, you know, so for them, it's whatever, whatever is happening in front of them and you see it in children, you know, they're just, they're just immersed in I'm coloring or I'm playing or there's a puppy or whatever, and they just dig it. I like, man, I want to live my life like that. How do you play nowadays? Yeah, So I have some hobbies that have developed. I'm a quilter. Another example, Joe, is this. When I first started quilting, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to make this thing so that I could give it to people so they would know that I loved them right? I wanted to get that back from this appreciation and all of this back more. I think that's a common feeling, don't you? I suppose it is. But today when I make a quilt, I'm thinking more about the giving of comfort to others. And so who I give the quilt to and what I want in return is different. But so anyway, I do a little, little bit of quilting and I have a little bitty tiny garden and I have flower gardens. And so that's kind of my hobby, so to speak. And then my husband is a wood turner, He has a big workshop and he works with wood, he builds furniture and he has a lathe and he makes bowls and all kinds of stuff. And I try to support him in his hobby and it's really an interest of mine too. Yeah, that's what I do for fun. And then, of course, travel to be with those grandchildren because that's a lot of fun too. Now it sounds like it right to be be around the presents in their hands, right? That's correct. That's great. Would you care to share your bonus person who you admire? And they talked about Evelyn, but your former trainer, is that what you were saying? Well, so when I was self employed, I was really active in the community and was a part of a lot of boards. One of the boards that I sat on was a community hospital board. And the CEO of that community hospital, he passed away just a few years ago. Suddenly he was the leader who helped form in my mind, when I think back of who was the leader you wanted to emulate and admire, it was him. And the thing that I so admired about his name is Dennis Miller Irons, and he was the CEO of Riverside Medical Center. The thing that I so admired about him was his ability to connect with people who were different, that he maybe it was their social status, maybe it was their health concern, it whatever it was, he was just able to connect with them and make them feel comfortable. And he was respectful and he always took time. And he was present during those conversations. And he was a visionary. He was out in front of the hospitals. I say the journey the hospital was and growing and providing services to the community. He was ten years in front of all of it, all of what was happening in the moment. His vision was so far out and I just admired his ability to do that, to be connected to the much larger purpose of the organization and to be able to bring us along with him. He could articulate things in a way. We could understand these really things that we kind of I'm not a physician. I don't understand that he he just had a way of of simplifying these things for us so we could understand and see what he was saying. So this would have been back in the nineties when this was happening. Then he came to this board one day and he said, This community needs an open heart center and it'll save lives. And a lot of people around the table were didn't understand that because you could go to Chicago. We were an hour from Chicago, you just go to Chicago or he was able to just continue to drip to us what the advantages of this would be. And ten years later, the hospital, he had grown the hospital in a way that it opened up the first open heart surgery center in the county, and it served the surrounding area in Illinois, this rural area, and in Indiana. And my father actually ended up being a patient who had to go through the center And what Yeah. And so all the things he said came to light right here in front of me, expert quality community care. My mom didn't have to travel to Chicago. She could go home at night, be in her own bed, she could come up and visit him. And all of us were that way. So I have just always admired his his ability to do that. And when someone says, Who do you admire or what's a leader that you respect, he is always the person who hops into my mind. It's fantastic. Wow, that's great. What an impact. Huge impact he had on. Yeah, Yeah. Oh, that's great. So I have some of your evaluations here in front of me and it says you're a pretty good listener. Okay. Why do you think that is? Some of the things I think I saw in people that I admired. He had an ability to listen and I think it helped me to understand it was important. And I have a few books in my they sit up here on my bookcase right behind me. They're the ones that are lying flat this way. These are the books that had the most profound impact on me. And one of them is written by Stephen Covey. Seven Habits of Effective People. Highly effective People seek first to understand that, you can't seek first to understand if you don't listen, listen to understand and let people be heard and then respond in a way that's respectful. So yeah, I think that's where it comes from. That's fantastic. How else is this show up for you in your life? Coaching, of course, it's a it's a key skill to being a being a great coach. So it shows up there as the most profound. But I think the people that are, you know, those relationships we talked about being strengthened. I think one of the reasons that they are as strong as they are is because they know they can come to me and I will listen that, you know, I'm not going to judge what they have to say and I'm going to hear them out and they can be heard. Gosh, isn't that what we all want is to be able to have our own voice and be able to be heard. In order for us to be heard, we have to have people who will listen. So, yeah, my relationships are stronger because of it. That's that's fantastic. I think you some people might have missed this. You stacked judgment or non judgment in there with listening and I don't know that that's the easy, quick combination right because you got many people that are listen not nearly as many that will listen with not judgment. Yeah, well, you know what is true, Joe? It's listening with more objective here. Meaning just being trying to seek to understand what it is. And from a coaching perspective, what I try to do is listen with what's underneath it. I hear what they're saying, but why is this important to them and or why is this a problem for them and asking questions that help them think about what it is they feel in that moment? Or what's that experience like for them? Why is it important for you now? How is it getting in your way and how do you wish it was different that comes to it from a more objective place? The questions you ask as you're listening that allows people to feel, to feel heard, and also to think through their own solution. Because my personal belief is a coaching belief that people are whole and complete and they have all the answers within them for what's best for them. They are the expert of them, and I could tell anybody anywhere what to do. Yeah, and it might even work for a time, but if it isn't what's right for them, then it's not sustainable. Absolutely. Yes. The word you haven't yet used is curiosity, but that's the word you're describing, I think. Yeah, definitely. So the questions are curiosity. Questions. Yeah. The question just to help the person to think deeper about what's actually happening for them. Yeah, and I am curious about that. Usually it helps, right? When you're genuinely curious. Yeah. Do you ever catch yourself not being interested? Yeah, sometimes. Yeah. But when those things are happening, I'm thinking about what do I want to get from this or. Yeah, it's always goes back for me. It's this give get thing is attention that lives within my brain and yeah and so good fit with the coaching client if that's what you're referencing. I think it might be sometimes. Yeah. So yeah. So having a good fit with a coaching client is important and if you don't have that, if you're not able to, if they trigger you in some way or they bring up something that you feel is really out of alignment with your values, then you owe it to the client to say, You know what? I think that another coach might be better for you as someone who can really be more present with you and help you think through what you're trying to do. That this thing you keep bringing up is a distraction for me. And then you got to go talk to somebody about what this distraction is. I mean, you can't turn people away, but there's there's a lot of truth. Hang on. Can't you just turn people away? Well, you're not doing yourself a service, Joe. If you say, you know what, I don't think you're a good fit for me as a client. So thank you. But let me reference you do another coach and then you don't think about why. That's not suggesting there's no self-reflection. But isn't that knowing yourself really? Well, it could be, but there is something underneath the trigger or the emotions that come up that make you say, this isn't a good fit for me for sure. So what keeps me from being objective here, that's thing that that's unresolved. I'll say that that we owe it to ourselves to listen to that and try to think it through because it probably comes up somewhere else in your life. You know, it's not just going to be coming up with this one client. It might come up with the next client to for sure, or likely that's the reason it's triggering is because it has come up previously and likely not resolved. Right. That's great. That's fantastic. Brenda, we're nearing the end of our a lot of time together. Are there any thoughts that you would like to share, additional thoughts you'd like to share in the name of intentionality and final thoughts? So the world needs more coaching. People need to check it out. Call Joe if you need a coach. All these things are coming up in my mind. I'll tell you, the thing that is absolutely on my mind is this beautiful backdrop you have, and I'm really envious. Coach Joe. That whole thing is and that is really cool. Thank you. I like this very kind of you. I've been so fun. I love talking, talking to you about intentionality. Likewise. It's been a delight. It's a deep thought. Thanks for bringing it forward. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes, that true pleasure. Thank you for coming into my world and helping me in another context as well, helping me to become a masterful coach at some point. And you bet. I am truly grateful. Thank you so much. All right. My pleasure. Don't forget to play. That's right. This has been intentionally ever after hosted by intentional lifestyle coach Joe Boockvar Tech. If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe on or off the air, visit intentionally ever after dot com. Thanks for listening.