Success: Course Corrections & Overcoming

episode closed, where we have intimate conversations with today's thought leaders, changemakers, and disruptors to bring you tools, strategies, and very insightful perspectives on personal and business growth, revealing the humanness of success and challenge. I'm Sally A. Curtis. I'm a content repurposing whiz. We work with brilliant individuals to help them leverage their content to engage their audience through the power of visuals, visual branded assets. What we're actually best known for is turning books into 2 years' worth of dynamic social media posts. We simply provide a done-for-you service that amplifies your impact because you stand out, you deeply connect, and your message is heard, and you reach more people with ease. Now today I am super I'm super excited to be bringing you a very fun and incredibly insightful episode. And today we're going to be talking about course corrections and overcoming with Pat and Mary. Now let me give you a little bit of an indication about the 2 guests we have on today. So Mary is a passionate speaker, philanthropist, entrepreneur, author, and an organizational strategist. And Pat is an accomplished visionary leader who embodies the belief that women should be at the decision-making table. Both of these women are expert coaches, speakers, and passionate about leadership, living a fulfilling life that's purposeful and connected. And today I would love you to help me welcome to the show both Pat and Mary. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you for joining me and joining us.

So happy to be here.

I am delighted.

Thank you very, very much. Now, I would love it because I didn't share a lot about your backstories, and both of you have got incredible backstories. If I can ask you to just share a little bit about your backstory as it relates to of success and overcoming and how you've got to where you are today. If I can ask you perhaps to start, Mary, and then I'll go up to Pat, if we could do that, please.

Yeah, yeah. Good morning, Australia, Missouri, everywhere in the world. So happy to be here. And, um, wow. So my backstory started about a million years ago, right? Um, I have a 20-plus career as a professional actor. And as a corporate organizational strategist, I fell into a role of the C-suite, working as an EA in the C-suite. And it was supposed to compensate, pay for my acting career and all the endeavors and my films that I was going to make and everything. And it took on a different life of its own. But through those experiences kind of led me up to my present experience in becoming a coach. that works with people to navigate the course corrections of their lives. I'm leaving out a lot of details. I have a little black kitty, and right now I live in one of the coldest places on the earth, in the middle of the country of the United States. But other than that, yeah.

Yeah, beautiful. And over to you, Pat, if you could share a little bit too, please.

Hello, hello everyone. I will tell my story as I, um, I was a teenage mom of 2 boys. From that, I attended school in the evening to earn my BS, my Bachelor of Science, and then I went on to get my MBA while I worked full-time. Thus, that led me to becoming an entrepreneur, being a business owner, doing HR consulting. From that, I ran into this organization that ultimately I was their HR consultant, thus ended up a full-time employee. It's called Behavioral Health Response, BHR. We provide 24/7 crisis intervention for people dealing with mental illness. At that organization, from the HR manager all the way through till— for the last 10 years, I have been the CEO. I've been at the organization for 26 years, And I'm talking in the now, but just on May 5th was my retirement date from BHR. So I'm moving on to my next thing. I also have a company, Pat Coleman LLC, and in that company I amplify, uh, for women there and coach them in leadership positions all around the country. So that's me in a nutshell.

Yeah, so as you can see, everyone, Very, very accomplished women, very, very experienced in what they're doing, completely underselling themselves because there's lots more to the backstory. So for those that love a good snoop around to check people out, they've got brilliant websites and there's lots of additional insightful information on there. And I'm sure we'll unpack and really reveal a little bit more as we get going in our conversation today. So one of the things that I'd love you to talk about, because obviously overcoming And course corrections is something that you're both involved in, and both in incredibly different ways and sort of with lots of overlapping similarities. Obviously, from crisis response, Mary— sorry, Pat, you would see lots of different things coming up. And Mary, with the coaching that you do, I remember reading on your website, you talked about peeling back the onion layers and how when you give The opportunity to somebody to have a conversation around something that's going on for them, you give them a, you know, a new perspective. So there's lots of— there is lots of elements to course correction and overcoming. So I'd love you to sort of share some of the things from either your own experience or the experience of people that you've worked with. You know, what are some of the common things that get in the way that sort of disrupt our trajectory of where we think we're going?

Yeah, that is— thank you for saying that, that it is layers, because we're layers. We're layer upon layer. And I think what you were referring to— I love this— is that people come to me and they tell me their story. They open up and they share with me what's going on with them. And then I tell them what they actually said. That's usually what happens. And then they're like, oh, is that what I said? And then we can move forward from there. But the question is great. What do you think is the most important thing What I work on with my clients amidst a plethora of things, but 4 common roadblocks that keeps coming up for my clients. There's 3 noises that I, I give definition to. There is a white noise, a gray noise, and a black noise. And there is envy. The white noise is really the distractions of the world. Everybody's telling me that this is what I should do. This is where I should go, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's the gray noise, which is the discouragement. Now I'm on my path, I'm doing everything that I was supposed to, I've got my checklist out, I've followed the recipe. The ticks. Exactly. And now it's not happening the way I thought it was supposed to happen. That's very key in that phrase. And then there's the black noise, which is really the distortions of the original desire, right? Right? You know, I thought I was supposed to be, you know, I started out as an actor, and I want to be the best actor that I can. And we're right here. And there's this pendulum, right? And on this side of the pendulum, it's, I'm better than Meryl Streep. And then, and then it goes to the other side, and it becomes this perfectionism. And that's where the distortion— there's distortions on both sides. But this negative distortion creates a sense of perfection, which is a false sense of control. And it can also change the discourse around you. now no one is, is meeting your standards, and that can really create, create a lot of friction and negativity. And then the 4th thing that I usually work with people on is envy. People don't think about this. When you're on your path, you are unique to who you are. You are special. You are for purpose, on purpose. And when you start comparing yourself to others, this, this brings out this, this envious eye. And now— Oh, I, I should also be making $10,000 a month at X, or I should look like X. Um, I think Oscar Wilde said it best. He said, be yourself, everyone else is taken. And that is something that is so important when I'm working with people, because now we can focus on who you are, what's in the rearview mirror that's affecting you now.

Yeah, brilliantly. It's Yeah, Pat, over to you.

Yeah, I'll come in on that. Uh, for me, you told it, you spoke it very well, and I would tell you I have 3 of those roadblocks. I will tell you that what has stood in the way of me is me, and I think that everyone should always look at themselves and not to let the distractions or put the blame on others, or it was because of this or because of that. It's about looking at yourself, looking at you to figure out what could I do about these roadblocks and not let the roadblocks overtake me. And so what has stood in my way has always been me. And for me, I'm always working on myself. And so you talk about those course corrections, but again, it's about overcoming. And I feel that we all can become experts in overcoming. Because either we've overcome something, but there's always other things to overcome. So we may be in the midst of this overcoming. Yes. So when you hear me say overcoming, that doesn't mean that, oh, I have everything together and I have everything solved. It's just that I try to learn from those type of roadblocks to not stand in my way. Okay? And so I will say I have this book, Overcoming, living our best lives in spite of. And a lot of things that stand in our way is the fact that to the core of things, there are usually some type of trauma if we, if we acknowledge it, right? For me, it was always, you know, some things I couldn't overcome or course correct because it was always they/them, he/she/her. And I never— it was never me. And until I decided to look at me, that is what helped me to be able to move forward in course correction.

Yeah, brilliant. And I think if I look at my own journey, I think one of the things that we do is it is very reflective outwards. And then when we do learn to reflect inwards and sort of look at ourselves and we have our growth, I really appreciate what you said. saying, because you sort of overcome something and you have that woohoo moment, and then there's the next thing to overcome. But that's the exciting— for me, that's the excitement of the roller coaster journey of what life is and what we are yet to learn and what that learning is yet to teach us, because those learnings are what inspires. It's just that when you're at the top of this, you know, at the roller coaster ride, you're terrifying yourself, and sometimes it's a scary scary as, and sometimes it gets, you know, the facial expressions get a bit, you know, distorted and a bit ugly because we're going through that thing at the moment that's bigger and scarier than the rest of us. But that the ability to be self-reflective is, I believe, where that the opportunity for overcoming comes from. But how do— how have you found with the women that you have in your book, and then obviously the women that you're But you're working with Mary. How do you— what's the tipping point or the point that actually enables somebody to suddenly switch and suddenly see themselves, I suppose, is what I'm asking here? Because I remember having— I call them life transitions— where I sort of woke up at 40, and then I did the same thing at 50, where I just— Mm-hmm. You just sort of suddenly see yourself differently, and you just sort of take a different type of charge. I've got a control freak slash in there as well. A

little Type A, I'm hearing here.

Right? No, I don't know what you mean.

It is such a great question because we've all been there. So we have this collective experience. And I think kind of going back to a little bit of what Pat had said, this really starts with a lot of self-awareness. The first thing I would say is let's celebrate those milestones.

That's right.

It can sound really empty, but the thing is, is that what you've got in the rearview mirror is what's serving you right now. And so to your point, Pat, kind of some of this trauma that comes up for people, when by the time they get to me, my mantra is, let's use that. It isn't my job to heal the trauma, but let's, let's move forward with what we have right now. So everything, all of that historical experience, those skills, those talents, those gifts, everything who you are right now is what's going to serve you moving forward. And this is where people usually come into this self-sabotage, this internal self-sabotage, this imposter syndrome stuff. And the key to that is really knowing your value, which is based on a lot of what you have in that, in that rearview mirror, right? Yes.

Yeah.

So once you have that, that, that knowledge of what your value is, now we can start gaining confidence. And this is the number one question that I have amongst most of the younger women that I work with, which I think is so interesting in 2023, in the 21st century. How do I get more confidence?

Yeah.

And it really just starts with self-inventory, right? That personal inventory. We take stock in what our personal currency again is. Now again, we're being self-aware. We're being intentional about saying, "What is my value? What is my worth?" And that's the first step towards towards gaining that. And it usually has there's a language factor here. When I work with my clients on course corrections, they say, "Well, I want to change this, and I want to change that," and ba ba ba ba ba. And I'm like, "We're not changing anything. You're beautiful who you are. Who you are right now is intrinsically perfect." We're not changing you. We're course correction. We're course correcting something. We're taking all of that and we're pivoting. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yes, it does. And we're going to always have those aha moments, but it's up to us to be able to recognize them. And for me, I am a woman of faith. And so I do have this one-liner and it says, kick fear in the butt. And everyone has come in contact with me know that I'm saying kick fear in the butt. Because again, it takes courage, and courage is something that we can, we can work on, something that we can realize. That

I

always tell people, even if you make a mistake in something, the majority of the time people don't even know you made the mistake.

So true.

It's like, just say, oh, just keep it moving, because you have to have the courage and the confidence really in order to be able to get there. But there will always be these aha moments if we recognize them, and then after recognizing them, acknowledge them. It takes time to get to that point. We all want— when they talk about the microwave age right now, we want everything done so fast. But if you go back and you— aha, I could look back on the course of my life And realize that when this happened, I did this. You know, even if I made some wrong turns or whatever, I got something out of it because I acknowledged that. Then the next time I can tweak it and I could do something else a little bit better or do it in a different kind of way. As Mary said, you don't have to throw the whole kitchen sink away. Yeah. You know, that you can use. And so, uh, definitely courage and just kick fear in the butt. It's all good.

I love that. If I can just piggyback off of what you said, Pat, I, you know, as an actor, I lived in New York. Imagine that, an actor in New York City, lived there for years, love New York City. But one of the things that I learned very quickly is that if it was legal, do it. Who cares? You're probably never going to see those people again anyway. And at the very least, you're going to give people a laugh Or you're going to make them think about something.

Yeah.

So there is no room and there is no time for, for not basically taking the chance, or, or at least being honest with yourself and, and talking about that truth that you know. Let your ego get out of the way and be really honest. And like you said, take ownership of that and move forward with that.

And I love that we've talked about obviously celebrating and acknowledging and courage and I'm gonna use my favorite words, leverage, you know, leveraging what you've got and then tweaking it slightly and making it something more. So I love that something more. But what I'd like to dig into, 'cause we're hearing a lot about letting go, and to me, letting go of the right things and knowing what to let go of in of itself is a courageous act. So what insights would you have around letting go of the, I suppose, the right things and keeping, letting go of the right things and maintaining the other things that you want to move forward with.

I'll take that. For me, you know, again, a woman of faith, so it's about let go, let God. But I tell you this, it takes a period of years to get to a point to where as you start to realize what to let go. For me, I would take— I would put all of these things on my calendar and wouldn't think that I was making a difference or there was any purpose if I just didn't do this, do that, do this. And I just think over a period of time, you start to, you know, filter out things that, you know, aren't okay. It will be okay. It can be things to say. We usually overwhelm ourselves. It's not about— we were— we overwhelm ourselves. It's not others overwhelm us. And we can choose the things that we want to take care of. And so if you go into the professional world, I remember that, uh, when I had did HR for so many years, I moved from HR to operations. It was so hard for me to let go of HR, just that particular role.

Yeah, it

was just ridiculous to a point, you know. I started saying, that's not you anymore, you know. I had to start reminding myself.

2 roles instead of one.

You don't have to do this. And so That's just in the professional world, but even in your personal life, you'll realize that, you know, don't sweat the small stuff. And it really is, in the scheme of things, it is the small things that we let become bigger, more usually what they should be. And then so that is some of the things that will tie us down if we don't watch it. And we are very, very very, very adapted to that as women.

Yes,

that's just a part of the way that we are made up, right?

Yeah, I, I love that. Um, the question that I ask my clients is usually, what is it costing me to keep holding on to this, and how is it serving me?

Yes.

Yeah.

And to even get outside of that, because I'm also— most of the work that I do is, is predominantly faith-based. Who is it serving?

Yeah, really? Yeah. Who is it really serving?

If I'm moving out of my own ego, if I know that I am forgiven of my sin, why am I holding on to that? Why am I allowing that to— why am I giving that permission, basically, to shape my course correction?

That's right.

So if I look at who— how it's serving me and who it is that I'm ultimately serving, if I know that I'm here for a reason, it's back to that, you know, what is my purpose and sort of knowing. And all of that experience, all of that historical experience is serving that, obviously. But a lot of that letting go, it's like I talk a lot about, you know, the opposite of fear is not bravery, it's freedom.

Yes.

Very insightful.

So if I'm holding everything in my hand that I love and that I cherish, but it's with an open hand, now somebody can work with it. Now the Lord can work with it. So it boils down to a lot of that self-serving or really serving others. And it's a funny mind game that we play with ourselves. But that's why language is so important. We need to pay attention to the language, which means being aware and intentional about how we're moving forward and how we're thinking about moving forward, because that creates that emotion. We hear this all the time, that dictates the action. That speaks volumes to those that we're impacting in our sphere and also ourselves, obviously.

Yeah. That self-awareness is key to a lot of things and it's not easy for us to become self-aware. We have to really step outside of who we are. But in the course of all of this course correction, overcoming, I'm telling you, the heart of it is humility.

If

we can learn to humble ourselves, that's the, that's the key, and that's the goal to awareness. Yeah,

I love that. That's straight out of Proverbs, man. Humility comes before honor.

Yeah,

I mean, that's— it's perfect, Pat. It's so spot on. I love it.

I

love it.

Yeah, absolutely. A part of that encouragement that you're both so attuned to is the work in which you do, obviously, with your clients. So I'd love to talk now as it relates to bringing on the empowerment aspects of empowering those, you know, those new women leaders or those people that are wanting to change the lives. What is— what's the step? Not necessarily steps or process, but what's your thoughts around how to actually help people empower themselves to give them that, you know, kick— to kick themselves up the butt while they, you know, they're getting their true north sorted out, etc.?

Yeah, um, I think again, we're going back to self-awareness of what— how— what is my value? Knowing what my value is, not just taking stock of I have a Bachelor of Arts in German Linguistics and I have certification in theological studies from blah blah blah blah blah. Those are my credentials. Those are things that I have done to invest in myself. But knowing intrinsically who I am, knowing that I am really on purpose. There is a reason for me that I was thought of before the earth was even formed. Right? So it's sort of this really keen self-awareness, and not even to over-spiritualize it. This is who you are. This is it. And I value you. You know, do you see the value in yourself? Yeah. And I think a lot of times this letting go stuff is what's trumping the actual truth of our value. And so when we can get our heads wrapped around that and sort of— sometimes what I say to people is, listen, let's just have a powerful conversation. It usually starts with a powerful conversation. And sometimes people are set and they're like, got it, let's

go. Yeah.

And then other times, a lot of people, it's— you gotta wrap your head around it. And it's a— it's, it's tough. It's the humility, but it's also the ego. It's also this, you know, women do this to our— you know, it's like, I'm not good enough, I have to be everything to everyone all the time. Um, a lot of that clouds a lot of that. So it's, it's baby steps. But when you can partner with somebody to do that, it makes it a lot easier.

Magic. Yeah.

And let me tell you one thing, Mike.

Yeah,

Mike, it's just been on me. Let me tell you something my parents taught me and my siblings. And I remember they're saying, Pat, take your eyes off yourself and put them on others, and you will be blessed. And so for me, even with the, the CEO title that I had for many years of where I just left. You know, people, um, uh, reference it to it as the chief, uh, executive officer, but I've always said that I am the chief empowering officer.

Nice.

Because what I learned how to do is for, for people, for them to be successful, for me to be successful, for the organization to be successful, You have to learn how to empower others, uh, and, and, and through empowering others, believe it or not, that pops on to you and you learn how to empower yourself. And that comes first with taking your eyes off of you and putting them on others.

It's also a great first step in sort of working towards some of that— working off, I should say, some of that trauma.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, great distinction there. I love that. So I also, in, in this conversation, I'm also getting the essence that both of you are incredible storytellers, which is part of where I think a lot of empowerment comes through, is, is through storytelling. So I'd love if, if you've got a story or a case study or however you want to, whatever title you want to put that around, I'd love you to share a story of empowerment. Hope was another word that popped into my head as we were talking about, particularly for those people that are, that are sitting in that spot where they're, you know, they're sort of, they're ready to do something, but they feel a bit stuck, but they're excited about, you know, taking that next step. I'd love you to share an example or a story around that empowerment and that hope and that, you know, getting to that next step of finding and really feeling that exhilarating life and that purposeful life that they're looking

Yeah, you know, I've taken things to whereas you'll hear people say things like, I, you know, I stand on the, you know, stand on the shoulders of

others.

Well, am I going to let that stay on my shoulders, or am I going to get up and do something about it, right? And for me, it's like, you know, taking that step, taking that step and moving forward when it comes to empowerment. Um, there— the story that I can tell you is the reason I'm able to, to, to just be before you today with all of the experiences that I share in the book, um, was the fact of being a teenage mother, being a Black female teenage teenager, 2 sons. I had 2 sons to raise in this world. Right. And so when you, you talk about all of these things that I, I had to go through with my sons, we experienced as a family everything that there could be, you know, when it comes to the racial disparities, racial profiling, being not treated well in school. But if people looked at us today, they wouldn't believe that all of what we've been through, that we wouldn't be thriving the way that we are thriving. And that comes from being empowered to learn how to even be an advocate for my sons. And so what I tell people, that's my story. But you can, you can be an advocate for someone in your family. You can be an advocate for your children. If, if they probably wouldn't have made it where they're at today if Mama wasn't on point, on course, always up in other people's faces because I dared not treat them well. You know, they tried. But I learned how to really advocate for my sons. And so that started to empower me to learn how to advocate even for myself, even in the work world, being a Black female CEO, sitting at the table, just me around all of these. And so for me, it helped me to learn how to advocate, become empowered to know how I can live my life moving forward.

Correct.

And be someone that that others look to, look up to, look at, and give them encouragement. If I can do it and I can stand here and talk to you today, you can do it as

well. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you, Mick. Thank you, Pat. Mary, I can see your brain ticking.

Yeah, I'm like, what do I pick?

I know, right?

I think the best story that I can honestly come up with is my most recent one. I had I still have a career. I'm still a professional actor. I still do voiceover. But, you know, the biggest shift for me was saying— and, and this is, you know, my personal walk— was I'm supposed to be an actor. Everyone is telling me that I'm really good at this. I'm getting lots of encouragement. It seems like the path. And I loved it. I love being on stage. I love being on in front of a camera. Um, but it was like This is what I want to do now. God, can you anoint this? Because I've got it all set up for you. Thanks.

Yeah, let's go.

And, and then when I was around 51 and had some really pivotal course corrections of my own, it was like, okay, I did this. This has been— I've been going up the wrong road. You've been blessing me anyway, but I got to make some changes. And then everything started to click. And I made this huge shift at 51 years old to completely leave a very lucrative career in corporate and, you know, a very nominal acting career to be the extraordinary something else that I was supposed to be in the next chapter. And, you know, Sally, you asked the question, it's like, what, what could be that one thing that helps people get that to that next step? And I would say the most encouraging thing is It is really scary to make that next step, right? You're on the precipice of something. Maybe you feel that it's in your bones, but you, you know, there's that fear and yay, surprise. I love it. You know, and I would say, you know, if you're looking into the abyss, there's all this unknown, right? And we usually say, but I'm fearful. Well, let's shift the mindset and say, well, if there's all of this unknown, then aren't there also infinite possibilities?

Yeah.

And, you know, why wouldn't you want to take this step? You know, where are you at in life? Who cares if you're 50 or if you're 80 or if whatever? I know people say that's not very practical, and we all live by our 401s and our Vanguards and all of this. It's like, man, it's, it's, it's so temporary. Life is here to be lived, and, um, there's going to be pain, there's going to be struggle, it's going to be hard work. But you are you and you make up your own. You design your life. So do you want someone else to design your life or do you want to do that?

Yeah, that was so good. Can I quickly add something about voiceover? You mentioned voiceover and that got to me. You know, I've all my— well, I have a, a coarse and heavy voice. And so as I was coming up and I'm talking to people over the telephone and they say sir to me, or they say So I started to not like my voice.

Oh, wow.

I did, and I started to not like it. What ended up happening, people started saying, do you sing? You have this particular kind of voice. And so from that, I thought about it. And so I decided to record myself. And so I took a voiceover class. And so in that class, had to do all of these commercials. It was so much fun. And I ended up getting a couple of voiceover jobs. because of— I took something that I didn't care too much for, decided that, you know what, let me check this out and see what's happening with me because others are saying this. So I do know that you can be encouraged. That's what I'm saying. Even by some things that you didn't— didn't— then, you know, there could be a value to you in your life, uh, down the road. So that's right.

Even our perceived weaknesses are our strengths. Our perceived strengths can be our perceived weaknesses.

So again, is it about

perception? Is it about reality? Just do it. Just do it.

And I'm just going to add to that because we've just touched on something here. And this to me is the voice because we've actually all talked about our voices in different ways. So my version of that was that when I turned 50, I suddenly— I refer to it— I refound my voice. But it was, it was still that quiet voice. And it was still that voice that was just that one directional. And for me, like Pat, I went on and did an additional course. I went and did some improv. So I could not have as many of those conversations where I'd have a conversation, then I'd go get in the car and go, I wish I'd said this, or I wish I'd done that, and I wish I didn't swallow those 2 words, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I went and did an improv course because I could have the— instead of the but, I could have the and there's this and there's this, and I could learn to be more adaptive in my conversation. So I felt that instead of being that one-dimensional voice, I could have a multitude of voices, but I could be adaptive in, in the place, in the moment and in the now, so to speak. And I think that sort of comes into one of the other questions that I had. And often I have varying conversations with different people around that, friends and those sorts of things that say, oh, you've had some really great people on the show. You know, everyone's great, great leaders. But, you know, is Is change constant? You know, are we constantly creating, you know, course corrections? And I sort of marry that back to, you know, when somebody gets their website done for the first time, they go, whoa, the website's done, I'm never gonna have to touch it again. We, we all know that our websites and our LinkedIn and all those things change constantly because we change constantly. And I think that in itself itself is the celebration, is to acknowledge and accept that change and course corrections is constant. So I'd love, you know, as we get towards the end, your sort of final words on that as well, please.

Yeah, it's, it's so good. And I just want to note the improv class, so proud of you, because also what you cannot say in an improv class is no. You have to say yes. It's scary. It can be really scary. But anyway, um, yes, we are constantly course correcting. Another term for that is growth.

Yes.

Get up in the morning. I had a, I had an acting coach actually say to me one time, I was just very concerned. I felt very stagnated in what I was doing. And, and she said, Mary, get up tomorrow morning. Just wake up and try not to grow. Try not to grow in some way. You can't do it. It's impossible.

That's right.

You will breathe, you will get out of bed, you will make coffee. So we think again, we're going— I hate to sound like this merry-go-round, but we're going back to self-awareness and intentionality with that awareness and being really honest with ourselves and knowing that we have the value to move forward and take that next course correction.

Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

Yeah, being intentional is key. Um, and then the word growth— you are correct about growth, but being intentional— we have to stay intentional because it's inevitable. Change is inevitable. And either we're going to get stuck in change— that's right— either we're going to get stuck in it or we're going to, you know, go with the flow. You know, if it's flowing Instead of staying stuck, let's just go and go with it. Who moved my cheese? We can go back to as far as that, which is because it's that constant and we have no control over change. There's nothing that we can control over change. Although I know all of us are A-type people, so we have a little control.

I was just feeling the disagreement there.

I think that's a great point because the only constant is change. But what we do have control over to a certain degree is our choices.

Yes,

I can choose to react or respond.

That's right.

The two are very, very different, right? So the language is important, but that choice in what I do right now in this moment— do I experience road rage, or do I maybe consider that maybe the person in front of me is trying to drive really slowly because they've had too much to drink? Or is there a— is somebody giving a baby? They're having a baby in the seat next to them. Like, I don't know what's going on. So that choice that I make in those moments is really the only thing that I can kind of— that's what I've got permissive will in.

That's right.

And be intentional. Be intentional about, um, maybe I'm not happy today, but I don't want to bring everyone down into my spirit, so I'm going to be intentional about smiling. If I don't do anything else today, I'm going to smile, especially when I'm around other people. You know, if you just smile, somehow you'll have a hard time not making things a little better, even if it's just in that moment. So we have to stay intentional when we're talking about change. We have to be intentional about our attitudes, about the way we're moving, the way that we're flowing, the way that we're Uh, having, um, contact with other people, building relationships, that comes with being intentional.

Yeah, the attitude determines the altitude.

Yeah, yeah.

I

know I'm talking in bumper sticker, but I just love it. I couldn't resist.

Yeah, I've got to add some bumper stickers to that because, um, a part of listening to both of you, one of the things that keeps coming up for me is feel feel the fear and do it anyway. But I am, I do love discovery and adventure. So I sort of often feel that, whoa, being right at the edge with your arms out. And, you know, I love the wind and sort of taking that stepping, that stepping off, that level of courage, or in my words, is brave. Second, it's, you know, a couple of seconds of brave insanity. Not everybody loves that. But that's that, that's that sanity moment for me. But that's the exhilaration of change. Not everybody— but I know that about myself. So I can play with that to move and propel myself forward. Because I can make it a game. Not everybody understands that. And that, that acknowledgement or that understanding and that intention of how you play the game with yourself, the game of life, to get more out of it, to me, is part of one of the— the acknowledgments of understanding what— sorry, one of the gifts of understanding who you are and how you choose to play and how you can play along with yourself, if that makes sense.

Can I just hook on to that? Because that is so good. And I would say to those that are struggling with not knowing who they are, really having that sort of self-awareness, that it's still okay. If you, if you hear that, now you're just in mode of new discovery. Because you can make the next choice, right?

That's right.

So even though you think you don't, maybe you've been told you are someone your whole life by someone outside. So that's an environmental stressor, right? Or a social stressor. But now I can, I can make the intentional path, the intentional choice to move outside of that because I can discover who I am. So now who am I? Do I like knitting? Do I like speed racing. I don't know, both maybe. I don't know.

Just not quite at the same time. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, maybe not at the same time. I love that. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. But I would say that definitely, again, it goes back to being intentional. It goes back to kicking fear in the butt. It goes back to how do you figure out how to get unstuck. So those are the people that you want, you know, that I like to talk to people that feel that they are stuck. Let's just have a conversation. And if you just make that one decision, I'm empowering you. So if you could just make that one decision to try this one thing or try this other thing or whatever it takes, because as long as we go to sleep and as long as we're waking up, the world is not going to wait on us. Time is going to keep moving forward. So do we stay stuck or do we move forward? So being intentional about that helps to be empowered and helps us to course correction when necessary.

Yeah, very much so. Thank you. And Mary, if I can ask you as we get to the end, if you could share a little bit more as to how people can best get in contact with you, some type of invitation, and then I'll ask Pat to do the same. Perhaps Pat, you might want to share a little bit more about your book because I think that would be very relevant for the audience as well.

Yes, thank you, Sally. You— it's very easy to get in touch with me. Obviously, I have my website, compasscoaching.com. Coaching is spelled with a K. And you can also get in touch with me if you just email info@compasscoaching.com. I'm also on LinkedIn and Facebook. And I have a podcast, Questions and Course Corrections. And you can hear that anywhere you like to listen to your podcasts. And there's a season on there and I'm working on season 2 right now.

Beautiful. Thank you.

Yeah. Listen, number 1 bestseller in the US and the bestseller in the UK and Canada on last year. It's Overcoming: Living Our Best Life in Spite of. It's myself and 32 other Black women. We all did one chapter. It's an anthology. We did one chapter sharing about what we've overcome or what we're still overcoming. And to the crux of it, it talks about we as women. We talk about— I told you my situation. There are people that— there's a story in there about going from Harlem to Harvard. There's a story about sexual abuse. There's a story about— there's a story about what is it in a name. There's a story that whatever as women If you read this book, you'll find yourself in there somewhere and how people got from where they at and where they're, you know, where they've been and where they're at today. And the way to get in touch with me is through the website patcolemanllc.com, or you can email me at pat@patrcoleman.com. And I am— you can't find me on LinkedIn.

That is,

um, that's my

Yeah, absolutely. So thank you very much, ladies. I would just like to sort of add to that in saying that we've all got brilliant stories. We've all had amazing things, good and bad, happen to us. We all know people that we sort of look at that have had incredible trauma and still triumphed. There is infinite opportunities for us to grow, For us to learn and for us to discover ourselves so we can become the person with the life that we choose and the impact that we want to create for those all around us. I think that out of today's conversation is our gift to you, but it's also our invitation to all of you is to find your people to help you bust through the next barrier, the thing that's getting in your way. find the people that have got a story to share with you, a book that's got something in it, a coaching session that may just uncloud something and help you have that forward movement. Everybody, I believe, on the planet is here to help everybody else. And collectively, we can make a difference for everybody. And so I would love to say thank you to both of my guests today, Pat and Mary. And if you've got any final closing words Please, I'll let you have the floor before we close out.

Wait, what did you say?

I said kick fear in the butt.

Yeah,

I love that. Thank you, Sally. Thank you, Pat, for sharing your stories with me and just letting me join this conversation. I would just say to everybody out there who's struggling with a course correction or just taking that first step to remember that, you know, Your opinion of me is none of my business. Take the step. It's okay. It doesn't matter. Get it out of the way and just take that step for course correcting.

Yeah, brilliant. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, ladies. And we will look forward to seeing you next time on another episode of Success Secrets Exposed. Till now— till then, have a great time and speak to you soon. Take care. Bye.