Hi, welcome back. This is episode 100 of the Visionary's Pursuit podcast. Woo-hoo. We've recorded 100 episodes, and I feel so proud of that. and to celebrate this milestone, today we have a little bit of a different episode. if you've been following this podcast, you might have heard me mention Andrew.
Andrew White is my husband and my business partner, and he's 50% responsible for the creation of this podcast. He's always helping me come up with ideas for the content, making it sound really good, that it's adding value, editing it, And creating the final versions of what you get to listen to.
So today, for the episode, we decided that he would be joining this side of the microphone, and we're gonna have a conversation. before he comes here, I wanna tell you a little bit about him. Andrew has had a very successful career in sales. The last job he had, he was the head of sales for a tech company in LA.
And there he grew the team from 12 to 50 people, and he helped prepare the company for an IPO, which they successfully did shortly after Andrew left. two years ago, he decided to join me in this business of coaching, which I feel so much gratitude, and I feel honored that he believed in this business enough to join me. So, Andrew, welcome to this side of the Visionary's Pursuit podcast. I'm so happy to have you here today. Thank you. I am so happy to be here, and congrats on 100 episodes. Woo-hoo, high five. First time contributor, longtime listener and editor. So I know you prepared some questions for me, but I also prepared a couple of questions for you. Is it okay if I ask you The questions I have first? Sure. Okay.
So the first question is I would love if you could share with our listeners why did you decide to leave your successful career and come join me and build this coaching business together? Man, I feel like any answer I'd give to that question wouldn't properly serve, how I feel about it. I'll tell you, going back into my journey many years ago as a relatively new manager, everyone at the company I was at, we were facing layoffs.
Everyone at the company took 50% pay cuts. Maintaining the team's culture, like their optimism, creating this shared vision to rally behind this goal of ultimately saving this company, none of that would've been possible without having done my work on, leadership, my thoughts, my self-awareness. And such a huge part of that I attribute to what I learned just through osmosis by being around you, by being around the work that you were doing, by being inspired by it. And you know, in the back of my mind, I'd always kind of hoped that someday we could find a way to collaborate, create this social impact create value that someday I would be a part of building this.
I didn't know at that time, certainly what capacity, but it's always kind of been on my mind. And seeing the results, you've created for others, and then, the results that you've created for yourself and your life and just the impact on those around you, I just thought, you know, more people have to know about this. Everyone needs this. And however I can help that mission, I wanna be a part of it..
Thank you, and I'm so glad you feel that way, and I feel also so grateful and honored that you believe in this mission and that you believe in this work.
We've talked about this all the time, but we really enjoy working with each other and it's been, such an amazing journey these last two years. And the other question I wanted to ask you, that I think our listeners might be interested is, what's it like to live with a coach? What's it like to live with this coach? It's a tough question to answer. Because I mean, wonderful, first and foremost. But I do think of it in different phases. You know, phase one, kind of the get to know you phase. Phase two is where kind of understanding how to fight, and phase three is, is, continuing to learn and grow.
I'll tell you another story. So, not long after I had met Caro, I remember going on a walk along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. It's just this beautiful path along the lake. I was doing some vetting. I was asking her about life, her ambitions, what she wanted to do with her future.
And, she responded with, "Hey, I wanna give talks. I wanna motivate people. I wanna help them create a life that they could only dream of. And, I think I said something along the lines of, oh gosh, and I still regret it. Like what? Like a motivational speaker. And be honest, you even laughed. You thought it was kind of funny. I did. I did. I, uh, I, I didn't understand it.
But, you know, here I am. You have to give me a little bit of credit here.
I'm thinking about the SNL bit with Chris Farley, you know, as Matt Foley, van down by the river. That conjured up some humor in my mind. But as she continued to share, what that looks like, what it means, what it does, the research to support it, I could feel that she was onto something, that she was speaking so deeply from the heart that it pulled me right in. Then, kind of moving into phase two, there are a lot of triggering moments.
I mean, I think it happens in any relationship, in any good relationship, where you kind of fight and you get to the other side. But if it's okay to say, you know, you were a little on the self-righteous side when we first met. It's okay. You can say it. It was pretty self-righteous. So, you know, there'd be moments when all I would need to hear is just, you know, "Gosh, Andrew, I'm so sorry," but I think I started to believe that you didn't know the English word for sorry or maybe even the Spanish word for sorry.
But, she's so committed to this work. And again, just by proxy I've been able to take so much of what she teaches to heart and implement in my own life and it's wonderful, and occasionally inconvenient. Sometimes I'll tell a story in which I know I'm right and then she asks one question that kinda blows everything apart and I realize, gosh, you know, my perspective has influenced me to think a certain way and behave in a certain way and, uncomfortable though that is, I am so grateful for this kind of relationship.
And it also carries into, you know, just going out for a date night like on Saturday, our chats about maybe what book you're reading or like even something as trivial as like a dream, they evolve into these conversations where there's these profound inquiries about values, about what's holding us back and our long-term aspirations and I find so much value to that and I'm so grateful for that.
So all in, wonderful, inconvenient- ... and challenging. I think i- it's all the things. Well, I hope not too inconvenient, but I'll take it. It's true. Sometimes we laugh that I don't know how to do small talk. I like things that are profound and really understand who that person is, and yep, that comes up in our dates as well.
But we love it. I feel like I love it. Do you enjoy it as well? Are you kidding? Yeah, I wouldn't change it for the world. All right, I'm glad. Okay, So those were my questions, and it sounds like you have some questions for me now. I sure do. And by the way, Caro has never seen these questions before, so buckle up.
Okay, so going back into your history a little bit, you worked on Wall Street, you had a career that people spend quite frankly, their lives trying to get into, but what was missing for you?
Again, like I think I've shared in previous episodes, working for Morgan Stanley, working on Wall Street was my dream, was my plan A.
But very soon after I started working there, I realized that it wasn't my long-term career. And that question of what was missing is very interesting because I did feel like something was missing, and the thing that was missing for me was meaning and purpose and impact. I got to work there through the crisis of 2007, 2008.
I got to see a lot of people lose a lot of money. One of the brokers who worked on my trading floor had a heart attack, had to be taken out by 911 because of the stress, and there was something about all of that that didn't make a lot of sense to me. I guess since I was a little girl, I've had this transcendental part of me, just working and making rich people more money, although I love money, it felt always like there was something else that was missing, and it had to do with impact or meaning and purpose.
And the other thing was, even though I was very young and I hadn't even met you, I knew I wanted to be a mom. And that lifestyle of being in private wealth management and traveling with clients and taking them out and all the social aspects of it, although they were super fun, for me, they weren't compatible with being a mom, and being a mom who had the afternoons off to be with her kids and be present in their lives and not miss out on the important moments.
So I think those two things were the ones that started awaken me to, I don't wanna stay here for the long, long term, but honestly, I had no idea what I was gonna do next. So now tell me a little bit about right now. So visionaries, this podcast obviously being called The Visionary's Pursuit.
Now, I was involved in these conversations when we were naming it, but I don't think I've ever asked you why visionaries? what is it about someone who sees, you know, a possibility in the future that doesn't yet exist that makes you wanna work with them?.
So throughout the 15 years that I have been a coach, I worked with people from lots of different walks of life, and I've helped them accomplished many different results, anywhere from losing weight, finding a significant other, getting promoted, changing jobs, changing careers, all kinds of things,
And I've really enjoyed them all. I feel so proud of all the stories that I've been part of. and I've discovered that one of my favorite people to work with are the people who are daring to dream big, who are daring to envision something that for them right now feels out of reach, and wanting to get there.
And also, I don't bring this side of me a lot to the podcast, but there's a part of me that believes a lot in spirituality and, I've had these beautiful experiences throughout my life where I get a very clear message. Some people call it a download, but for me it's just crystal clarity.
Some years ago, Andrew and I did a trip to Oaxaca. And one night while we're staying there, I woke up around 4:00 AM, and I just pulled out my phone and I started writing and writing and writing all these ideas that were coming through my mind, and it all had to do with visionaries.
And I've always been so inspired and motivated by people who dare to dream, and then more importantly, decide to pursue the path to that dream because those dreams, the bigger they are, the harder that journey is. And it requires so much resilience and humility and courage and dedication that I'm very inspired. And that's why I decided to create a brand around visionaries. Selfishly, because that's the type of people that inspire me and that I wanna work with, and also because I feel like for anyone who has a dream, coaching is the perfect tool to help them become the version of themselves that can execute and live and create that dream.
Amazing. Yeah. and I will say before I ask this question, a lot of these questions I wrote because these are answers that I'm interested in hearing from Caro. So generally speaking, most of us wanna create something special. We wanna create a legacy. We wanna create a life that gives us what we want, meets our needs.
What do you think is the reason we no longer find that spark deep down or we're confused on what we want, or we lose this desire to create that?
It's a great question, and I think that often , throughout my career, I've met people who tell me, "I actually don't know what I want," or, "I thought it was this, but it's that other thing." And I think that, of course, desires change as we grow. We have new perspectives, new interests, and I think that we have been taught to be attached to the first desire, to the version of ourselves we created when we were probably in our 20s and believe that we still have to pursue that career.
And then when we no longer want that career, we feel like we should keep wanting that career. So I would summarize the answer in two ways. The first one is we're not connected to ourselves enough to be listening to what we want
So if we're not paying attention to us, to what's important to us, to what sparks a fire within us, even if it's the smallest interest and we continue pursuing it, then how will we know what we want? And then sometimes we expect other people to tell us what we want. But that truly is an inner journey and a discovery to connecting to ourselves. And my belief, and I've proved it over and over again, is that there is no such thing as not knowing what you want.
Every single person that I've met that has come to me saying, "I don't know what I want," through a couple of sessions and introspection, they have really connected to what they want. The second reason why I believe we get lost sometimes is because of fear.
Because we have created a story that whatever is it that we want is impossible or we shouldn't want it, or we can't have it for X, Y, Z reasons, and we have spent a lot of time collecting the reasons as to why the dream we want, we can't have it.
And then we end up being like, "But then I don't know what I want." And it's not that we don't know, it's that we're scared of actually facing what we want. That's what I think. yeah, thank you for that. Okay, next question. There's a million coaches out there, at least, millions.
Some just decide one day that they wanna, "Hey, I wanna be a coach." Probably shouldn't. Others are at the top of their game. What would you say makes being a good coach really hard?
Here's what I think is the hardest part of being a coach, and it's to walk the talk. Here I am every day sitting with my clients and asking them to have courage to do things that for them feel so scary. I need to be doing the same. I need to be having the same amount of courage and going for the things that scare me.
If I'm asking them to have difficult conversations, I need to be having difficult conversations in my own life. I don't think it's even, the certifications or what your titles are. I really believe that the best coaches walk the talk. They live in integrity, and that's really, really hard. And one of the things that I hope my clients know when I'm coaching them and when I share stories in this podcast is that for me, living in integrity is not pretending that I have it all figured out, that I am figuring it out as I go, that I make mistakes, that sometimes fear also stops me, sometimes I'm blinded, I'm tired, I'm lazy, I'm a human being.
But as one of my favorite coaches says, As coaches, we need to go first, we need to go often, and we need to go with purpose." And what she means by that is that we are the first ones that need to be taking the risks that we're asking our clients to take.
We need to question our thoughts, our own stories. We need to be an example of what we're doing. And I think that is hard. It's hard for all human beings, and because you have a coaching certification, that doesn't make it easier.
And the second thing that comes to mind, And I think this has been a big growth edge for me, and I'm leaning into it every day, is that as a coach, my clients didn't h-hire me to make them feel better. My clients hire me to be better. And a lot of the times, I have to risk my relationship with them to be able to tell them a hard truth, to call them out on something they might not wanna see or might feel very hurt by that.
And that, for me, is always hard because as any human being, I want them to love me, I want them to be fans, and I want them to enjoy the coaching sessions. But I wouldn't be doing my job if I'm not risking the relationship for the sake of their own dream, for the sake of their own growth. Not for me, for them.
I recently challenged a client in a very big way, and I know she was hurt, and it weighs on me. It stays with me. It keeps me up at night. I worry about it. But I keep coming to that my job is not to help my clients feel better, but to be better. So I love that answer, and a lot of that is staying in integrity with what you tell others.
You must practice first on your own. So speaking of integrity, I've got a listener question for you. This is in no way, shape, or form written by me. That's not true. It was. I know what I need to do, but I'm not doing it.
When someone says that to you, what is it that you wanna understand first? is typically behind avoiding that thing that they know they have to do but they're not doing it? I don't think actually, Andrew, you even know this, and I don't think I've talked about this in the podcast, but actually that was a question that drove me to coaching, or one of the questions.
The, why when I know I wanna do this, I don't do it, and when I know I don't wanna do this, I do it? And I think that's a huge question. In fact, someone was telling me that question, they even speak about it in the Bible. So it's a human question, and it's been with us for so many years. And what we do in coaching is to unpack that and to understand why.
And I think one of the reasons is because we have a part of our brain that is moving us away from pain, moving us towards pleasure, making us save energy. In order to pursue big dreams, in order to grow, in order to become the leaders and the visionaries we wanna be, we have to be fighting that part of our brain, โand that part of our brain is incredibly smart and genius and comes up with really good ideas as to why we shouldn't do something.
And also, I think there is a big part of our biology, We have all these hormones and neurotransmitters that give us a sense of reward for things that are not necessarily the best thing.
So to explain it, we, need to have a difficult conversation. It goes against almost, like, our biology to go and face the other person and be vulnerable and be courageous. Instead, our brain is like, "Why don't we check email again? Why don't we do this thing that seems a lot easier, and it's gonna have a release of dopamine that is gonna make me feel good?"
So I think it's a very big question and, here's a couple of things that I wanna say about it. One, we all face it. All of us at some degree face that challenge of, "Ah, I didn't wanna do this. Why am I doing it?" Or, "I wanna do this. Why can't I do it?" And I say this because I think we need to remove shame from it, because when we feel ashamed because we're having that experience, that's when we get even more stuck.
Two, it's good to understand why it's happening, but I think more importantly is to ask ourselves, "How do I get out of it?" And that is what we do in coaching every day. We take small steps. We challenge thinkings. We break limiting beliefs. We go deep into whatever is holding you back so you can start moving in the direction that you wanna go.
And one of the things that I wanna say here that I think it's important is that we all have the experience of being a victim at times. We all have the experience of feeling like things are happening to us and that we don't have control over that, and there is a level of satisfaction in it. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it's true.
When we're not taking full responsibility, when we're feeling like, "Poor me, this," or, "This is happening to me because of others or circumstances or whatever," there is, a little bit of a good feeling. And giving up that good feeling and taking responsibility is hard but is the step we must take in order to start effecting change.
But we have to do it with a very, a lot of love and compassion.
Beautiful. And I think this is a, good follow-up to that question. I would say most of us probably know that we're emotional beings. We make decisions emotionally, justify them logically, but often in the same breath, we hear, " Leave your emotions at home,"
so I'm curious, in your experience which emotions do you see people organize their entire lives around just to avoid feeling? What are the most common ones? Like the emotions they don't wanna feel- Exactly ... you mean? okay. I think vulnerability, number one, and vulnerability is the emotion that shows up when we are taking a risk, when we're facing uncertainty, and when we are exposing ourselves emotionally.
So I hear a lot of people stay in jobs they hate for years and years and years, even though they're burnt out and stressful because they don't wanna face the vulnerability of the unknown. They don't wanna face the vulnerability of the risk they need to take. I think fear, I think fear is such a big driver.
We feel we can control, what feels, quote-unquote, "safe" for us, we also wanna do it. And this is different because I don't know that this is a feeling people avoid having, but I think it's a feeling that people really care about and sometimes they put it above other things and its significance, wanting to feel like they matter, that they're important.
So people stay in jobs that get paid well, they have a fancy title, the company's well-known because they think that's what gives them significance versus being on the side of "I am worthy and valuable without all of that." I think that's a big part of the work.
So emotions that threaten their sense of worth, that question their ability to control the circumstances around them. I'm not guilty of that ever. None of us are
So having worked with so many people across all walks of life, socioeconomically, age groups, how do you tell the difference between someone who needs to trust themselves more and someone who needs to question themselves more?
Wow, I think nobody had asked me that question before But \ here's how I think I wanna answer it The people who need to question themselves more, that they feel like they have all the answers, that they feel like, you know, it's the people that sometimes we perceive as arrogant, as like know-it-alls, they don't come to coaching.
So my clients come to me because they have that part of their brains that is questioning themselves, that is creating doubt. I wouldn't, for my clients specifically, I wouldn't say that they have to choose between questioning themselves and believing themselves. I think they absolutely need to believe every day more in themselves, and they already do, right?
So, like, this is a journey of continuing to believe in themselves. But I think that the questioning has to change. Instead of asking themselves questions like, "Am I capable of this? Who am I to be doing this?
Am I good at this? Why can't I do more? Why can't I get there faster or produce more work?" The questions have to be more around, "Why am I thinking this? Why am I telling myself this story? What is a better story to tell myself?"
Again, at least this is speaking from my experience, but people who think they have it all figured out, they don't come to coaching. And it doesn't mean that they have it all figured out. It's just that they're living in that story for themselves. People who come to coaching are incredibly successful, and at the same time, they have a very healthy voice, because I think it is very healthy to question ourselves and doubt. That is part of having a healthy brain come to coaching. We just need to change the type of questions they're asking.
All right, so now th-this is the last question I've got for you. If you're still listening, it's a bit of a juicy one. and I genuinely don't know the answer to this, if this has ever happened or not, but have you been fired as someone's coach prior to completing the full term?
It did happen once, โand it was because I went to the place that I knew it was gonna be hard, and I risked the relationship.
And I will never forget, this was someone who a company hired me to coach their employees or their members, and it was one of those members. So I received the news from the company, and I will never forget, I was getting on a plane from Dallas to LA maybe, and I was walking down the bridge to get on an airplane when I received this email, and I went into a shame spiral. I was so embarrassed. I was thinking about what this company was gonna believe about me, and I had to practice what I preach and I kept repeating myself, "This is shame, and I'm gonna be okay." And, I remember having the conversation. I remember the way it landed on the client.
I remember her being taken aback. And it was hard. It was really hard. Do you regret that? Oof. There's a part of me that always wonders if I could have said it in a different way- that would have landed better. It hurts still. This was years ago. And I just hope that that message I was trying to convey to her back then, maybe years later she can hear it and maybe something's got stuck.
That's what I can hope. I have no idea what happened with this woman, after that. But yeah, that's what I was talking about, the hard part of being a coach.
What I know about you is you are always your first client. You're out there doing the work. Which, you know, I certainly really admire. So what are you working on right now? What's your growth edge? What's your opportunity?
I'll answer it in two ways. I think in our business, we can both agree that our biggest challenge right now is marketing and growing our community, and for me, that means learning to be more visible. I struggle with wanting to have a big impact, and at the same time, I really enjoy having an anonymous life.
And I realize there's a trade-off. In order for me to have a bigger impact and affect more people, I need to put myself out there more. And two, in a very personal way, and, and this is really vulnerable that I'm gonna share because I am really working on that right now, is slowing myself down, and I have known for years this is my work, and I have tiptoed on it, but I think now I'm seeing it with a lot more clarity.
And, and I think there's a contradiction because I wanna continue growing, I wanna make this business more successful, and I'm always in a to-do list. I'm always like, "What's the next thing? What's the next thing?
What's the next thing?" So I've shared in another episode that one of the simple challenges I'm giving myself is go for a walk every day without phones, without being connected to anything, and that is proving to be really hard for me to do because my agenda is always packed.
I don't even have an answer right now as to what that means, but I hope me going through this journey of learning how to be successful outside and and make myself more visible while at the same time internally working on being in the present moment, not attached to technology, slowing my thoughts down, works, I hope I'll be sharing more about this as I'm learning and as time goes by.
I'm sure you will too. Well, that's it for the questions that I have. I did have one other favor to ask you guys who are listening. You've heard Caro say this before, but it means the world to us if you could go like, write a review of this podcast. It helps us reach more individuals just like you and get the work out there.
Yes, and thank you so much for being with us in 100 episodes. I hope every week you look forward to getting a little lesson that makes your life a little better. you are the reason why we do this every week because of this intention we both have to have an impact and to help people pursue their dreams and live the lives that they never imagined they could have lived.
Thanks so much for joining us. Bye.
