PODCAST: Finding Your Purpose

 

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Darci Smith: Hey everybody welcome to I don’t know what episode this is of the pod life, we have a very special guest again today Christopher Lawrence who was with us previously on one of our sugar Chronicles, the gummi whorse issue.

 

Christopher Lawrence: That was a popular issue

 

Darci:It was

 

Christopher:It’s still a popular issue, and mine

 

Darci:It is, highly, we’re not talking about sugar today though.

 

Christopher:That’s right.

 

Darci:So, I wanted to give you Christopher an opportunity to tell our listeners what you do as a life coach and then we will get into my questions.

 

Christopher:sure I have three key areas of focus as a life coach, one is on helping people discover the right job fit so whether it’s a dream job or just a better job than they have now, helping them discover that or navigate through it, so sometimes they’re in that job but it’s not going the way they want that’s the first thing I do, through that process we’re often looking at the entire rest of their life, so sometimes people come for a job, sometimes they come for something else, but we end up touching on almost everything.

 

The second thing is that we do lots of corporate stuff as well at this point, so it’s about getting into organizations and helping corporations sort of bring life coaching into the business, helping people manage difficult change and master difficult conversations and all of these fun things, so same stuff that we do in the life coaching piece but on a formalized group level.

 

Darci:Okay, excellent well today we, I wanted to talk to you about finding your passion chasing your dreams that kind of fun stuff motivating stuff, so I guess the first question is can you tell me your story of how you came to be a life coach.

 

Christopher:oh my gosh yeah how far back do you want me to go.

 

Darci:You’re not that old so it won’t take long.

 

Christopher:you will be surprised. I realized what birthday I was coming up to and I was like you know, I will go back to college maybe in when I was in college I took administration, I was in the admin field only guy in the class out of 110 women

 

Darci:Excellent.

 

Christopher:Yeah that’s what some people thought but I was disappointed, make your own conclusions, so I did quite well in that program, and I entered the corporate world and I did very well, but I didn’t I was even though I was doing well I was consistently dissatisfied with the status quo, so I worked in corporate I couldn’t understand why things were the way they were, I was continually dissatisfied, I went through a massive process almost in the literal sense of gaining weight and becoming dissatisfied and maybe drinking a little too much and eating too much and you know, to sort of manage stress and everything else, and so I was working on a project that had I think the team was 46 people as core employees, and then we had a number of subcontractors like twice as many subcontractors working for us.

 

And by the end of that project the project was, I don’t know delayed by a year or two it was like it was insane, one-third of the entire project team had been on long term or short term rather medical or disability during that time, mostly due to things like stress anxiety depression adjustment disorder and all these things, so I was one of those few, the few I mean one third is not a few but, so during that time I was that time that I was off I did a lot of self-work and this kind of thing, and I realized that in any big change there’s always a group of people who get left behind, and I wanted to work with those people who got left behind, so I was in the change management field right which is a field that helps organizations go through change, most organizations tend to focus on the technical side of change but not enough on the people side of change, my approach is quite a bit different, it’s like we need to focus on the peoples side of change getting buy in getting people motivated for the change, helping them perform better you know and it’s just sort of enhancing their work structure.

 

But that’s not what, that’s not typically what corporate change focuses on it intends to but it doesn’t do it well in my opinion. Now I haven’t worked with every organization in the world but there are some common themes that seem to string across many, so what I wanted to do with the people side of change and I realized that in my organization that wasn’t going to happen in the way that I would like it to. So I started this company change my life coaching.

 

Darci:That’s awesome.

 

Christopher:yeah.

 

Darci:That’s really awesome. okay so my first question for you would be what’s your definition of passion and is this different from someone’s purpose.

 

Christopher:yes absolutely, what a great question to start with, this is a subject but I’m particularly passionate about, and in the same sentence I’ll say screw passion, so here’s it I don’t say screw passion in a literal sense here but, and I know passion is important it’s really important so I’m going to give you the definition through a couple of examples. I sort of see purpose as a purpose of passion as a cake, and purpose is the cake itself, the cake is the reason why we get up in the morning.

 

Darci:Okay.

 

Christopher:right we want to eat it, it tastes good it’s the reason why we get up, but sometimes it doesn’t you know sometimes it’s not you know, sometimes we just don’t feel like getting up, the cake is the thing that makes us get up anyway, alright so even if I don’t feel like getting up I’m going to get up anyway. I want you to look at passion like the icing on the cake. and I think in our world we look at, so passionate are those things that really drive you right, the problem with how we interpret passion in our world is that everybody wants to do something they’re passionate about, I can tell you as a career and life coach and as somebody who spent the better part of ten decades pursuing passion, passion can be really misleading, so think of it like icing without the cake, try putting it on the cake stand, it runs all over the place in all sorts of different directions, that’s a lot like passion isn’t it.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:and sometimes we’ve just had enough, so then we just go look for a different icing we look for a different passion, and so the problem with that is that there’s no grit there’s no stick-to-itiveness there’s no you know seeing things through to the end, and so that’s the kind of the first example. The second example is we all have things in our lives that we’re passionate about that maybe should never be part of our job, like I’m really passionate about politics and religion and excuse the phrasing but God help us all if i get involved in religion.

 

Darci:That’s another podcast

 

Christopher:That’s right, and I’m not, I have my own spiritual beliefs I’m not making commentary on anything I’m just saying not a good career choice for someone like me to get involved with religion or politics, you know at least not in the traditional sense, there is to many naked pictures of me floating out there.

 

Darci:Thanks for that.

 

Christopher:() I don’t know if you will find it, a long time ago, remember I was a drug addict at one point, () coming up to 18 years sober need to say that part too, oh gosh this has got no importance, stop talking.

 

Darci:There are some really nice thoughts around today.

 

Christopher:Yes, they don’t match.

 

Darci:Okay so how does someone know what their passion is or maybe what their purpose is.

 

Christopher: Yeah you know I think it’s interesting I do think that some people figured this out really early in life, and everybody else is envious, yeah and I find that some of the people who figured it out earlier in life, they go down that path and I can tell you because of what I do on having hundreds of people in my office, that they don’t wake up every day going ah this is it, oh wow this is awesome, I’ll give you an example of one client I had, he knew from the time he was six years old that he was going to be a cop, and he became a cop.

 

Darci:Wow

 

Christopher:and he is still a Cop you know over a decade later, but I know for a fact that he does not wake up every single day because he’s told me so, and say oh you know this is amazing, you know it’s like I have, you know it’s like every day is an amazing day I’m happy and whatever, and so I’ve kind of lost sight of your question here but, but I can tell you that that some of us some of us figured out what it isn’t at a young age in some of the stones, so your question was how do I figure it out.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:how’s your purpose.

 

Darci:Yeah if someone no

 

Christopher:So for the rest of us it’s a little bit of an interesting process, purpose is the reason why you want to get up in the morning, and sometimes discovering this is whether or not you feel like it, it’s still the reason why you want to, right, so discovering this it is sometimes for the rest of us a process of sort of looking at the culmination of the things that we’ve already accomplished in our life, not even just the great things or the bad things, but the average things, keeping in mind the great things and the bad things that we’ve you know accomplished, and putting those together, so from an actual tactic perspective sometimes we go through visualizations or whatever it is, but it’s maybe about taking a flavor from your passion and we’ll talk about discovering passion in a second here.

 

it’s taking a flavor from your passion, and saying this is what I want to spend more time doing, so and maybe it’s even a flavor of your personality, so if you were to say like one of the flavors of my personality has changed, everybody that knows me knows that right, it’s all about change, like oh your comfortable, okay great let’s change me, so if I am the changer of things why am I the changer of things, like what is so important for my passion that I must do, I’ve always been passionate about career justice, career satisfaction, knowing how to manage self and career, which came much too late in my career and knowing how to manage your manager in career and so if I’m the changer who’s focused on career because that’s a passion for me, you know that’s kind of what I do and maybe even a little bit of why I do it, but why do I really do it.

 

and it’s because we spend the best part of our day at work, and the best part of our lives when we have the most decision-making ability in our life we spend working, so it better be something that we find fulfilling, now I didn’t say happiness.

 

Darci:No, you did not.

 

Christopher:I didn’t say happiness, I think the pursuit of happiness is interesting, people who really know me don’t think that I’m a particularly happy person, which doesn’t mean that I’m negative either, tell me why your laughing.

 

 

Darci:Because I just laugh at that because I don’t see that in you know.

 

Christopher:Most don’t.

and like having knowing your here and you still live in the same building and then going through the program with you I don’t see that.

 

Christopher:yeah, I come across as happy.

 

Darci:Yes, you do.

 

Christopher:yeah and it’s not a () that’s just my personality.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:which is different, and it doesn’t mean I don’t experience happiness it also doesn’t mean when I say people that know me wouldn’t say that at my core I’m a happy person, that doesn’t mean that I’m a depressed person, it’s not the opposite, but at my core I’m a fulfilled person.

 

Darci:Right

 

Christopher:and fulfillment, happiness is a part of fulfillment, but so is sadness, so is challenge so is overcoming obstacles, do you see what I’m saying.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:and so I think it’s about understanding that happiness is part of the pursuit of fulfillment, and this is where the difference between purpose and passion come into place, because passion is what makes us happy doesn’t it, but purpose is the reason I get up, and I can tell you I love what I do for a living, but I don’t wake up happy every day, and sometimes I don’t even want to be here, but it’s so fulfilling, and I cannot let my clients down, so why show up right, and you know I’m not one of these people where it’s like you have to check it at the door, you have to check it at the door but it’s about honoring that for yourself and using that experience to have the most fulfilling session for the client.

 

all right they might not even know what’s happening in the background.

 

Darci:Interesting

 

Christopher:but it’s about using what you have to produce the best results, so if we go back to purpose discovery it’s like it’s like what’s you know what’s it you know who I am I, well I’m the changer of things like I’m always changing something right, and you know what’s important to me, well career because of that reason, and why is that important, you know because we spend the best time, so maybe my purpose is to be the changer so that people can experience fulfilling careers, do you see what I’m saying, or maybe it’s my purpose is to help people discover the right job so that they can have a more fulfilling career or find more fulfillment in their life through their career, which is really what it’s about if you want to know the truth, it is about helping people find more fulfillment in life through their career. So you know how do you discover it I don’t know if it’s a simple answer, but the starting place would be look at who you are the culmination of your behaviors and values, the averageness of you, for me the averageness as changed right, for some people it’s comfort, for some people its dissatisfaction, I don’t care if it’s a negative or positive word, trust me what we’re going to turn it into something that works for you, you know that would be the first step, the second step would be to sort of look at what’s important to you, this is where passion might come in.

 

Right this is where passion might come in it might not, but what is important to you you know, where do you want to make a difference in your life or the lives of others, I can tell you when people put the lives of others some of their purpose needs to be about extending outside of themselves to help others right, we have to feel like we’re contributing to something outside of ourselves right, Tony Robbins does that all the time, and there is something I prescribe to you and I see it consistently with my clients. When we get down to the roots it’s always about contributing to something outside of themselves, that’s the second part, and then the third part is why do you do it why is it important to you, so if you take those three components and you take what I said before, and I’m using myself as an example because it’s an easy example, but you know it’s like I’m the changer that’s the combination of my averageness that’s who I am right.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher: and I put that in with the second step what’s important to me having job satisfaction is freaking important to me man, and it’s important to me that other people do too.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:right.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:so why do I do that, it’s because people should have more fulfillment in their lives also because of their career not just because of their career but also because of their career.

 

Darci:Right.

 

Christopher:That’s the purpose question long answer I know, when people are taking notes, there’s a rewind button right, there’s a whole generation of kids out there that don’t even know what a rewind button is.

 

Darci:That’s sad.

 

Christopher:I know yes, so how do you discover your passion, these are the things that it’s that light your fire, and passion can be fleeting, so it’s like you know they’re you know you might wake up one day and be like wow it’s like I really want to learn more about business, or I want to learn more about podcasting, or I want to learn more about you know architecture or whatever it is, and that’s the passion, those things are important and they can help flavor the cake right, it can help flavor the purpose, but passion isn’t always the place to start right, sometimes it is but then we still have to get to sort of what’s underneath it right, because passions can change every day for some people, it’s like I’m really passionate about this, and then like three months later I’m really passionate about this, and those people stay up at night worrying that I never finish anything, and then you have the other folks who have purpose but they have no passion and they stay up at night worrying about the fact that they’re not passionate about anything, and this is where it’s like maybe passion isn’t where it’s at, maybe it’s just a flavor.

 

Darci:Interesting.

 

Christopher:that’s my perspective.

 

Darci:That’s interesting.

 

Christopher:yeah thank you.

 

Darci:Well I think you’ve already answered this but I’ll ask it again anyways, so is your little Fay her face something that is already instinctively knowing or is there some form of personal work that goes into it, I think you’ve already answered that, because you said you know some people just.

 

Christopher:and I don’t think they’re born with it actually if you want to know the truth I don’t think they’re bored with it, I think it also kind of depends on your spiritual beliefs, like I think you know I don’t think people are born with it but I do think people may be spiritually or guided  if you’re inclined to believe that, I think that we are guided, but I think it’s still a learn to behavior, like the cop he can go back and tell you about the time he was six years old the cop put him on the counter and put a hat on his head, and then he understood what being a cop meant about saving people you know and this kind of thing.

 

Christopher:and so I think even when you have your purpose you can lose sight of it along the way right.

 

Darci:Definitely.

 

Christopher:Like there’s a reason why the cop was seeing me.

 

Darci:Yes

 

Christopher:right.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:It doesn’t mean he’s changing jobs necessarily, but he might be changing how he shows up to that job, maybe he needs a new purpose for being in the same career, sometimes he needs a new purpose with a new career, sometimes it’s the same purpose with a different career.

 

Darci:Right.

 

Christopher:do you see what I’m saying.

 

Darci:Yeah, boy where should someone start if they decided to, if they decide they want to find air I’m using the word passion throughout this.

 

Christopher:sure.

 

Darci:Switch it around if you would.

 

Christopher:And why don’t we say passion and purpose because both are important right.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:slightly different things but both are important, so where should somebody start, I think that you start introspectively, I think too often we rely on like external assessments either formally provided by assessors and we can do that here, but to be honest I don’t use it for career and purpose discovery.

 

Darci:Right

 

Christopher:I use it to help me understand how to work better with my clients right, because I don’t believe in that model I think it’s a broken model, it doesn’t work anymore, I don’t think it ever actually did, I think it was a step in the right direction right.

 

Darci:Right.

 

Christopher:but I think you start introspectively and you start to become questioning about yourself and you look at yourself and you say, you know what are the great things I have achieved, what are the things that I completely bombed at, and then go in the middle and say what is it that I do consistently every day, good bad indifferent doesn’t matter, you know and maybe you start there right, and then you look at the things that light your fire or the things that interest you, you know I remember when we had the conversation about you wanting to start a podcast, there’s a reason why that was alright, and so it’s about digging into that piece of it right, and maybe that’s your first step, it is a pen to paper activity I know some people think that they can type this out or think about it but it does not have the same effect as putting pen to paper.

 

Yeah you have to give it an outlet from your head, and when you’re typing it is a different part of your brain than writing it out, because as you’re writing you’re processing, as you’re typing you’re dictating right, so, and there’s a ton of research out there that that would support that.

 

Darci:That’s interesting, okay, so what would you say to a client who comes to you and describing themselves as being stuck in a rut based on their lack of fulfilling their passion or purpose.

 

Christopher:yes stuck in a rut is really interesting because if it’s based on fulfilling their passion or purpose I think the question is do they have clarity in their passion or purpose first, if clarity isn’t there that we have to do that first, if clarity is there if they know what the passion and purpose is and they’re absolutely clear on what that looks like, because I mean there’s no point in taking steps if you’re not clear.

 

Darci:Right

 

Christopher:right if you’re not clear then why are we taking steps, like what, you know, so sometimes the steps that we take are meant to get clarity right, sometimes we actually have to go in dive in headfirst see if we like it you know, so what I would say is get clear first on what it is that you absolutely want to do, and then once you have that clarity if you’re still stuck and you can’t move forward because of circumstances or whatever that is you know, where it is about actually coming up with tactics for your obstacles, I’m trying to stay away from saying you know there’s lots of opportunities here to engage a coach because that’s self-serving.

 

Darci:But I think it should be said. You’re allowed to plug that.

 

Christopher:well I think it should be said because there’s, and there’s lots of amazing coaches out there all right, be picky make sure that your coaches results-focused, and if you’re not getting the results like don’t lock yourself into anything that you’re afraid you’re not going to get results from right.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:because that’s what you’re there for is to get results but you know, so you can use a coach in these cases but if you’re doing this process on your own literally write down everything, all the obstacles every single thing that’s getting in your way from achieving the passion and purpose, and staying stuck in the rut, so I have clarity but now I still can’t achieve it what’s getting in the way my own mindset, money, my family you know what if food, like I don’t know it could be anything for anybody right, so what is it that’s getting in the way, and then actually and this is where we fall apart because we’re incredibly good at planning, but we don’t plan to overcome the obstacles.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:so we have to plan what the obstacles are and come up with tactics for each of them, and some of them we’re going to want to say I have no clue, and when you want to write I have no clue how to overcome this obstacle or I have no idea or I don’t know when you want to write that, instead of writing that write seek an expert who has overcome this obstacle that I can either pay for or have pro bono mentorship or whatever it is or seek the knowledge on the Internet, like you know maybe the first step to overcoming that obstacle is to research how to overcome the obstacle.

 

Darci:Right

 

Christopher:do you see what I’m saying, so maybe it’s my habits my thinking it doesn’t matter, the point is to get something down and then you start down that path, and when you go understand that disappointment will come that part of the journey of fulfillment, and this is why Olympic athletes by the way can do what they do, or the great CEOs of the world or the millionaires who weren’t born into it and actually worked for it, this is about using disappointment to drive you forward, and yeah it sucks, but it’s about saying yeah this is hard it’s really hard I want to give up, and that’s a good reason to keep going.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:it’s a good reason to get up in the morning again and say yeah I’m totally disappointed but I’m not going to let these SOBs beat me, and sometimes these in quotations SObs are the gremlins in your head telling you a bunch of crap like you can’t do it right, and you know we hear this thing I can’t do it I can’t do it because that’s one of the big obstacles isn’t it, it’s like we can’t do it, we can’t do it, yet just at the word yet, you can’t do it yet right, you can’t do it yet, I’d love to take credit for that I can’t that came from a obstacle course training facility that I go to here in Calgary, brilliant facility.

 

Darci:Really

 

Christopher:yeah it’s amazing little wins all over the place it’s called cor fit just in case anybody wants to know COR.FIT and it stands for Canadian obstacle racing that’s the cor fit and it’s brilliant like you can never win every 30 seconds in that place, so it keeps you coming back yeah.

 

Darci:I can’t yet.

 

Christopher:oh now you know what’s going to happen right I’m going to make you come with me, you shouldn’t have said that.

 

Darci:Okay, so what part does self-motivation play, and how do you suggest someone motivates himself or herself.

 

Christopher:man, self-motivation.

 

Darci:Yeah

 

Christopher:it’s a broad question.

 

Darci:Yeah.

 

Christopher:so I think let’s just agree that motivation is important.

 

Darci:yes

 

Christopher:right and you can replace that with words like internal drive or stick-to-itiveness or great or whatever it is, but let’s just agree that it’s important.

 

Darci:okay

 

Christopher:I think this is my own personal philosophy, which you don’t have to agree with, and there may be even some research out there that would that would counteract this actually I don’t even know that because the research I’m seeing would be in line with this, so here’s what the research says, the research says that our ability to self-motivate and situatedness if it is not a well-developed muscle community is required, meaning and I’m not necessarily saying support groups because that has its own connotation to it, but sometimes community is two people.

 

Darci:Okay.

 

Christopher:one is achieve what you want to achieve right, because what happens and you’ll see it a ton of times in the new year, new year’s resolution, the number one new years of resolution is weight loss right, so everybody’s at the gym, and they get an accountability bunny, but they choose somebody else who already doesn’t have a good habit of going to the gym right, and thought like so what happens, I mean the writing’s on the wall right, it’s like you know it’s like I’m just kind of not feeling it, and your buddy isn’t either but instead of your buddy saying you know neither am I but we’re going because that’s what we committed to, your buddy says yeah you know what me neither it’s okay.

 

Darci:Let’s go for candy

 

Christopher:right that’s the exact opposite thing, so I think this is I think the ability to self-motivate and self-account perhaps have some accountability is important, but I think when you’re starting something off what I would say is one of the ways is to have an accountability buddy accountability partner an accountability coach, and this is not a family member, it’s not your best friend, it’s somebody who’s a little bit arm’s length from you who you would feel a little uncomfortable if you had to tell them that you didn’t follow through.

 

Darci:Interesting.

 

Christopher:I know that there are so many leaders on earth who will not dump into this because of the perceived HR issues, but I can tell you that having a manager or a leader as an accountability partner, and you have to clearly establish the rules of accountability, meaning the person who needs to be held accountable gets to set those rules, not the partner who’s trying to hold them accountable, so you decide what accountability should actually look like.

 

Darci:yeah

 

Christopher:and how they are to approach you what they need to ask you the kinds of things they need to say right, you agree to those things, using a boss as an accountability partner can be very effective, I’m not saying it’s the best option but it’s very effective, I can tell you here when we work with our staff we do look at personal goals, they define their own accountability, but they think that we’re holding accountability, because the perception of the position that I hold as the owner of this company, so they’re scared to let me down.

 

Darci:interesting

 

Christopher:no, because of my approach with them it’s soft and gentle right, they do feel away about letting me down, but they never do, and so our staff has lost weight quit smoking built coaching practices even found new jobs because they knew that they were here for a period of time you know, we were okay with it, that was part of being vulnerable right, outside of accountability partners self-motivating it’s about understanding your reasons why, so why am I doing this, and if my why isn’t a deep and personal connection, I need to dig into the pain of not doing this thing that I want to do, and dig so deep that the thought of not doing it is absolutely not optional right.

 

So self-motivation can come in a number of different forms, and to be honest you need to use the tactic that works right, some people we hit them in their pocketbook you know, it’s like oh you know what I’m going to need to feel this here’s you know a thousand or five thousand or five hundred or fifty, something that feels significant dollars, it’s going in this place we have a promissory note in place you know, this is you’re working with somebody that you know like and trust and if you don’t follow through on the goal that gets donated.

 

Darci:Wow

 

Christopher:to something else you know. like I think the point is to use things that work and whatever tactic is going to work should be the one that you do as long as it doesn’t involve self-harm, and it’s up harm you know comes in lots of forms, so as long as it doesn’t involve self-harm. I didn’t say pain though did I, sometimes it is about having pain right, pain is very motivating,

 

Darci:True

 

Christopher:it is you know, it makes you wonder like we’ve just gone through a whole bunch of layoffs in Calgary over the last three years and it’s still happening right now, and everybody gets severance packages, I can tell you the people that get jobs the fastest are the ones who didn’t get severance packages, or got the smallest package, the people who I like I brought out of severance I brought out a BI what do I do with the ones who had massive severance, I’m stereotyping here a bit you know, it’s not true in all cases but.

 

Darci:well probably a chunk of that is true.

 

Christopher: yeah it could be yeah.

 

Darci:Okay suggestions to stay and keep motivated.

 

Christopher:yeah I’m so glad you asked that question because I felt like I didn’t say something in the last one this is perfect, I think it’s all about having understanding that motivation is an emotion.

 

Darci:okay

 

Christopher:people forget that, or they don’t know it, motivation is an emotion right, based off of a series of chemical responses, so why does that matter, here’s why it matters, if I am in a low emotional state how motivated am iI.

 

Darci:zero

 

Christopher:right, and so a low motivational state could be things like depression or lethargy or even relaxation right ,so low emotional state isn’t always a bad thing right, so don’t look at it as negative context, but when we’re relaxed we’re not really motivated are we.

 

Darci:Nope.

 

Christopher:right, so low emotional state equals low motivation, high emotional state equals high motivation, so the obvious examples are I’m feeling really pumped up, you know it’s a brand-new year I can do, you know like I can do these workouts right, we listen to our favorite music yours is?

 

Darci:Michael Jackson.

 

Christopher:Michael Jackson right, so we listen to you know our favorite music we feel motivated don’t we, high motivational state, and when we’re in that high motivational state we’re more likely to accomplish those things, this is also true when we’re anxious or angry.

 

Darci:oh yeah.

 

Christopher:because we’re really motivated to either get out of the situation to fight somebody, somebody cuts you off in traffic and you don’t have good coping techniques we’re really motivated to get ahead of them to tailgate them to give them the finger to just start yelling swearing bitching under our breath whatever it is right, so to sustain motivation we have to find the things that keep you in a high high emotional state that are productive, meaning lots of time anxiety is anything but productive right, so we can do that for periods of time then we have to get the habits locked in because that’s what motivation is for its to lock in habits, so it’s using the high emotional state to apply the same behavior over and over and over again, when we’re in that high emotional state.

 

when we do that the more often we do it the less high motivated we need to be because now we’re starting to form habits, so this is why we slip in and out of habits a bit as well right, so because we can’t stay motivated all the time can we, how often can you say, even when you have like the best day of your life like even if it’s like the best week and you’re like oh my God look at this this and this, I mean look at people who go crazy on vacations like I went on 75 rollercoasters in 24 hours, I’m like oh my god, but after that they’re completely beat.

 

Darci:yeah

 

Christopher:you know they need some downtime right to relax in their own way whatever that means right, so it’s hard to stay in that high motivational state all the time, or a high emotional state all the time, so when we’re there and we want to be there as often as we can, when we’re there we use it to apply behaviors consistently, when we do that then the habit part starts to take over overtime which isn’t by the way just 22 days or 60 days whatever you hear it depends on what it is.

 

Darci:and depends on the person.

 

Christopher:and it depends on the person right, and so sometimes it’s years, but when you do that eventually the habit takes over meaning I formed a new neural pathway in my head and the other ones getting a little weedy.

 

Darci:okay

 

Christopher:make sense.

 

Darci:yes

 

Christopher:so come up with tactics the simple answers come up with tactics that put you in a high emotional state, so things like music or dance or art or physical activity or talking to a friend right, careful with that talking to a friend though because if all we’re doing is like pivoting and complaining you’ll find that you’re in a high mode of relational state but it’s not productive.

 

Darci:right

 

Christopher:Right.

 

Darci:yes

 

Christopher:I have found myself in that situation just once in my life, I’m allowed two mistakes a year that was one.

 

Darci:a year.

 

Christopher:yeah, my staff – two mistakes then they’re fired, because I’m the owner when I make my third mistake the first one falls off, so it’s a good system for me everybody else walks on eggshells.

 

Darci:Excellent, Okay here is a good one, are you ever too old to find your passion.

 

Christopher:oh never, my oldest client was 83 years old.

 

Darci:ah fabulous.

 

Christopher:Yeah

 

Darci:there’s hope

 

Christopher:yeah, are you kidding me.

 

Darci:Excellent. and do you think someone’s passion changes as they change.

 

Christopher:yes I think that passion changes as they change, I do think that purpose can shift depending on life circumstance, I do some times, I think purpose goes through phases that tend to last a little longer it’s just we’re not always aware that we have a purpose right now you know, sometimes the purpose is to discover purpose to you know, I know it sounds complex but it really doesn’t mean to be, if you really don’t know then that is your purpose is to discover your purpose right, and it will involve an element of contributing to something outside of yourself.

 

Darci:Right, okay, I know that we’re running out of time, so speaking of passion you’ve written a book.

 

Christopher:I have.

 

Darci:I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about your book.

 

Christopher: Oh thank you yes I wrote a book it’s called it’s called go beyond passion discover your dream job, and it’s a hundred page book that’s packed tightly with a whole bunch of information and a lot of work, and in it I talk about dispelling some of the myths that we now understand, I think this is, pardon me, this is about a job but there’s purpose work that can come out of it, so this one isn’t specifically about passion or purpose but it’s about using elements of those to discover the right career fit.

 

Darci:Excellent.

 

Christopher:yeah and I think it’s a relatable book with people who have sort of been around a little while and they sort of say you know, like I’ve been in the workforce for a little while now and I’m starting to see like that this is going to be what the rest of my life looks like if I don’t change something, whether that’s your perception or the environment or you know.

 

Darci:yeah

 

Christopher:any number of things.

 

Darci:Excellent, well that’s awesome.

 

Christopher:yeah thank you

 

Darci:I will I’ll take a picture of that book and give it as the.

 

Christopher:I would that yeah, it’s available on Amazon and indigo actually you can order it.

 

Darci:okay cool.

 

Christopher:yeah it’s available electronically like on Kindle as well as hardcopy if you’re like me and you like to put pen to paper yeah, and anybody that reaches out to me actually that wants it I have an accompanying workbook that goes through it, that’s only available through us but if somebody wants the book from us I will include the workbook for nothing.

 

Darci:Excellent, okay.

 

Christopher:yeah

 

Darci:perfect all right well Christopher thank you I appreciate you coming on the podcast again.

 

 

Christopher: Thank you.

 

Darci:and I hope that we can have you again in various areas, so yeah thank you.

 

Christopher:beautiful thanks very much.

 

 

 

Christopher is the Chief Value Officer and Founder of Change My Life Coaching and Change My Business Coaching—  a fast growing whole-life coaching company, and the only one of it’s kind.  He is also the author of “Go Beyond Passion: Discover Your Dream Job”. Christopher spent 15+ years working in the corporate world with a plethora of industries and companies. His focus was primarily in planning, strategy, and leadership of change management and communication. Christopher is a Certified Master Coach Practitioner (CMCP), trainer and facilitator, and a passionate public speaker who truly cares about the success of each and every single person he comes into contact with. You can reach him at [email protected].

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