You Asked, I Answered!
Today I'm answering reader questions. Along with a few questions you didn't ask...
Q: Have you watched "Tiger King?"
A: Yes. I've watched all of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. I’m halfway through Bravo.
Q: Where do you go and who do you go to for help when you need to be listened to? Do you get help from friends, family, significant others?
A: My mom and brother are high on the list. I've gotten better about asking for what I want up front (e.g., "Just listen. I don't need you to fix anything!") They'd probably say the same about me.
I've gotten so much better about being vulnerable and open with friends. My tendency before that was to try to handle too much on my own. It's been such a great lesson and relief to cultivate a true support system, where I can relax into that support rather than resisting it.
It helps that a lot of my friends are coaches. Basically any challenge I can think of, there's a trusted friend who specializes in it. I'm lucky and grateful.
Today I have a deep and broad support network. But that wasn't the case at all a few years ago.
For most of my life, I felt like if I truly needed support--like if sh*& really hit the fan--I had no one to call on. It was pretty lonely and kind of terrifying, especially since I invest so much energy into my relationships.
And forget about support navigating my career. I was flying 100% solo.
In this video, I share a pivotal moment that shifted everything for me.
I obviously don't go to my clients with my problems, but they're a tremendous source of inspiration and healing.
Their lessons and insights are often the same I need to learn (and relearn and relearn again).
I don't have a significant other yet, but one of the qualities I'm looking for is someone who's ready to be a true partner. I strive to be a better version of myself every day, so I want a partner who supports me in this and strives for the same himself.
Q: Do you get good help from coaches? What makes a good coach for you?
A: OF COURSE I hire coaches! There's no match for working with a trained professional in a strategic and focused way towards your goals.
I've worked with 5 or 6 coaches since 2014. Last year, I hired a business coach, participated in a mastermind with ~10 coach peers, and then hired another coach to help me keep my business and life fun, easy, and creative. Yes, I hired a coach to help me enjoy life! 🤙🏝💃💅
What makes a good coach? I follow the same advice I give to others:
Do I like and respect this person enough to spend the next 6 months to 1 year working with them?
Does their program address what I want and need (and have room to explore things I don't know that I need)?
Q: What's your spiritual self like? You seem so grounded in reality, you're no-nonsense, stable, healthy. And at the same time, I sense your spirituality brimming. I'm curious and intrigued.
A: Haha, yes, I am very grounded, practical, and structured. But I love to dream big and am pretty woo—a true INTJ!
My "spirituality" focuses around interconnectedness with others, creativity, and intuition. I don't practice any religion; I think in terms of the universe and energy.
I've been meditating for quite a few years now. I've recently added an intuitive grounding-slash-energy-healing ritual to my meditation routine.
Last year, I worked with an energy healer (she came with the business coach; I wouldn't have sought her out intentionally, but I'm so grateful for the experience).
I've had chronic shoulder pain for the last few years, which I partly attribute to working from my couch.
On my first call with the healer, we talked about the tremendous responsibility I was feeling for other people in my life. After the call, I realized I had no pain and full movement of my shoulder.
Whenever I'd joke that the healer fixed my shoulder, she'd laugh and say, "You fixed it."
But a few months later, when I was at a retreat with the healer, I again noticed my shoulder pain was gone.
I asked her at the break, "Did you fix my shoulder again?" She said she'd been working to heal her own shoulder and maybe some of her "leftovers" floated onto me.
So, yeah, I'm a full-blown believer in energy healing (from trusted sources). As I've written before, our bodies are constantly giving us clues to answers we fail to find with our minds. And when we listen, the answers are clear and confident.
I'm now at the point where I can fix my shoulder myself. It's always linked to feeling outsized responsibility for other people.
That's about as far as my "powers" go, although I've cured a few of my headaches (which have a million environmental triggers but are often linked to stifled creativity or fighting my intuition).
What else? Since I was a kid, I've been able to lucid dream.
I've also always been very intuitive; I just used to ignore it if I couldn't find data to support it.
I'm now much better at trusting it. There have been a couple of times where I've heard a big, booming voice (like when I was working my mom's garden, questioning whether I should leave NYC, and the voice said, "Leave now!" So glad I listened!) I share that story and more about learning to trust our intuition here.
Most of the time, my intuition comes in the form of strongly knowing something to be "true", like a direction I should take with business, confidence around a decision with no clear answer, or a question for a client that might seem non sequitur.
I'm an empath, but have good boundaries so I don't take on other people's feelings as my own, which is one of the big complaints you hear from empaths. Basically, I feel and take in a lot of information from people, whether they're saying it or not.
So a lot of this stuff I've experienced my whole life but just didn't have the vocabulary to name it. I've learned a lot from the coaches in my mastermind group who are far more developed and experienced in this space than I.
The things I've described are accessible to all of us. The difference is just how open we are to it.
I ignored or resisted many of things I've described for many years, so it's nice to just embrace them and see how they play out.
Of course I believe in strategy, reason, and #science. But I also know that there is much that we cannot explain yet (I mean we used to bleed people as a cure and thought the world was flat for Pete's sake). It's just another set of tools, so why wouldn't we use them?
I believe each of us is really powerful but most of us don't know how or trust ourselves to fully inhabit our full potential. That's why I do the work I do.
⚡️⚡️Lightning round. ⚡️⚡️Answers to questions you didn't ask:
Q: What am I celebrating this week?
A: My brother's first day at his new job.
Q: What have I learned in the past week?
A: I learned how much data is too much data. 😂 I took in wayyyyy too much news. Goal is to be much more strategic this week.
Q: What am I daydreaming about post-quarantine?
A: Moving to Cali and getting professional photos done.
Q: Favorite quarantine activity?
A: I attended a virtual improv show over the weekend--a delightful break from Netflix. It felt so good to support creatives and share laughter, poignance, and joy with others.
Q: Most embarrassing quarantine confession?
A: I watched every single minute of Lifetime's "The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar." I hated it and myself the entire time, but I couldn't stop watching.
Q: What am I most grateful for?
A: Too many things to list here. What I've been talking about this week with my entrepreneur friends is how much I appreciate the creativity, flexibility, and adaptability we've learned as entrepreneurs. I simply didn't have the opportunity to flex those muscles when I worked for other people. Reason #3985 to become an entrepreneur if it's something you're interested in.
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What other questions do you have for me? How would you answer these questions? Share your favorite q's and a's in the comments below.
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Author Bio:
Before becoming a coach, Caroline worked in management consulting and financial services. She's made it her mission to help people grow, contribute, and get wherever they want to go.
She’s also a tennis fanatic, aspiring Minimalist, FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early) enthusiast, and Aloha Spirit seeker 🤙. She loves to share stories from her unconventional life and career focused on freedom, creativity, fun, health, family, and community. If she can do it, you can, too.
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