Episode 10 – Small Shifts, Big Results: Powerful High-Performance Coaching with Christine Hockman

Todd Bertsch: 0:06

Welcome back to the Bold Podcast. I’m Todd Bertsch, your guide on this exciting journey of personal growth and leadership, where my guests and I will share personal stories from our transformational journeys of how small changes can lead to massive results. You’ll discover tips on overcoming obstacles, setting and achieving goals, building lasting habits, living a happy, healthy and positive life, and so much more. If you’re ready to cultivate a growth mindset and become the best version of yourself, then let’s ignite your growth today.

Todd Bertsch: 0:40

On today’s episode, I’m thrilled to welcome Christine Hockman, a high-performance executive and mindset coach, entrepreneur, speaker, wife and mother. Christine is the founder of One Degree Shifts, where she helps leaders gain clarity, overcome obstacles and design a life full of energy and excitement. Energy and excitement. Trained by Brendan Burchard and partnered with Positive Intelligence, she uses one-to-one coaching, mental fitness apps and workshops to ignite success and joy. Christine loves being a mompreneur, fueling a healthy lifestyle, taking adventures with her family and learning something new each and every day. Listeners, get out your notepads, because this episode is going to be so damn good, christine. Welcome to the podcast, my friend.

Christine Hockman: 1:31

Thank you, I’m so excited to be here. I can’t believe we’re sitting here doing this right now in your amazing studio.

Todd Bertsch: 1:38

Right. Thank you for having me Like this circle of life man.

Christine Hockman: 1:41

Yeah, it’s all coming around.

Todd Bertsch: 1:42

Right. So I thought to give this episode and the listeners some context. You and I are great friends. We’ve known each other for about I don’t know four years now. Yeah, just explain how we got to know each other. So I was going to start, but I think you have the story better than I do, so why don’t you kick us off and kind of explain why you reached out to me and how we got connected?

Christine Hockman: 2:05

Oh sure. So it’s the power of LinkedIn, where I remember just you popping up in my feed and I don’t remember how, but I noticed first your photo. Like your portrait photo, it was set as a backdrop with the tree, so it was you and a tree and I was like, okay, that caught my attention because I’m a nature girl. And then I started scanning your information and just your leadership style the fact that you worked in marketing, that you were in this region with me, just down the street and you worked with nonprofits, I could tell immediately just caught my attention.

Christine Hockman: 2:35

And the more I read about you and checked out your posts, I was like this is a guy that is really aligned with my values and I like his integrity, I like his style. It just felt like you know, your vibe attracts your tribe and I was like I’m going to reach out. I just had this feeling to do it and I felt like there was going to be something that came out of it and I did it and thankfully you weren’t creeped out by it. You said, yeah, let’s Zoom.

Todd Bertsch: 2:55

Yeah, that’s what LinkedIn is all about right, yeah, it is Link. It was our first.

Christine Hockman: 3:09

One was zoom yeah it was 2020.

Todd Bertsch: 3:10

Yep, when we met so you reached out we had the zoom and I think you asked me, or educated me on life coaching or high performance coaching, yes, and I hired you, yes.

Todd Bertsch: 3:14

So Christine has been my coach for the past four years and she introduced me to Shirzad Shamim’s positive intelligence, which I mentioned on just about every episode. And you know thinking about it. Why do I do that? Because that program changed my life, like literally. That program is amazing and you know I think about how people get connected right, and it’s. There is something there, right.

Todd Bertsch: 3:40

People come into your lives for a reason. I believe everything happens for a reason and at that point COVID was hard enough already and I was going through major reflection and there was something missing. It started with going on a gluten-free diet. I had a little injury and then you and I met and then the aura rang. I started really researching and trying to understand sleep and getting better sleep quality and sleep time, and then you just took me to a whole nother level, right. So I became really addicted to personal growth and that has changed me forever. Like I don’t know that I would be in the situation I am today, with the bold podcast and now transitioning to a life coach, had you not came into my life. So you’ve been a huge inspiration for me. I know you’re going to be a huge inspiration for our listeners and all the people that you serve. So, just for me, thank you for coming into my life, for being here and just being the amazing human being that you are.

Christine Hockman: 4:42

Thank you. It’s such a joy to do this with you and I mean I get to see you unleash your next level of badassery into the world with this, and it’s amazing Really. I really believe we were brought together for a reason, so it’s an honor. Thank you, I do too.

Todd Bertsch: 4:59

Yes, and it’s been fun and, interesting enough, you and I had a conversation the other night and I felt, in a way, I became your coach, which was kind of cool, right. So I think it goes back to we’re always learning. Nobody’s perfect. Even though you’ve trained with some of the best people out there and you’ve been doing this and practicing and helping others for so many years, you still need help.

Christine Hockman: 5:23

Absolutely. That’s the thing. Self-growth isn’t like this spot of the mountain you hit Like, oh man, I put my flag here, I’m done. This is a learner’s mindset. It’s a lifelong journey. So I mean, I have a whole nother chapter of my life ahead of me, tons and tons of decades. I’m going to be growing every single day, until the very end.

Christine Hockman: 5:39

I mean, that’s part of what makes you human, makes you feel alive. So I think that if you embody that learner’s mindset, you’re open to someone else, coaching you, providing you with ideas, and you your whole career.

Todd Bertsch: 5:49

So you started off as a loan officer, which I would never have guessed that Went into marketing, which makes a lot of sense, then nonprofits, and then you transitioned to coaching. So tell us a little bit about why you went into coaching, one Degree Shifts, what that name means, and a little bit about your business. What inspired you?

Christine Hockman: 6:22

Okay, so I have had an interesting journey and, as you can see, I’ve made a lot of different transitions in my journey and I’ve loved every single part of my careers. I’ve always loved my career and whenever I, whenever I have transitioned to another career, I actually didn’t do it because I didn’t love it. I actually really loved it. I just saw I was ready for something different. So I’ve been very guided and I never would have expected myself to be here today telling myself in high school or college this is your path. I didn’t know what my path was.

Christine Hockman: 6:48

I was actually really open to it and I started off as a loan officer because my dad had a franchise for a mortgage company. So he took me under his wing and taught me about entrepreneurship and business and marketing and sales. I mean, when I was a teenager he would take me on sales appointments and I got to see how he did it and he hired me as a loan officer in his business and as a telemarketer before that. So I just learned through him and so that’s what got me into that field and, even though I’m not doing that right now, I poured passion into it. I always pour passion into whatever I’m doing. So if I go back and I flash back to eighth grade, so you know the story about my dad, he got sick when I was in eighth grade and it was really hard because over nine years he went through some of the hardest health challenges I’ve ever seen anyone go through.

Christine Hockman: 7:37

He went through three organ transplants. He had cancer. He got over that. He had an incurable disease that he went through medical treatments and nothing worked. He was like a guinea pig and it made him sicker and he almost died nine times in nine years. He actually did die once on the table during a surgery. They brought him back and I’m young, right, I’m seeing this happen.

Christine Hockman: 7:59

And that whole time, even though he went through all these physical challenges and he rallied whole time, even though he went through all these physical challenges and he rallied, which was incredible he always kept this mental and emotional resilience to him, like this fire lit in him, like he never gave up living. He was always like I love life, let’s start a business, chrissy, you want to do this, you want to do that. And I was like, okay, we have no money, we have you don’t know if you’re going to make it and we’re starting a biz. Okay, we’re talking about these ideas. We went to visit the National Park Farm, so the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and we were seriously looking at doing a micro farm. We didn’t know what we were doing. We’d never done that before. We lived in Parma, right? So he just taught me that, no matter what’s going on, you need to have this like fire, right, you have to keep living. And he would just crack people up at the hospital. He’d be in the ICU unit, in the ER and he was cracking jokes. So I got to see this role model to me and it taught me that there’s a way to deal with stress and challenges and you can still have joy and still be a light. So he did pass away in 2007 and I went through, as you know, some different career transitions way in 2007. And I went through, as you know, some different career transitions. But throughout all of that time, I always had this call to coach and I always kind of did it. Just when I was a young girl, I was like the mediator at my family fights. I was like, somehow I’m doing it All right, let’s sit down and talk, right, and people would open up to me and I mean literal strangers will open up to me and tell me things and they’ll look at me and go. I don’t know why. I just told you that it’s like it happens all the time. It’s okay. So I kept putting this off as one day I’m going to coach, like when I retire, like one day.

Christine Hockman: 9:33

And I loved leadership, I loved bringing out the best in people and I think of that as coaching. I really have a coaching style to my leadership, so I want to bring out the best. I think of it as like a garden, where you’re tending to a garden and you’re helping people. Like plants flourish, and so you’ve got to tend the soil, give them the right amount of water and sun, pick the weeds, give them space to grow, know that some grow faster than others. And as I was really understanding my leadership style, I thought I really need to help people higher level, like I need to do this for a living. And so in 2018, I just was writing down and journaling and like be a coach, be a coach.

Christine Hockman: 10:10

And I was scared. I was so scared I was like no, I can’t do this. Imposter syndrome hit. I’m like who am I to coach? Oh my God, no, no, no, I can’t do this.

Christine Hockman: 10:17

I kind of fought it honestly in 2019, I just knew it was time. It was time to do this. So I talked to my husband, who’s amazing and supports all of my crazy ideas, and I was like I want to do this and he’s like, all right, let’s do it. How are we going to do it? He’s always like, oh yeah, you want to try this. How, let’s figure it out? It’s never a question in his mind, in his mind. So he was right behind me and I figured out what certification I wanted to get. I figured out when I was going to start the business and we decided, talking about names, and he and I were talking about this one degree shifts, just philosophy, right, like. He was the one who was like that’s a great business name.

Christine Hockman: 10:57

You know, we were talking about how so many people get stuck and scared to change because they look at it as, oh my gosh, look at this person, they’re so far along, or look how much they have or how much they’ve done, and they get stuck and frozen like in fight or flight right, and they don’t take any action. And the way to get over that is really by looking at the next small shift you need to make, right, like that next action you need to take, and it kind of jumps you out of that right, it kicks you out of that fear mode and we were thinking about how, when you’re a boat at sea or you’re a rocket headed to space and you shift just one tiny degree, that little move, that one degree can take you thousands of miles in a different direction. Your whole journey is different, what you see is different and where you land is totally different. So people think about well, what does it matter? That little shift that shifts everything.

Christine Hockman: 11:45

And we were like that’s the business, that’s the foundation, and so that’s where the name One Degree Shifts came from. And it’s a philosophy that really helps people. Just see, let’s break it down. You’ve got this big, audacious goal, you’ve got all these things you want to do. Let’s break it down one step at a time, one shift at a time, and that’s what builds momentum right. That’s like the snowball on top of the hill that you need to get started. That’ll build speed and velocity and huge mass, and it’s a philosophy that’s just built into everything I do now.

Todd Bertsch: 12:18

Wow, that is incredible. I love it. I love when there’s intentionality behind a name or a mark or a logo. It reminds me of the bolt the lightning bolt and how powerful that can be as well. And what you were saying about the garden really resonates with me, reminds me of a great little quote. I’m not sure who said it, but it says water the flowers, not the weeds. So it’s all about positivity. Don’t get stuck in that negativity trap.

Christine Hockman: 12:49

And I think that’s what my dad did and what he taught me. He never told me like this is my lesson. He just role modeled the way and it made me realize that, no matter what’s going on, we can’t just fight the hard stuff and the dark stuff with more of that. It’s just the same energy. You’re literally just pairing negativity with negativity. You’re just pairing fear with fear. You need to shift your energy and your thinking into abundance, into light, into joy, into positivity, and that actually is more life-giving than anything that leads to more positive change than fighting and to being stuck. And so if you just focus on plucking weeds, yeah, that’s important, but you can only get so far. You can pluck weeds all day, but if you’re not pouring good energy and positivity and abundance in your thinking and into your relationships and into your work, you’re just not going to get very far.

Todd Bertsch: 13:39

Right, Absolutely. So let’s talk about the business a little bit more One Degree Shifts. You were very intentional. There’s a ton of programs out there, a ton of modalities to choose from for life coaching, and life coaching is like blown up right Over COVID. So why did you choose Brendan Bouchard’s and Shirzad Shamim’s Positive Intelligence? Why those two programs?

Christine Hockman: 14:08

Yeah, that’s a good question. So the first one I did was the Certified High Performance Coaching Program through Brendan Bouchard, and I did it because I had done a ton of research on programs and my husband and I were really into Brendan’s stuff, but just following him for self-growth, and we loved his work and I just loved his high performance habits and the thought that everything is founded in high performance around. It’s not just high achieving, it’s high performance meaning you’re looking for the success and this ambition and this next level while having great relationships that you care about and vibrant health and well-being. And for me that really rung a bell because I have burned myself out. I have done the thing where I put all my energy into my work and pretty much ignored my family and it didn’t work for me and I realized I’m not happy that way, even when I’m passionate about my work, if I’m 100% work and I’m ignoring those other areas of my life my health struggles, my mental health, right, I just get stressed all the time. That struggles my relationships, all that stuff. So I realized I loved the philosophy of this being successful and ambitious, because I’m really ambitious but I also want peace and balance and great relationships and free time, so I wanted to learn this myself and so I thought, wow, if I could teach this to people, this could change their life. And what I loved about the program is that it was backed in science. So I’m a nerd, I love the science.

Christine Hockman: 15:24

I wanted something that was proven, tested, that I knew would work for anyone, because I’m starting off as a coach. Right, I knew that I needed scaffolding and framework that would work, even if I was building my mastery as an art of coaching. Right, you got to do the reps, you got to get good, and I thought I’m starting off, I need to know that something’s going to work. And so I felt really confident starting off as a new coach because I had a framework, a curriculum, tools that were proven and were tested and were deployed by people like presidents in the United States, oprah and her leadership team, celebrities, olympic athletes. So I thought this is world class. So this is going to help me and my clients a lot. So that’s why I chose high performance coaching. I loved it for that reason.

Christine Hockman: 16:09

And then I did, a year later, get into drum roll, positive intelligence, mental fitness. So this was great, because I actually got an invitation from another coach, a friend to join this program to do PQ positive intelligence in a coach cohort. So they were doing a grant program and they were trying to train more coaches into this. And I fell in love because I was really, in my own self-growth, really clear on what was sabotaging my success and happiness and performance, that I had these patterns of behavior, this wiring in my brain that was making me more stressed, more prone to burnout, more prone to feel overwhelmed, and I realized I could change it through this program. So it’s an incredible program.

Christine Hockman: 16:56

It’s a six-week program. It’s based in neuroscience it came out of Stanford, as you know, and it is proven that if you practice these small mindfulness techniques for six weeks really simple things like getting your body out of your head In six weeks you would have more gray matter in your brain region associated with positive emotions than negative. On an MRI you would see it. So I was like, oh my gosh, sign me up and all my clients let’s do this because this is proven. So again, I love the science, I love having something that’s proven and I’ve added this in for all my clients and they love it because you know I want to hear your, you can share your story with it. But it is incredible so just having a program built in an app where you can just do simple rubbing your fingertips, breath, work, mindfulness. It allows you to be more aware of where your mind is at and then build that self-command muscle so you can make a shift.

Todd Bertsch: 17:49

Yeah, I call that the pause button.

Christine Hockman: 17:51

The pause? Yeah, because I used to go from one to 10 like that there was no pause, no reflection point.

Todd Bertsch: 17:56

That got me in a lot of trouble.

Christine Hockman: 17:57

Oh, me too, that was I have. I was born impatient, very reactive, and so I’ve had to build this and I’ve realized this is just a mental muscle. So I think about it as we work out right, we build our biceps, we build our quads, we do all this stuff you can build a mental muscle. So for anyone even listening, if you worry, like, oh, I’m just like that, I’m just always stressed, I’m always overwhelmed, I’m always irritated, that’s actually not your natural state, right, that’s not our natural state. That’s a learned behavior based on stress and survival. We can override that and rewire our brains through simple techniques. I mean seriously like let me eat this for breakfast every single day, because it’s incredible. It allows you to just deal with life stress and recover and be at your best self and feel happier. So that’s why I loved PQ and I got involved.

Todd Bertsch: 18:46

Yeah, and live a more positive life. I mean, that’s really the foundation. It’s what it’s all about, shifting from a negative to a positive, but it takes reps, it takes work, just like anything.

Christine Hockman: 18:57

I think it’s so important because I think, learning from my dad and seeing that I built in my life a lot of reverence for life and a lot of responsibility for taking ownership of my state Cause I realized that no matter what’s happening to us, we get to choose our attitude and how we show up. So Viktor Frankl one of his quotes that I think I’ve shared I love it’s a man can basically lose everything but the last of the human freedoms the ability to choose your own attitude in any given set of circumstances, the ability to choose your own way. And Viktor Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. He went through the Holocaust, lost his family, he was in a concentration camp, and if he could think that way, I was like, wow, that’s powerful. So it gives us ownership of we choose how we react and how we show up.

Christine Hockman: 19:45

And we could either light someone’s candle right, light them up, fire them up, and they’re going to go and light more candles in the world or we can snuff it out. And what are they going to do to their teammates, to their spouse, to their kid when they get home? Snuff it out right At the grocery store, at the gas station, and then that’s how darkness spreads right. So it’s like we need to be able to light fires in people and share that and that’s positivity and that’s showing up with joy and optimism and curiosity and empathy. But we can’t do it if we don’t have the tools to recover from stress and to be our best, and most of us never learned this stuff. I don’t know about you. I didn’t grow up learning this stuff.

Todd Bertsch: 20:19

No, it wasn’t even around, no.

Christine Hockman: 20:21

I had no idea how to manage my emotions and how to recover from stress and show up as the most positive person. I knew I could and I kept trying, but it was hard. It was so hard, wasn’t it for you?

Todd Bertsch: 20:31

You mean when I went through it just recently.

Christine Hockman: 20:33

Oh before, oh before there was nothing.

Todd Bertsch: 20:35

No, I’d never even practiced anything. I didn’t even really know how it was impacting my life negatively yeah. Like I really didn’t, because nobody took the time to sit me down and say, hey man, what are you doing? Like I can see you have a ton of potential but, this attitude, this impatience, this temper.

Todd Bertsch: 20:54

It’s holding you back. I wish somebody would have just done that. But I grew up in the seventies mental, tough, mental fitness, mental health, self-love, mindfulness none of that stuff was around at all. So I think we’re just in a totally different time and it’s okay, especially for guys, and I was an athlete. So you know, we’re we’re trained to suppress and be macho and go, go, go and everything’s fine to suppress and be macho and go go, go and everything’s fine, everything’s not fine, right?

Todd Bertsch: 21:29

So yeah, I’m all about that. I’m all about that program. I love it. It literally changed my life and who I am. I am so happy and things don’t bother me, I just roll. Isn’t it amazing, and it’s a beautiful thing and I can come into a situation with an open mind and not react right and just pause, reflect, take it in and then say what I want to say or not, and just listen. They think it’s like this, puppies, and rainbows and everything’s pretending to be fine.

Christine Hockman: 21:54

It is not. It’s acknowledging life is frigging hard and you’re going to get hit and you’re going to be set back. The goal isn’t that it’s perfect. The goal is that you recover faster to your best self, and if you don’t know how to do that, you’re going to get stuck for days, weeks, months, years, and I’ve had clients who’ve told me that this program and my coaching have helped them recover so much more quickly that they went from years of being triggered down to hours or days, down to minutes, literally right. And so we know how quick it can go where you get a bad interaction with someone and it ruins your mood for the whole day. Pq, doesn’t let that happen anymore. You recover because if you’re in that negative emotion for more than two minutes, you’re just ruminating, catastrophizing and getting stuck. That’s it.

Todd Bertsch: 22:46

Yeah, and honestly I don’t even need to recover because I’m not even going there. I mean not perfect, but really it’s a very small percentage.

Christine Hockman: 22:56

And I love that story because that’s to show people what’s possible if you keep doing the work right.

Todd Bertsch: 23:01

Yeah, and I’m still doing it. Right, you’ve been doing it for a few years now.

Christine Hockman: 23:04

So now you in the beginning were like that recovery level right, and now you don’t even feel it as much. And that’s where I get to as well, and my other clients who have been doing this for a while. It’s you just don’t feel it. It’s more like, oh, you don’t even notice it, like the judge in your head is so much more quiet. Or you notice things don’t upset you like they used to You’re just in a much more even keel positive state. It’s because you’ve rewired your brain to play in that space.

Todd Bertsch: 23:30

And I think a lot of people don’t realize how plastic our brains are and that we can rewire them. I didn’t know. I destroyed my brain for so many years with drugs and alcohol. I had no idea. I thought I was done and my memory is still not great, but it’s growing and I’m learning every single day. I’m addicted to learning and it’s beautiful. I love that and your brain is so powerful.

Christine Hockman: 23:57

It is. That’s why everyone should have hope. I mean, if we can do this and recover and not flip people off when we’re driving there’s hope for everybody, right?

Todd Bertsch: 24:04

Oh, you had to go there, you had to go there. I’ve done it too, my friend. Yeah, oh, not anymore the beeper, do you still?

Christine Hockman: 24:10

beep. Oh no, I mean yeah. Yeah, I mean beep.

Todd Bertsch: 24:17

My wife. She hated it. It would drive her nuts. I’m like babe that guy so now I just beep. If it’s like emergency, like danger, I need to be safe.

Christine Hockman: 24:27

Yeah, like, oh, you’re in my lane Beep. Okay, can you please not drive into me.

Todd Bertsch: 24:30

Yeah, but you’re not triggered and suck it’s a courteous beep.

Christine Hockman: 24:33

Yeah, courteous, it’s a PQ beep that’s good.

Todd Bertsch: 24:40

You talk a lot about your clients, so what type of clients are you looking for? Who’s an ideal client for you?

Christine Hockman: 24:46

So I mainly work with leaders, people who are in a position where they’re ambitious, they’re trying to make an impact, they are usually responsible for their own business or leading people, but really anyone who is hungry for self growth and development in a way that they want to build their self-awareness and know what’s important to them at this stage of their life, know what’s really going on every day that’s causing their results, because a lot of people think that they’re just a product of their circumstances, but really it’s learning.

Christine Hockman: 25:16

How are you thinking, how are you acting, what habits do you have, and are they supporting you or taking you away from your dreams?

Christine Hockman: 25:22

And so anyone who’s really interested in getting that self-discovery and figuring out more about themselves and what’s important to them and what’s serving them or taking them away from goals, and then willing to put in the work to shift their thinking and their habits, to move them forward so that they can have more success on their terms, whatever that means to them, not just blind what society says, but what’s success for them. So they’re more fulfilled, they’re on purpose, they feel more positive, joyful, confident and they’re able to make this positive ripple effect because they’re showing up at their best, they’re feeling alive and excited about their days and their work, and so that kind of trickles out right to their family and their friends and their team. So people who care about that ripple effect, right? Not people who just want to grow for growth’s sake, but they want to grow and they want to make the money and they want to have abundance, but they want to do it because they care and they want to make a difference.

Todd Bertsch: 26:15

Okay, so servant leaders, it sounds like.

Christine Hockman: 26:18

Servant leaders yeah, absolutely. And people who some of my clients don’t like that term or they don’t classify themselves as that term, even though it’s in their heart and I see it.

Todd Bertsch: 26:26

Right.

Christine Hockman: 26:26

So I think it’s just even removing a label of that. It’s just anyone who really wants to be fully engaged in their day, really aware of what’s going on, how they’re showing up right and what impact they’re making on other people’s lives. Because if you’re not feeling confident, if you’re not feeling engaged in your day, if you’re not feeling joyful, then there’s some work to be done. And if you’re hungry for that, then that’s the client that I work with.

Todd Bertsch: 26:51

Right yeah, and.

Christine Hockman: 26:52

I work with teams too. So I’ll work with teams and groups say a leadership team where they want to build these high performance habits right. They want to learn how to elevate their focus and their purpose and their productivity and their excitement and be better leaders. So I work with a team to do that, and I work with teams and individuals who just want that positivity, that mental fitness, where they just know they need that EQ, that emotional intelligence, to be more aware of their thoughts and actions so that they’re acting from a place of integrity and not reaction. And so it’s really broad, but people who want to be better and show up at their best.

Todd Bertsch: 27:26

Right, and they’re ready, ready to do the work.

Christine Hockman: 27:28

Ready to do the work, because I’m not going to dive in and we’re not going to go low level. We’re going high level and we’re really focused on building the thinking and the habits to take you to another level. So this is for people who’ve already done some work. They’re listening to podcasts or reading the books, they have done programs on their own where they’re trying to discover more about themselves, but they’re ready for someone who’s going to challenge them, challenge their thinking, call them to another, higher standard. In a loving way. It’s always out of kindness and love, but what a coach does is a coach helps you get clarity on what’s important to you and then holds you accountable and says well, it sounds like maybe you’re not showing up as that person you wanted to. You wanted to show up as that husband right, did you? And, with no judgment, help them get in alignment by taking the next right action and making decisions that advance their life, versus hold them back and keeping them stuck in the past.

Todd Bertsch: 28:25

Love, that Great Love that Are there similar obstacles, that prospects come to you and that you help them with.

Christine Hockman: 28:34

Yes, there are, because I think a big piece is the clarity, because we weren’t taught how to get clarity in our lives, especially to do it over and over again. So a lot of my clients, you know their lives have evolved fast and they’re in a different stage of their life and they need clarity on what’s most important to them. That’s critical Because if you’re dropped in the woods without a compass and you’ve never been in those woods before, how do you know where you’re going right? Oh, I see you bringing something out my life compass. There we go, people. So life compass one degree shifts right. Before you make a shift you want to know what direction you’re going right. So they’re coming to me because they need clarity on their North Star. Well, what’s important to them at this stage of life?

Christine Hockman: 29:13

My clients are too busy, too stressed, too ambitious to really sit down and do the work on their own. They want someone to guide them through it who have tools that work, because they don’t have the tools in their toolbox yet. And it’s different to sit down with someone who creates a safe space for you and can challenge you and get you to open up and discover more about yourself. So often my clients are like whoa at the end of that session like I had no idea that was in me. Where did that come from? How?

Todd Bertsch: 29:40

did that even come out of me?

Christine Hockman: 29:41

Oh my gosh, that’s amazing All the time, because that’s the power of coaching.

Christine Hockman: 29:46

It’s creating that space for that self-discovery. And once you have discovery, it’s decision time. Baby, it’s looking at okay, now you need someone to hold you accountable but also to push you to make the right next decision. So clarity is a big piece. And then it’s once you know what’s important. It’s how do you focus on what matters.

Christine Hockman: 30:04

A huge obstacle my clients face is distraction. In today’s day and age, distraction and getting derailed is a huge issue because if you’re leading a team or you’re balancing family and work, you’re constantly getting distracted and it’s hard to get back on focus. So if you want to be in flow state or your zone of genius and you get distracted, you lose two hours every time because your brain gets kicked out of that state. Or if you’re trying to be really present in the moment with your kids but you’re thinking about work and checking your email, you’re missing out on magical moments. So my clients really want to figure out how do they focus on what matters really, once they decide what matters, and then how do they build the mental focus and clarity, the emotional focus and energy, the physical energy, to really do all the things, that vibrant energy, right? So that’s a big piece of it.

Christine Hockman: 30:52

Another piece, too, is their confidence, because when you’re pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and you’re trying new things and you’re building and creating, it’s uncomfortable and it brings up fear and it’s hard to act from a courageous spot when you don’t know what the fears are and how to overcome them.

Christine Hockman: 31:10

So my clients want some help on figuring out what’s really holding them back. They know on the surface they’re not doing the thing or they’re procrastinating, or they’re feeling stressed or they’re imposter syndrome, but they’re stuck. They’re like well, how do I overcome this? And I look at every obstacle as just oh, we were on a hiking trail and a boulder fell. We’re going around it or over it or another way, or busting a hole through it. We’re going to figure out another way. You’re going to be climbing up a mountain towards your goal and you’re going to get derailed, distractions, you’re going to get doubt. The goal is not to stop, it’s to figure out how to get around it and use it as a lesson to get better, to get stronger and find another way to get up that mountain and, on the journey, enjoy the heck out of it.

Todd Bertsch: 31:52

Embrace the journey. I was just going to say that was something that you’ve ingrained in me over the years and now it’s just my mantra embrace the journey. I was so stuck on. I’m a task manager, I love lists, I love checking them off and this whole game of life. It’s an infinite game. I mean, yes, we’re going to die, but the game of growth is infinite, or it needs to be perceived that way. And I’m a perfectionist, which has not been good for me because, again, perfectionist wants to feels like there’s an end and you want to check it off, but there’s not. So you have to embrace the journey or you’re going to get caught, you’re going to get stuck, like you said, and you’re not going to enjoy it. And you’re going to get to the top of the mountain and you’re like shit, what’s next?

Christine Hockman: 32:37

That’s it Bingo. And that’s it. You got to enjoy it. If you’re working your butt off, if you’re making sacrifices and taking your one precious life and pouring it into things, you better have some fun.

Todd Bertsch: 32:49

I’m all about the fun you got to have some fun, bring some joy into it.

Christine Hockman: 32:52

Right, there’s so much beauty in this world. We were made not to grind but to enjoy our lives and to bring more light to others. We aren’t going to be lighting up people’s lives if we’re just angry and bored and stressed all the time. I mean, right, oh my gosh, come on, we got to bring some fun into it. Quit taking life so seriously. Get outside. Go for having some adventures. So I love it. Embrace the journey, because when you’re on the mountain and you’re going on the path and you’re working hard right, that’s the thing. You are working hard, you’re learning, you’re building, you’re growing, you’re recovering from challenges, but you got to find a way to look around, find the magic, see the beauty, have gratitude, feel reverence for life at the same time as being challenged, and that’s what I help my clients do. It’s such a shift when you can go through life and realize this is a challenging period of my life and it’s still so darn beautiful. It’s beautiful.

Todd Bertsch: 33:44

It goes back to PQ positive intelligence. Find the gift in every opportunity.

Christine Hockman: 33:51

Every time. So that piece there is huge, so a big thing I help my clients with and you know, because I’ve asked you, sometimes they want to punch me in the face. You may have wanted to as well, but sometimes I’ll say, okay, this is a big challenge, how is this the best thing that’s ever happened to you? Or what’s the gift, lesson or opportunity in this challenge? And it forces them to shift out of ruined mindset and negative thinking into learner’s mindset and find something.

Christine Hockman: 34:18

I’m not saying it’s not hard. I’m acknowledging that with deep empathy and compassion. But what I’m saying is we have to build, to move forward. We have to take a lesson and grow from it, just like I learned from my dad. He didn’t let that hold him back. We acknowledge what he went through was hard. What I experienced and saw through that whole journey was hard. It was really hard. But I have to take a lesson, I have to find a gift and I have to move forward. Otherwise I’m going to live in the past and I’m going to get stuck and there’s no joy there.

Todd Bertsch: 34:48

Life’s right here, in the now, and it’s the past. It’s the past. I mean, yeah, we can learn from it, but we need to focus on moving forward and the future. Every breath is a new you.

Christine Hockman: 35:01

And I want to point out you said you’re a perfectionist, but actually you’re a recovered perfectionist. High five man. Yeah, yeah, you’ve done the work.

Todd Bertsch: 35:08

Yeah, absolutely oh yeah, in fact it used to be. We’d have these little AKA taglines or nicknames on the back of our business cards. All my employees and mine was the perfectionist AKA the perfectionist, and it’s funny. It used to be a great icebreaker when I’d meet somebody new or exchanging business cards and they say, oh yeah, I’m a perfectionist too. You know what I strike that out now? Yeah, and we used to have it on a website too. We have a bio page for everybody and I changed mine. Do you know what I changed mine to? Take a guess.

Christine Hockman: 35:41

Is it a one word?

Todd Bertsch: 35:42

Two.

Christine Hockman: 35:45

I don’t know.

Todd Bertsch: 35:47

Lifelong learner.

Christine Hockman: 35:48

Oh, nice, awesome, that’s perfect, that’s such a great mindset shift Right there. That’s a one degree shift and you know the ripple effect of that. What’s the ripple effect of you shifting from perfectionism as your identity to lifelong learner.

Todd Bertsch: 36:03

Well, the ripple effect is my team sees that right. So I’m a leader, I’m the business owner. People look at me and whatever I’m doing not saying they’re going to replicate that, but at least they’re looking at it right, I’m setting the tone for the whole organization. It just flows down. So if they see that I’m taking this serious and I’m working on myself and not facing it in a perfectionist mindset, then maybe they’ll do the same.

Todd Bertsch: 36:29

I love that Ripple effect it’s a ripple effect and then that’s powerful, and especially when you’re working with these top leaders. They have direct reports, they’re responsible for big things and it does everything starts at the top and it just flows, ripples down.

Christine Hockman: 36:47

It does. Let’s dive into a little more on perfectionism, if we can as a sidebar, because I know a lot of your listeners deal with it. I am a fellow recovered perfectionist. Hi, I’m Christine, fellow recovered perfectionist, and I know-.

Todd Bertsch: 36:54

Yeah, maybe we need a group for that.

Christine Hockman: 36:56

Oh my gosh, because it is truly something that holds you back. I didn’t realize it, how much stress it caused me and how it slowed me down. I remember distinctly while we were building a startup inside a nonprofit and I was taking so much time on decisions and this work and I realized that it was perfectionism and it was actually holding our business back and that kicked me into trying to figure out how to get rid of this. But really until PQ I still struggled with it and I have switched my focus and my mantra is more focus on excellence, not perfection, and focus on experimentation and iteration. So I’d love to know a little bit more if you have other techniques.

Christine Hockman: 37:36

But for me, what’s helped me as a perfectionist to recover from that for any listeners who maybe need this is you can seek excellence and that puts you into a mastery mindset, a learner’s mindset. But when you focus on perfection, it’s an unattainable standard because you’re human. So you literally will set yourself up for failure and beat yourself up and get stuck in shame, because perfectionism you shame yourself and shame is a restrictive energy. You shut down, you close up and when you do that, you don’t take action, you get stuck, you hold yourself, back your team, back your family back.

Todd Bertsch: 38:07

Yeah.

Christine Hockman: 38:08

No one likes it no one likes it right no? But what happens when you are a learner and you’re seeking excellence? You go okay, made a mistake, great. Take the lesson, move on, iterate, iterate, iterate. The most successful people are iterating faster than you. That’s the difference. And so, if you can do that as a learner’s mindset, you stay open, you assess yourself instead of shaming, and then you make a decision that moves you forward and that’s momentum. So it’s such a different energy, isn’t it?

Todd Bertsch: 38:38

It is yeah, and for me it’s always just been embrace the journey. Just that mindset shift is what does it for me? Because I’m thinking about it’s not the end, it’s the process to get there. If I’m enjoying the process, the end is going to be what the end is. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

Christine Hockman: 38:55

I love that you know and Seth Godin.

Todd Bertsch: 38:56

I follow him and he’s always been about just get it out. Don’t worry about it. Get it out in the world If you wait two more years, like I worked on this podcast show and this whole new venture for a year, patiently, painstakingly, trying to hone in on the messaging and the brand and the graphics and the story, and then I put it out there. And there are many things that I know are not perfect and I’m okay with that. It’s just, I just needed to get it out there.

Christine Hockman: 39:25

Yes, I love that. I love Seth Godin. He’s helped me a lot too, because he says show me your suck, show me your crappy work, put it out there, because you need to produce that first before you’re gonna iterate and get better. So I think it gives. We have to give people permission to suck, to make a mistake, because that’s how you build. I mean, think about this.

Todd Bertsch: 39:43

Permission to suck.

Christine Hockman: 39:44

When our kids were learning to walk at any point, when they were falling on their bums and trying to get back up, did we ever go? Oh, you know, buddy, just give up, You’re not meant to be a walker, just crawl the rest of your life Right.

Todd Bertsch: 39:59

Yeah, no, that’s a great analogy.

Christine Hockman: 40:00

No one says that says that right no you’re, what do you do? Come on, get up there, keep trying. Oh my gosh, you encourage, right.

Todd Bertsch: 40:08

Right.

Christine Hockman: 40:08

That’s what we need to do to ourselves. Like riding a bike. Like riding a bike, yeah, get back up on that. That’s what we need to do for ourselves. Get back on that horse. Look in the mirror and cheer ourselves. Yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 40:20

It’s crazy, I’m going to do a whole episode on perfectionism. All right, it’s going to be a good one.

Christine Hockman: 40:24

Yeah, people need it, we need it, it’s so important, yeah, yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 40:28

Absolutely so. You have the business, you have a family, take a lot of pride in being a mompreneur, as we talked about. Obviously, you’re a big advocate of personal growth, taking time for yourself. How do you balance all of that and have a really nice work-life balance?

Christine Hockman: 40:52

That’s a great question. So I first kind of think of it as a philosophy and then a practice. So I’ll dive into it as a philosophy first, because I think everything starts with a mindset. So I’ll dive into it as a philosophy first, because I think everything starts with a mindset. So I first have a mindset that I need to seek balance. Now, that word, not everyone relates to. It could be integration, it could be something else, but for me I have to seek balance because I know that I want to work and I want to make an impact and I love it. But I know from my experience that I’ve been burned out and I know that without a clear intention to have balance in my life and more equilibrium, that I can get really hyper-focused on something and just go. So I have a philosophy that I’m going to seek balance and I’m going to put energy into the things that make me feel alive and excited and like I’m making an impact. So with that, when I built the business and I started it in 2020, one degree shifts. I knew my history, I knew what I was capable of, meaning I could form myself into the ground again easily. So I set a vision and I think this is my foundation, that leads to my practice. So it’s important because I said and I wrote it down and it became my foundation I said I am going to build a profitable business that revolves around my health, family and free time. That was my vision. It wasn’t I’m going to build a whatever figure business. It’s not. It was a profitable business that revolves around my health, family and free time. So that’s it. That feels right. That’s it. This stage of my life. It allows me to put energy into all these things that are important to me, and every decision I make has to be vetted through that. Does it enable that?

Christine Hockman: 42:27

Now, I mean, I’m not perfect, because here’s the other philosophy. Life is like yoga. Sometimes you’re just warrior three and over things and you’re just wobbling, and the wobbling is good. When you’re wobbling in a yoga pose and your ankles aren’t as strong, you’re getting stronger. The wobble is good. When you tumble over, you get back up, you’ll get better.

Christine Hockman: 42:44

So I think of it as warrior three and you know what. It’s going to be messy, it’s not going to be perfect, but I’m going to always seek that balance, and so what I do is I iterate a lot. So in practice, I’m constantly self-checking in, checking in with myself How’s it going today? How am I feeling? How are my people feeling? Is there tension in there? Are they feeling excited? Are they getting enough time for me? Do I feel alive? Am I stressed, am I happy? And I’m just constantly checking in, real, organically, how am I doing? And as soon as I notice something’s off, I iterate. That’s me. I make a ton of mistakes. I mean, I make mistakes all the time because I put myself out there. I make mistakes all the time because I put myself out there.

Todd Bertsch: 43:23

I’m a state queen, but I iterate, fast Recover.

Christine Hockman: 43:25

I recover fast, I take a lesson, I go okay, lesson learned, move on and I use it to be better. So for me it’s looking at. I do schedule and plan things out. I think structure enables us to scale our lives and our businesses. But here’s the thing I am not naturally a structured person. I’m a spontaneity, free spirit. I’m like, oh, I just want to do what I want all day. But I know I need structure. So I structure my life, but in a way that I’ll look at my calendar and I’m a nerd.

Christine Hockman: 43:53

So I see color-coded block time based on what I need to advance in my business. Each area is a different color. So if it’s administration, marketing, clients, they’re different colors. My personal time is on there, my son’s football practices are on there, my date days are on there, my mommy’s son adventures on Fridays in the summer. So I take off every Friday in the summer with my son, who’s seven and adores me and I adore him. How special that’s on there and I schedule around that.

Christine Hockman: 44:19

So I put my priorities on my schedule first and then I make sure I have lots of white space because I don’t like to be overbooked. If I see a day full of back-to-back meetings. It will suck the soul right out of me. I cannot live like that anymore. So lots of white space. So I have time to go out and walk, meditate, read a fiction book, eat a leisurely lunch or just handle things that pop up. Client needs me Boom. I can add that in my schedule. So I see structure is important, but it allows me to be more spontaneous and take the detour and have some fun. I know you’d like that.

Todd Bertsch: 44:50

I was going to bring that up today. Detour.

Christine Hockman: 44:52

Yeah, take a detour, so like if I’m driving and I’m like I’m in the mood to go this way today. I’m going to go the other way and I’m going to go explore and I’m going to take five minutes to see what’s there. And that one day I did it years ago and posted about it on LinkedIn. I was driving, I dropped my son off at daycare because he was younger and I was not the best mom. I have to be honest. I was very impatient and I felt bad and I just knew I needed a reset. So I went. Instead of going back to the office, I went the other way to get a detour and I pulled into a parking lot that had a beautiful lake and I was like oh, yeah this is it and I just reset myself in five minutes, went back, crushed the day and it was a great mom that night, boom.

Christine Hockman: 45:33

So sometimes I just detour because I want to have fun, like, oh, I’ll be riding my bike or paddling on my paddleboard. I’m like, ooh, what’s around the bend on this river? I like to live with adventure and I think if you take a detour and you build that into your life, the space to do that, you live with so much more freedom and it feels really great. And if you’re in an area of your life where you realize you don’t have any freedom, then you need to take a look at your schedule and your priorities and how you’re scheduling your time, because most of our stress is coming from in our days.

Christine Hockman: 46:04

That’s self-inflicted, is coming from poor planning. We’re just not planning it out, we’re overbooking ourselves, we’re not giving ourselves enough downtime because we think we have to go harder, push harder, pack it in all day. Well, that philosophy leads to burnout and science proves because I’ve done the research, I’ve been trained in it, high-performance research shows that what differentiates people who are successful and happy and have great relationships and health from the people who are successful but miserable and have poor relationships and poor health is that they’re not burning themselves in the ground and that means they’re having white space in their calendar, they’re taking breaks, they’re not overbooking themselves, they’re balanced in their life, they have life balance, work-life balance. So that I just wanted to put out there, because I think sometimes we feel like we have to burn ourselves into the ground, but I’d like to question that and say that doesn’t serve us, does it?

Todd Bertsch: 47:01

No, and I think it goes back to and I just had this episode four how do you define success? What does that mean to you? If it means meaningful relationships, quality time with family, being healthy, being vibrant, being happy, then that’s what you’re going to do, right? If it’s about salary, role, climbing up the ladder, being in a C-suite, working 60 hours a week, winning an award, I mean, maybe that looks like success for you. But those are the people you’re talking about. At the end of the day, or end of life, or retirement, they have huge regret. They just spent all this time. Yeah, look at all the trophies, look at all the accolades. They just spent all this time. Yeah, look at all the trophies, look at all the accolades. And when people on their deathbed you know you ask them that question they don’t care about that. They just want to be surrounded by the people that they love the most, and that’s how they want to be remembered is being somebody who gave back, did something meaningful, and time flies by so fast.

Todd Bertsch: 48:06

So if you don’t reframe what success means to you, you’re going to be trapped Absolutely.

Christine Hockman: 48:09

And if you think about the end of your life, does anyone get to the end of their life and think, oh man, wish I would have logged more hours at the office? Yeah Right.

Todd Bertsch: 48:18

No one.

Christine Hockman: 48:19

They’re thinking I wish I would have had more time with family and friends and ventures and explored that place and visited that. So, flashing forward, I don’t think, is more, but I like to think that way, cause again I went through the loss of my dad young. He was only 49 when he passed away and I was so young. And then, six months later, my my grandpa, died. My beloved grandpa, so my dad passes away. After nine years. 10 days later, my beloved grandpa, so my dad, passes away. After nine years. Ten days later, my beloved grandpa was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. We took care of him instead of sending him to hospice as a family, and he died six months later. A few years later, my grandma got cancer and died.

Christine Hockman: 49:03

Life is short and precious and those have been hard to go through, but they’ve given me a reverence for life and I have to make decisions based on. This is finite and for me, success is I’m passionate, I’m on purpose, I’m making a positive impact and I’m making a profit. It’s a both and it’s all together right. It’s important to have the money and I want to do that so I can give generously and change my family for the better. Sure, but it can’t be the only thing it has to be, and it cannot be either or Right. When it’s either, or you only make decisions based on money, and that’s when you don’t actually succeed.

Todd Bertsch: 49:36

That’s not balance.

Christine Hockman: 49:37

It’s not yeah.

Todd Bertsch: 49:44

And that’s a means to an end, honestly. So how do you let’s think about end of life? Since we’re there, how do you want to be remembered? If we’re up there and somebody’s given the eulogy, what do you want them to say? What do you think they would say?

Christine Hockman: 49:57

You know, the first thing that just kind of comes to my head is what I’d love for them to say is that Christine made me feel welcome and loved and seen and appreciated and understood. She made me smile and brought me joy and made me bring more joy to others, so something like that.

Todd Bertsch: 50:17

If I was given it on your behalf, that’s what I would say about you.

Christine Hockman: 50:21

Thank you so yeah, well, in like 500 years. You know, there you go Right, exactly Because I’m going to live forever, that’s right. And you know I’m going to be hacking my biology, yep, exactly so any people I’m around, for a while.

Todd Bertsch: 50:36

So just watch out. That’s episode two. That’s part two. Yeah, I mean you’ve talked on, you’ve touched on it quite a bit, but I mean it really is. It’s not focusing on one pillar in life. You really have to take a whole holistic approach to it.

Christine Hockman: 50:49

You do, and that’s what high performance is about. A lot of people hear high performance and they think, ooh, performance, oh, just tweaking my productivity, that’s part of it, but it’s everything. If you’re not fully engaged in your days, like present in the moment, like live in life, engaged, feeling confident, feeling joyful, feeling excited, you are missing out, and so it’s not holistic. If you’re just completing the projects and getting the rewards or the awards, you’re missing out. Or a lot of people who feel like they’re not doing work that contributes in a meaningful way, or, like you said, self-growth. So if you’re not challenging yourself to learn and grow, you’re also going to miss out. So holistic is really looking at all those different life areas and making sure you’re putting a little attention into all of them. So you showed my life compass before right.

Todd Bertsch: 51:35

That’s one of my tools I’ve developed for clients. I love that thing.

Christine Hockman: 51:38

Looking at your eight life areas. You have eight areas of your life, right, and those areas are going to need some kind of equilibrium, a little bit of love, a little bit of TLC, and that’s you know. You’re looking at your mission. You’re looking at your health. You’re looking at your love relationship. If you’re not with someone, that’s with yourself, number one. You’re looking at your family and friends, your finances, your adventures, your growth and your spirit.

Christine Hockman: 52:05

We have only 24 hours in the day and if we aren’t intentional about in our days and in our weeks and in our years, putting some attention into all those areas, we start to get out of balance. And it’s kind of like having a flat tire and you’re like, oh, something’s off, Like with this, something feels weird. It’s like really like I don’t know, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you got to really look at it and just see where am I going to put some energy into this month this year? And just that little shift in thinking as you check in with yourself and that’s a big thing. People aren’t checking in with themselves how they’re feeling, what’s important to them and how they’re succeeding or progressing, and then they get stuck. So this is a great tool for checking in with yourself.

Christine Hockman: 52:48

So anyone listening, do a little check-in right now. How are you doing? One to 10 in each area? Don’t judge yourself. Assess.

Todd Bertsch: 52:52

And be graceful to yourself.

Christine Hockman: 52:53

Give yourself lots of grace, because if you’re in a season of life like the seasons are changing now into fall some seasons are hard.

Christine Hockman: 53:00

You know that I had emergency surgery this summer, was not expecting to lose an organ just out of nowhere. I mean, I had a couple hours notice before losing my appendix and having a month of recovery. That was really hard because I had setbacks, so things were a little different than expected. Got to give yourself grace. Some of my scores might’ve been lower because I was literally recovering from surgery. That’s okay, Be kind to yourself. But as soon as you’re better, all right, let’s crush it now right and get that momentum back.

Todd Bertsch: 53:27

Right yeah, talk about being tested. This was your year. Oh my gosh, you were being tested left and right, but thankfully you have the tools right.

Christine Hockman: 53:34

If I didn’t have the tools, I would probably be curled in the fetal position right now or I’d be very irritated. I would not be the best mom and wife, I would let the stress of life weigh me down, right, and I wouldn’t be showing up as a person I’m proud of, right, and that’s important to me. At the end of every day, I want to check in with myself and be like what are my magical moments for today that I really appreciated? I want to relive and breathe in and then also like how was I today, right, you?

Christine Hockman: 54:00

then and then also like how was I today? Did I make people smile or did I stress them out? And I want to make them smile.

Todd Bertsch: 54:05

Yeah, reflection, it’s a beautiful thing, powerful thing. Meditation, journaling, whatever the means is, it’s a good practice to get into.

Christine Hockman: 54:19

Even if you just lay in your bed at night and you’re not a journaler or you don’t want something formal, lay there and flash a highlight reel through your mind’s eye. Kind of like you’re watching, you know, the highlight reel of a movie or something.

Todd Bertsch: 54:28

Right.

Christine Hockman: 54:28

And just picture those Right and just feel them in your heart. Is your heart beating? Come on, people Right, feel it and like kind of imprint that and have some gratitude for that. That little bit of gratitude. Right, there is a huge shift and fall asleep much better.

Todd Bertsch: 54:44

Right, Absolutely. So let’s talk a little bit about coaching. I think there’s a big misconception about the field of coaching. It’s a booming field right now. There’s executive coaches, business coaches, high performance coaches like you. There’s life coaching, like educate us on what these mean and why should somebody even hire a coach?

Christine Hockman: 55:04

That’s a good question. So coaching itself we have to understand the field and what it is. So coaching is a process of self-discovery and decision-making to advance your life. So it’s different than, say, therapy, which is highly specific and trained to help you work through certain traumas and issues. A lot of clients do both in parallel. So therapy to work through some situation or trauma or stress, and they do coaching.

Christine Hockman: 55:28

But in coaching you’re really looking at here’s what’s important to me, here’s what I’m struggling with, here’s how I move forward and you’re making decisions of integrity. So it’s really advancing your life. It’s much faster so, versus just doing it on your own right. So if you look at the different coaches, really life coaching, if you’re looking to make some changes in your personal life and you’re not, say, looking for any leadership or executive modalities or tools, you can just go with life coaching and that’s going to help you get clarity on your life, have some accountability to make decisions and really advance your life. Make decisions that are integrity with you, no matter what’s going on in your life, move forward. It’s so broad you can do life coaching that’s more specific in your health, in your mindset, in your confidence. Specifically, it could just be overall. So really you have to do your homework. You got to figure out where you’re stuck, what you’ve tried that hasn’t worked, and then come up with some ideas of what might work. And then go seek out and talk to some people if you really have no idea. That’s kind of the whole life coaching field when you kind of look at the different breakdowns of it.

Christine Hockman: 56:37

High performance coaching is a level up because what you’re doing is you are doing some coaching in your life and you’re also looking at how it integrates with your work and it’s a tool that could be used in leadership or executive coaching. So you’re, of course, always working on your life. Your life and your, your work are intertwined. So, even if it’s a leadership client that I have or an executive client, we’re talking about their work because they want to show up to their family better, right, they also want to show up better to their team. They want to be more productive in both areas of their life.

Christine Hockman: 57:08

So it’s really looking at do you have needs for your life and for leadership to develop? Do you want more influence as an executive? If so, you might want to do something that is tailored for leadership or executive coaching. But really, at the end of the day, the modalities I bring can go for any of those. You can label it how you want it’s really. Do you want to improve your life and your work? If so, let’s do this Right. Does that make sense?

Todd Bertsch: 57:31

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think you could argue that all of them are kind of life coaches, because it is working on you as a person that’s going to affect everybody that you serve in your whole life.

Christine Hockman: 57:44

It’s really just what term do you want to be comfortable with? What term does your organization want to be comfortable with? What do they want to support? And then so, for example, with me and any other coach, we tailor packages based on what people need. So, for example, I have tons of modalities and tools. I find out what my client needs and then we figure out well what program tailored to you specifically will get the results you want, or your team, and so it’s more customized, which is a nice thing about this field. It’s not that you go in and you want to buy an iPhone and you have this to choose from. No, you go in and you can really get a package customized because there’s so many options out there.

Todd Bertsch: 58:19

Right, that’s awesome. Well, christine, this has been amazing conversation. I’m sure our listeners have a notebook full of takeaways. If there’s one thing that you want to leave us with today and just recall, to mic drop, or it’s a quote or a life mantra I know you got something in there. Drop us something here. That’s going to end the show.

Christine Hockman: 58:48

That’s a hard one.

Todd Bertsch: 58:50

Too many.

Christine Hockman: 58:51

Too many come through my mind. But, one quote on my heart lately has been Mary Oliver, and it is tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? We have one wild, precious, beautiful, amazing life, one shot on this planet Earth and we need to make the most out of it Every single day, and I hope your listeners will choose to do that and to find a way to live inspired and embrace that journey with joy.

Todd Bertsch: 59:25

Yeah, that’s awesome and you’re doing it, you’re living it, I try. You’re living it and you are a great model, a great mentor. I am so happy that you came into my life, that you spent some time with us today, and I wish you nothing but the best.

Christine Hockman: 59:42

Thank you so much and thank you for everyone listening, thank you for having me. Truly, I just am so pleased and honored to be here and I hope everyone can leave knowing that they have this flame inside them and this spark and they just need to fan that flame and just go bring the joy.

Todd Bertsch: 1:00:00

Right.

Christine Hockman: 1:00:00

Bring the joy.

Todd Bertsch: 1:00:01

Ignite the bolt, I love it Inside you, everybody’s got the bolt. Yes, thank you so much for listening to this episode. You are on your way to growth, transformation and joy. If you find this episode helpful, please like and share with your friends and, by all means, please leave us a review. You can also view the show notes and subscribe to the Bolt Newsletter at toddbertsch. com. Remember, real change takes time. Start small and watch that growth take shape.