In this episode, I’m talking with Christy Metcalf. Christy is the founder and President of C.E.O. Learning Systems. A family tragedy shaped her life, teaching her the importance of courage and perseverance. It also presented her with what she called a planned or arranged career. And she followed that plan, executed it perfectly and ended up miserable. So she used the courage that had been instilled in her and became an entrepreneur.

We chat about who supports you when you make decisions that don’t fit other people’s expectations of you, using visualization to lay out your future, and the importance of getting in tune with your thoughts and feelings. Because your thoughts direct your feelings, your feelings, direct your actions, and your actions direct your results. And then we get into what happens when you let emotions control you, what does failure even mean, and finding joy in your zone of genius.

Christy is an International Speaker, Trainer, Coach, Author, and Mentor with a true gift of helping clients identify what they want most, the roadblocks holding them back, and the plan to reach it. She believes that everything is figureoutable! Yes it is!

Her ultimate dream job is to one day is to live life in the fast lane driving the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile around the country, meeting fascinating people, and sharing their stories with the world.

Quick reminder, for community and camaraderie, Come join us in the Fine is a 4-Letter Word Facebook group.

Christy’s hype song is I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. Listen here: https://youtu.be/CwdrtwZiQ9E

Website: www.ceolearningsystems.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christy-metcalf/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christy.buckleymetcalf

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christy.metcalf/

Is that we have a whole conversation and I don't

record it. Right? Wow. All right. Well, we might as well

just start right over again. There we go. I mean, I have

whatever we had from before, I think but in case we don't Ah,

Christy Welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. Lori. Let me just

tell you that Christy and I have been having technical

difficulties trying to get this interview recorded and we're

laughing because we have just spent the past I don't even know

how many minutes to make this work. But I am, I am still eager

to have Christy share her knowledge and information in her

story. So we're gonna start over again. Christy Tell me, well,

first of all, Christy and I were introduced by a previous guest,

Deb Coviello, who is on a previous episode. I can't

remember which, which number it is 17, I think but go back and

look for Deb Coviello's interview, Deb introduced

Christy and me. And here we are. Here we are fighting with

technology

I hope you didn't have technical problems

with her. I'll just say it's me.

We didn't. No, I don't think it's you. I think

it's just this day.

We're gonna Yeah, we're gonna push through

and get it done.

We are we are. So thank you so much for your

patience and for joining me here today. And let's start out with

the question that I always ask my guests because I'm just so

curious about what your background is and where you come

from, and what were the values that were instilled in you as a

child that contributed to who you become as an adult?

Hmm, that's such a great question. So my

early life was shaped by a tragedy that actually happened

in our family. So my grandfather was 22 years old, he served in

the Navy, during World War Two, newly married, he had a six

month old baby, which was my mom, and he came back to our

hometown and worked in the steel mill, and he would bring the

trains with the raw materials in to the steel facility. And one

day it was raining and he jumped up on the train to grab hold of

the side, he slipped in his leg went under the train, and it cut

it off at the knees, and a tragic accident and get six

weeks later, he went back to work with with a prosthetic leg.

And I think that that really shaped my mom's childhood and it

shaped I know my childhood. And so some of the values from that

lesson, you know, was courage, courage, obviously, but

perseverance pushing through hard work, don't give up and

find a way. And I really like when I think about that. It

really did shape that my childhood and who I am today as

an individual.

Those are all super strong and what somebody would

consider a positive qualities. But does they ever take on a

more negative? You know, pressure?

Yeah, I mean, a life of their own right? I like

to say that anything maximized can become a liability. And I

really as I think about that, right, the Well, first of all

trying to measure up like if if you have a family member that's

gone through a tragedy like that, and overcome these

unsurmountable odds, and is basically living this life, you

feel like anything that you are in your life that's not going

your way is just minuscule, right? So I think that there's

another side of it where you know, always find a way Don't

give up. But there are times where you have to give up right?

There are times where you push through, and you're exhausted

and you're tired and for your own self care and self sanity,

that it's time to walk away from it. And growing up I learned to

put on the mask and to be stoic and to show up, right? Whether

you feel like it or not, you fake it till you make it and I

think that there's a really dark side to that.

Yeah, because then you're putting pressure on

yourself. You're First of all, you're not necessarily taking

care of yourself when you need to. You're putting pressure on

yourself to accomplish, right when maybe like you said, maybe

you do need to step back. I know, you know, as

entrepreneurs, we're always told never ever, ever, ever give up.

Right? And sometimes you're beating your head against the

wall. And you need to turn around and look and see if

there's something else that you could do differently. Yeah,

maybe it's a simple pivot and maybe it's like in my case when

I was running my Baking Company shut the whole thing down

because this is not serving you.

Yeah, well and you know, there's that other

side of it like you can you can continue pushing yourself until

you look back and you're like, Am I happy doing this? Like, I

think that's ultimately the question. Right? Right. I think

all of us have it within us to be great and do extraordinary

things. But are we happy doing those things? And that's the

question to be answered. If we're not if we get to a point,

which I love the name of the podcast, right? Fine. If we're

just at a point where we're fine, and we're not living life

to its fullest, or its greatest potential, it's time to make

some changes.

Yeah. So what have there has there been a situation

where you use those qualities, and you found yourself in a

situation where everything was fine. And you went along? for

however long? It was? How Tell me about that?

Yeah, so I have to say, you know, from the time

I was young, I was sort of groomed, I'm an only child. And

I was sort of groomed that this path this. This planned future

had been laid out before me, I call it a planned an arranged

career. And that was I was going to go to college, I was the

first one first generation on both sides of my family to go to

college, I was going to lay in this amazing corporate job, and

then life would just unfold in this blissful way. And I

followed the plan entirely the way it was supposed to be. I

landed a great corporate job. 11 years later, I was in the

corporate office, you know, doing my dream job, but

completely burned out, strung out overwhelmed. And I did not

have a life. I mean, I was miserable. And I was standing in

Kansas City, actually doing a leadership development program.

And I'd asked the participants, when they introduce themselves

to tell me something fun they did in their life besides work,

and it's 36 people introduce themselves, I realized, I did

not have anything outside of work. And I was newly married.

And it was just sort of this epiphany that came over me like,

how did I let this happened? And I went back and I had a

conversation with my boss, and I said, I can't keep this pace up,

I need some life balance. And he said to me, Christylaurie, there

is no, no. And meaning this is the job. This is what you signed

up for, this is what it is. And I went home and I said to my

husband, I need to find the know. And he was like, Well, why

don't you start your own company? I do people do that. I

hadn't been raised in an entrepreneurial family. I'm

like, is that allowed and not allowed? And so the flip side of

it is, you know, I was smart enough to do it. And I could do

it. But it was giving up the dream that my family had for me.

Right, which on the outside, anybody who saw my life would

have said, Oh, my gosh, you have an amazing life. Yeah, you have

this great job. You're traveling all the time you live in a

beautiful home, you're newly married. And yet I was so

unfulfilled, and I put the steps in place, I worked with a coach.

And really it wasn't about the expertise. I wasn't questioning

the expertise. I was questioning, walking away and

feeling the guilt and shame from walking away from a good life to

start something even better. But people didn't see that.

What was it? Like when you had to tell your

parents that? Did you feel like you were disappointing them?

Yes, absolutely. And as a matter of

fact, you know, I can say that my friends and my family, those

who I thought would be most supportive because they knew me,

were actually not supportive. They said, Are you crazy, you're

giving up the security of corporate America, you have a

great job, you're going to, you know, you're going to be the one

to break through the glass ceiling. Why are you doing this?

Like they thought it was crazy. And every single time they say,

what are you going to do if you fail? And I said, I'll go get

another job, right? I mean, I knew I could go get another job.

That's what I had already done. But at that moment, I wanted

some balance in my life, I just wanted to regroup and take a

pause. And I said, Hey, if this entrepreneur thing doesn't work

out, I'll be happy to go get another job. And that was 20

years ago. So it's amazing that I thought the people around me

would be the most supportive and they actually weren't.

Yeah, that's interesting, because that

happens to a lot of people, they think you would think that the

people who are closest to you would be the most supportive,

but they're not because you are threatening their way of being.

Yeah, well, and I and honestly, I had everything

that they had ever wanted, right? So I had a life that most

of my family had never even dreamed of, even at 3132 years

old. And why would I Why would I throw that away? Why would I

start all over? Why would I follow the unknown and want to

chart my own course. And I think when they say those things now

that I work with entrepreneurs, when they say those things

there, it's really about them right about you. Right? I can

look back on it. Now. I didn't know that at the time. But it

was really about all their fears and insecurities and doubts

about doing it not about me doing

exactly, exactly and this is also why it's so

important to have friends whose and you know, and talk to your

friends but also why they are not necessarily the best people

to help you get to that next level of where you want to go

and why coaches are so important because, one, they're what's the

word I'm looking for? They're not they're objective,

right? And neutral, totally neutral. That's

the word Yeah.

And your friends, again, your friends are

threatened because they have their own fears. And you doing

those things, whether it's in taking a career step like that,

or changing your life in a personal way, right, makes them

examine what they're doing and how they're living. And that is

scary for them.

It's very scary. And I like to say the

people that are in our inner circle, they only know the

person that we are today. And they can see the history, right,

they can see the behind. But they many times can't see the

future. And we need to surround ourselves when we're in those

huge transitions. We need to surround ourselves with people

that actually see where we're going, not where we came from.

Right? And where you could go the possibilities, the

possibilities of it all. Yeah. So you mentioned that you went

around that room and ask people that question, and you weren't

having any fun. So another thing that I hear from a lot of people

is, I don't even know what fun is anymore. I've said it myself.

Yeah, I have to. What did you do to discover that because

obviously taking going out on your own and becoming an

entrepreneur is was the thing that you came up with, but

that's still business, that's still career, business, what,

did you also find fun things to do?

Absolutely. So you know, when I sat down and

looked at my life holistically after that day, I looked at what

was missing that I envisioned in my perfect life, right. And what

was missing was, I was not a part of the community that I

lived in, I wasn't even part of the neighborhood that I lived

in. So my husband and I had lived there. For years, we had

moved to Columbus, Ohio for this job for me to take this job. And

immediately I hit the ground running and I can look back and

see where some of the chaos I created myself. So I was doing a

career transition. I was going from sales into sales, training

and development. And I wanted to prove myself I was hell bent on

becoming the expert. So I had 30 certifications, and I did the

the trips and anything that they needed somebody to do, I wanted

to do it because I wanted to prove that I should be there.

And that actually ended up working against me, right? I

then became this highly qualified, a trained person that

everybody wanted. And that's how I ended up saying yes to all of

these things. So I was my own worst enemy. But I sit down and

I looked at, okay, what were the things in my life that were most

important that I envisioned being in that perfect life that

were no longer there. And so a sense of community being a part

of my neighborhood, my husband was married, but living a single

life, because I was traveling Monday through Friday, I wanted

to know my neighbor's, I wanted to belong to a church, I wanted

to volunteer in the community, like all of those pieces, were

very important to me. And so from that, once I had that clear

picture, I was like, Okay, then how do I design this next step

to have those pieces in it, rather than to defaulting to the

crazy that I've just come out of? And I think many times we do

default, right? Yeah, lives in this dysfunctional system. And

then we come out, we start our own businesses, but we

redesigned what we just left instead. That's all we know.

That's all we know. Right? Instead of redesigning what we

truly want, on our own terms.

Yes. And being intentional about

And being intentional about it. Yep,

absolutely.

Right. Yes. How? What were the so you sat down

and said, Alright, this is what I visualize.

Yep. And then I created a plan. So I spent about

six months, really putting that plan together. Financially, you

know, part of my business plan was financially, we didn't have

kids, we paid all of the bills off except for our house. So we

were in a good financial place, we set some very low goals, like

I needed to make $10,000 you know, in the last quarter of the

year, I actually left and started my business in October.

And so it was like minimal goals, but still goals that I

had to work right. So I the whole goal in the beginning was

to create this balance. And I have to say it was so scary the

first day that I was out of the corporate job and I was home,

because that's reality, right everybody I know is working. I

have I have now just because I hung a shingle out I said this

is my new job doesn't mean that I actually believed that. In

fact, I tell the story all the time, of how every quarter I

would send a tax return in you know, because as business

owners, we do quarterly taxes and I would sign my signature

and then it says title and I would put president and for

years, every quarter, I was afraid that IRS was going to

call and say what you're really not a president of a company,

right? So it takes a while to like, step into that skin, new

role, whatever that new role is, you know, I think about when I

had kids stepping into that mother role, stepping into that

wife role stepping into a partner role, or a business

owner, like it's a transition. It's not just overnight. And

I've always used this phrase, it was it's in a book called

managing transitions. And he says, you know, transitions

begin with endings, and end with new beginnings. And in the

middle, is all the emotion that we don't stop to realize it's

going to happen. And I've always remembered that,

yes, so how do you address that emotion because

again, people are conditioned to not feel. I've had conversations

with so many of my guests and clients and just people I talked

to who have actually grown up not been and been the value

instilled in them was we don't have emotions or we don't

express them, we stuffed them down and like you were talking

about, we just keep going on. You didn't say that that was

part of your family. But but the, you know, nose to the

grindstone? Don't we don't do feelings?

That's exactly right. Yeah, my family wasn't

total opposite of that. But But we did you know, we did push

through. And I would like to say that today, I am much healthier

in the way that I handle those emotions and transitions than I

was in my early 30s when I started my business. But you

know, one of the things is, there's tremendous power with

sitting in the discomfort. And we try to fill the discomfort. I

actually call it buffering, and buffering, I think of it as the

spinning wheel of death on a computer, right? When you're

trying to get to a page and it's just buffering. And it's action,

but it's not good action. And so when we feel uncomfortable, we

reach for things that make us feel better in the moment,

right? We shop online, we drink the zone out on Facebook, we veg

out in front of the TV on Netflix for four hours. Yeah,

no, and it makes us feel good in the moment. But overall, it's

not fixing the problem. And I say, you know, have a glass of

wine, do whatever it is you want to do. But don't get caught in

the endless loop to where you're living there and not moving

forward. So now I recognize it, you know, I don't eat the whole

bag of m&ms when I'm feeling the discomfort i just i i find

healthier options. Maybe it's just a handful of m&ms versus

the whole bag. But it's recognizing that and I think you

know, many times with age comes wisdom, in that I've learned all

of those skills and coping mechanisms through the years.

Yeah. Do you use any, any tools now? Like

journaling? or meditation? Or how do you keep yourself

grounded and focus now?

Yeah, I do. Both, actually. So I start my

morning off with journaling. And then I do meditation a couple

times throughout the day, and it's becoming very centered and

present is to how I'm feeling at that moment. And, and just

understanding you know, one of the things I've taught emotional

intelligence for years, and I've tried to teach both of my young

children that emotions are not good or bad, they just are

right, and they're all there to serve a purpose. You know, fear

is there to protect us. We want to feel fear, anger is there to

protect us. All of the emotions are there for a reason. And we

have to allow each of them to surface and then understand

where they coming from, you know, what thoughts are creating

those emotions that I'm feeling? And do I want to allow them to

control me? Or do I want to change the story about them? And

and how long am I going to let myself sit and stew and wallow

in the self pity, and then pull myself out of it and go forward?

Right? I just saw something recently to about

emotions. So you said emotion serving a purpose. Yeah,

emotions as an indicator.

Yes, it's our warning signal, right? Actually,

you know, emotions, start firing off the limbic system in our in

our reptilian brain, and they're actually warning systems. That's

why we feel them like our body goes through a natural change

whenever those feelings come up, you know, and if we are scared

and self protection, like all of the body emotions, like the

reptilian brain and the respiratory all go into

protecting us, so they are there. Now we have as human

beings, and Evolved Human beings we have to decide, right? Am I

really in fear and need protection, or is it a false

fear that's coming up and we have to recognize that right?

It's no longer I'm running from the saber toothed tiger, but it

could be stressed and overwhelmed giving Off the same

indicators,

right? And as is this fear, I'm physically in

harm's way, or it's just something I don't feel

comfortable doing. Is it? comfortable? Yeah. And in which

case, oftentimes, feeling that fear means you have to move

forward towards the thing. Like that's the indicator is the

thing you need to do, because that's where your growth is.

Yeah, yeah. So when I work with clients, I

actually take them through a whole, we call it the thought

download model, and they become very in tune to their thoughts

and their feelings, because your thoughts direct your feelings,

your feelings, direct your actions, your actions, direct

your results. And when they feel those warning signals, go off

those firing emotions, to pause and think about where they're

coming from. Because they will always give you indicators,

right? It will always be clues. Why do I feel uncomfortable

here? Why am I feeling afraid? Why am I feeling angry? And it

really is, the whole premise is to become so self aware that you

can, you're not going to mitigate completely the emotion

being fired off. But you can mitigate how long you stay in

that emotion.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And recognize whether

that's truly your own emotion? Or is that coming from someplace

else that gets passed down to you

absolutely. peeling back the onion? And is

this something that I picked up? Because of my childhood? Or is

this something that's truly I want to hang on to? And you

know, I've had several times like that, like, one of my

biggest fears is being embarrassed, you know, like,

literally looking like an idiot in front of a group of people

and not looking smart, and embarrassing myself. And so

there were times earlier on in my career when I was younger,

that if someone would question, something that I had done or

said, right, those warning signals would fire off. Oh, my

gosh, I'm looking stupid right now. And it has nothing to do

with that. It's just they were asking for clarification.

Right? Yeah, I can completely relate. Yeah. Why are

you questioning me? Right? Question me? Yeah. And I've had

the opposite. The opposite happen. I remember, at one of my

very first jobs, I was asking a lot of questions, I tend to ask

it, which is why I love doing my podcast, because I get to ask

questions. But because I'm genuinely curious. Yeah. And

this woman who was my new boss, would take offense, because she

thought I was questioning her authority or her ability

Intellingence,

Yeah, her intelligence. But I genuinely

just wanted to know, because I was new. I didn't know anything.

I wanted to know everything.

Yeah. And those were all about her. Yeah, not

about you. Right at all. And I, you know, through the years, I

have learned that I cannot control other people's thoughts,

what they think about me what they feel about me, that's all

on them. So I just have to do I have to do me and let them do

them.

Yes, exactly. Are you you mentioned your your

children are? I'm wondering, you know, I don't have children. But

I wonder about this a lot of instilling when we talk about

instilling values, and then not worrying so much about what

other people think of you and downloading that to a child's

brain?

Yeah, well, I would love to say that the work

that I've done for the last 20 years has made me a better

parent. And I waited later in life to become a parent, but you

have really, you know, they can do them. And you can do you not

to get so hung up, I see it. Now I have a teenager. And I just

see if there's this period where you want to fit in, I remember

that period where you don't want to stand out, you want to blend,

you want the shoes and the backpack and everything to look

like everybody else's. And yet, you know, I'm standing over here

on the sideline saying, Oh, my gosh, please stand out, I want

you to stand out. And she's like, I'll stand out when the

time is right. So it really is the the more confidence, you

know, girls confidence plummets by around age 10. It's at its

highest point like age 10. And then it starts declining. And I

really hope that we are changing that for the girls who are

following us in our footsteps right now. Because I think it's

a tragedy that they I watched it, I was actually a chaperone.

And both of my girls camp trips that they do a school in fifth

grade. And I saw the boys volunteer first and try new

things and fail quicker. And the girls would sort of hold back

and just wait. And I asked the teachers, I said, Is this

indicative of fifth grade? And she said yes, they all agreed,

yes, it is. And I want my kids to fail early. I want them not

to be afraid of failure, not to be afraid of embarrassing

themselves, you know, because failure means you're trying it.

And the next time and the next time it's gonna get easier.

Yeah, I think it was Sara, Sara Blakely, I heard her

speak, speak. She's the founder of Spanx for people who don't

know who she is. But that at her dinner table when she was

growing up, her dad would always ask, what did you fail at today?

I love that it was her family, but somewhere, somebody Yeah,

I'm going to incorporate that. I like that.

that was the thing.

Well, and because we are so conditioned not to fail, right?

It's, it's just a, it's like a sword through our heart to fail

to even think about the pride and the ego. And yet life is

about failure. You know, you try. If we think about all the

greats, the great inventors, Thomas Edison, he failed more

than he succeeded. How many times have you have to fail in

order to make it work. And I think that we tend to forget

that we, even in business, I see new business owners, they want

to make a video and have it go viral, they want to write one,

one email and have it sell millions. And it just doesn't

work that way. It's failure every single day, picking

yourself back up and doing it again.

It's really to about redefining what that word even

means, right? Because it doesn't mean it doesn't define you.

First of all, failure doesn't define you. But also, it just

means you didn't get the outcome you were expecting. Right?

And there's next time, right, then I, when I

left corporate, I actually worked with a coach. And that

was her question. How would you define failure in this next

venture? What does failure look like? And I had reached a point

where I said, failure is not trying. So anything else? And

then she said, Okay, what would failure really look like,

though, in your business? And I said, that I couldn't get one

client like that would that would be what failure look like?

And she said, Do you think that that's possible? And I said,

Absolutely not. I mean, somebody would buy for me, I just knew

that it wasn't possible that I had spent 11 years selling, and

that I could not get one person to buy something from me. So at

that point, as soon as I said that, what it meant to me what

it looked like, it totally diffused it. I was like, I can't

fail. Yeah, by my own standards, I cannot fail.

Right? And we hear that question a lot of times,

like, what would you do? If you knew you wouldn't fail? Right?

If you knew failure wasn't possible, right? But taking a

step back of what does failure even mean? And so then answering

that question, like, that just opens up so much possibility,

right. And that comes back to the whole, like, brings the

conversation kind of full circle of, of doing what you love

finding the thing. That is fun, right for you.

Yeah, I I had someone early on in my career,

tell me, you know, find something that you love doing so

much, that you would do it for free, but that you're so good at

that people want to pay you to do it. And that has always stuck

with me because it is about having fun, and working with

clients that, that bring out the best in you and you bring out

the best in them. And everybody has a group of people that

they're meant to serve. And when I watch new business owners say,

Oh, you know, I can sell everybody I'm like, you really

don't want to, we've all worked with a difficult customer, the

customer that we dreaded, you know, at the end of the project

working with and we're like, we will never work with them again.

Yeah. So it is about enjoying what you do, doing what you love

what you're good at, not focusing on what you're not good

at, but focusing on what you are good at. And finding those other

people that complement you in those areas that you may not

have a skill set or a strength. And then you're both working in

your zone of genius,

right? building your team of people that you work

with and building your tribe of your ideal clients.

Absolutely. That's the name of the game.

That is,

before we wrap this up. Tell me what song you listen

to when you need to get into that happy mood when you need

that extra boost of energy. And you know, the song that you

can't sit still too.

Yep, so the song is I've Got a Feeling by

Black Eyed Peas. And I crank it and blast it and it works every

single time.

Good song good song. Yeah, I'm just see. I can see in

your car right now. windows are rolled up. Right, but you're

dancing it.

That's exactly it. My kids know that. That's

the song. If people if we're having a bad day in the house,

that is the song that is cranked up full force. And it's amazing

how it will just turn it around. Right? Because you cannot sit

still. But some of that music has the ability to do I know it

really is it. Music has the ability to inspire us to create

emotion within us. I mean it's amazing.

Yeah, it is. It is So if people want to continue a

conversation with you how what's the best way for them to get in

touch with you?

Yeah, best way is LinkedIn. So I'm always

hanging out there. And you know, I do work with clients, I do a

small group programs. I am passionate about helping

business owners, small business owner solopreneurs, make money

and get out of their way Get out of their head. And I work in

small cohorts where it is low content, high action, high

accountability, to make their financial dreams and their

business, everything that they want it to be.

Okay, so find you on LinkedIn.

Yep. Christy Metcalf. Yeah. Find me on

LinkedIn. My website CEO learning systems. I've got that

going on right now. And yeah, reach out. Let's have a

conversation about what the struggles and the pain points

are. I have 25 years in business, working with fortune

500 all the way down to nonprofits and solopreneurs.

There's probably not a question I can't answer or find somebody

who can answer it for me.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so

much for joining. We'll we'll we will put links to all of that in

the show notes. And thank you so much for joining us today on

Fine is a 4-Letter Word.

Thanks, Lori.