Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Okay, how about me thoughts on why that is? But I'm sure you hope question is, are you doing it massively or abundance? Like it's. It's Dean. Holly Kim, how you doing today?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: We're doing good.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Doing good. Thanks for having us.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yes. Excited?
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Absolutely. I'm excited today for this conversation. So I'm excited to hear about your book. We'll talk about that a little bit today. I have some questions and I'm sure plenty of the listeners will have. Want to hear some advice.
So I'm excited to hear your story and yeah, so we'll get into it. We'll do a little bit of everything. So like every episode I like to talk about early years. So I like to see if there's any connection between where you start out and where you end up. I always think that's interesting. And so if you wouldn't mind. Mind. Let's start with that. I know where you are right now, where you live. We'll talk about that maybe. But tell me about, you know, maybe each of you, where you grew up, what was family life like and what was your childhood like?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: You want me to go?
[00:01:14] Speaker C: Yeah, you can go ahead.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: I'll go.
I grew up in South Louisiana, which is called Thibodeau, Louisiana, which is, you know, south of New Orleans in the swamps, Cajun girl. And my childhood was very messy.
It was, you know, lots of violence, lots of trauma.
My parents, I'm 64. My parents were divorced. I was the only. My sister and I were the only children in our little elementary school that the parents were divorced. And it's very Catholic community.
So my mother was the Scarlet. And my mother was not mentally well and was very violent, needed lots of silence and, you know, just, just not well. And so my dad's, I have two dads, you know, and they were both workaholic, high functioning alcoholic. And so she could pull it together, not with the first step, but with, with my, my stepfather, my pop, she could pull it together when he was around, but when he was not there, it was not a pleasant place to be. But I did have a grandmother that lived five hours away where my dad lived. And she saw me, she loved me, and she imparted her heart to me. And I think that even though I became very destructive at a point in my life, her love was what carries over to today.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, maybe. Let's go to Dean. I have questions. I have questions for you, but you type for a second, I'm coming back to you. Yeah, I got some questions. You're not off the hook yet, but let's go to Dean and let's see what. Let's go to Dean and then we'll go back to you.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: Yeah. So I grew up in New Orleans in a suburban neighborhood.
Really. Lots of people on the block, lots of kids. I was one of those kids that would leave at dawn and come back at dusk. Right. And constantly playing.
It was really a good time. I mean, I was active in every sport under the sun. I had lots of friends. Things were real. Well, I think probably my most challenging time was probably later adolescence when my dad's drinking escalated. I mean, New Orleans is a very lax in terms of alcohol culture, and certainly we had the best and the worst of that in our family and extended family. But, you know, we ran into some issues when as later adolescence, my parents marriage was really strained and a lot of it was connected to my dad's alcohol and eventually alcoholism.
Early 20s, he went to treatment, got sober, has been sober ever since. So I would think probably the most challenging years was that 17 to 21, 22 years. But previous to that, things were. Were really good. I have had a really good mom who saw me. My dad worked really well, provided good Catholic education for us. You know, I grew up in a real Catholic neighborhood, and so, yeah, yeah, that was it. I was very, very involved with sports, very involved with our church, and very involved with the culture of alcohol.
Put all that together and you get a nice little mixture.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Well, that makes three of us. I grew up in a Catholic home and I went to Catholic school, so I'm very familiar.
I'm curious, though. So tell me how you dealt with that and how that affected you. I'm just curious because, you know, sounds like Dean. It was pretty normal until like the 17 area, but by then you pretty much. You're still gonna maybe deal with it in the way maybe you shouldn't. But you're older, so you're a little more prepared and you're past the area where it really mattered when you were little.
But, Holly, Cam, I'm just curious to know, like, how you both dealt with that situation, because it was actually both of you, it was a lot of alcoholism. You had more violence, but talk about that a little bit.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you want to go first? Okay. Yeah. For myself, you know, I didn't. I didn't know that it was alcoholism because my culture, you know, my culture is different than his culture. You know, New Orleans, our culture. If you ask someone in our culture in south Louisiana, if you drank, they will say me No, I don't drink that. Alcohol is bad.
And then you say, did you. Do you drink beer? May I drink a six pack, 12 pack every day. So they do not believe that beer is alcohol. So, you know, in that you don't. And, you know, the average man and the average man and women, but the men really drank, right? And they are high functioning, they work, they take care of their families and all of that. So I didn't really understand what the problem was. And my mother did not drink, so she was the problem. Right. Not that the disease was rampant in our family. So for me, I just was very quiet it and just try to not be seen, have no needs and, you know, just survive it, just, you know, function the best I could. And then, you know, we find out I just thought I was stupid. But we found out when I was 25 that I was dyslexic, severe. And when I was 37, I found out I had ADD. And it could have been from the trauma, could have been born that way. It could have been from being hit, I don't know. But I didn't know that as a child. So, you know, just thinking that, you know, I knew I wasn't like everybody else, but I just thought I was stupid because, you know, I had. There were expectations and my family wasn't poor. It was expectations of, you know, you had to be at a certain level. And, you know, I couldn't always make that.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: How did you realize? So I think there's two really interesting things you said. One, how in the heck did you get through life being dyslexic till 25 on your own? And two, when did you first realize that things weren't the way they should be when you were younger, like, compared to other kids or families?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the other families, you know.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: Were they like that too, or.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: No, I would go to their house because they wouldn't divorce. Yeah, I thought that was the problem. Right. But I didn't understand alcoholism and that. So, you know, to eat supper, I'd have to go to other people's house because my mom didn't cook and stuff. And each one of our, my sister and my brother, everybody went to a different house so we. They wouldn't get tired of us, so we could eat, cheat. But, you know, it's like in that I serve, you know, the beginning I survived with just trying to be quiet. And then I learned that if I didn't cheat, I'd get beat, you know, But I couldn't even cheat. Good, because I'm Dyslexic. So if it was a bee on the.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Right, right. What the heck, right?
[00:08:30] Speaker B: I mean, this is crazy. So. But, you know, what I've learned is that, you know, I am highly intelligent. I just learned different, and I see things different. But I was so afraid and lived in terror so much. I never spoke. You know, I never asked. I asked questions one time when I was in the fourth grade and the teacher berated me, so I never asked another question in school. And, you know, and then I got into drugs and alcohol and was a drug addict and an alcoholic. I've been sober for 42 years. I got sober when I was 22 years old. So, you know, I did. I did to myself what they did, you know, starve me, you know, do drugs, sedate me, you know, get married, deal drugs, you know, I mean, just. Just not nice.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Sure, for sure.
Dean, how about you? How did you deal with it when it happened in. When you were 17?
[00:09:25] Speaker C: I think I. At first, I dealt with it in just getting caught up in coping behaviors that were. They were not really bad, but they were bad for me. I think I got. Had an element of hyper religion, you know, always felt closer to God, but really took it to a level to where it was a compulsive level to where they had unhealthy elements with that. I also dealt with it with, you know, dealing with it with alcohol and dealing with other things.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: So in sports. And I was also great being the best.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Over overachieving in school, overachieving in. In sports, which was all accolades, but it was driven by a passion. But it was also driven by escaping from what was happening emotionally.
And so when I. When I became awakened to what the situation was and how that all evolved, being Catholic, you. You'd understand. The story was that, you know, my. I had a. I went to a monastery where I was in the seminary for a period of time. And my spiritual director, we had to pick a monk out of the 50 monks to be our spiritual director. I happened to pick the drunk monk who goes off to treatment and he comes back and he's sober, and he's recognizing all these characteristics in me and my family. And through a series of events, we eventually.
By things I learned from him doing an intervention and.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: On your father.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: On my father.
And, you know, they say you. Well, you do the intervention the day after he blows it out. Well, you know that he has. So we picked Ash Wednesday the day after Mardi Gras. We knew that that would be the day. And, you know, I Was to take my dad to the church and then come back. And when we came back from the church, we did the intervention. And so I'm. I'm just as worked up as all get go. You know, I take him to the church.
They have six aisles and five people are giving out ashes. So the pastor calls me up to give out ashes, to help, and I happen to get the road that he's coming down. My dad. And, you know, it's the symbolism of, from dust you come, from dust you shall return. Today you're going to die in a way. So it was a divine setup, but we did that, and we went back to my house, intervened, and he said, I know I need help. Went to treatment, been sober ever since. But back in those days, we would have to go. The whole family went to the treatment center for a week during family week.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Really?
[00:12:12] Speaker C: Yes. So we were there from 9 to 9, Monday through Friday, a full week. And I learned a lot about alcoholism, the impact it has on us emotionally, spiritually.
Learned a lot about communication, reconciliation, you know, expressing. So there's a lot of healing that went on, but it also awakened me to my own dysfunction. And, you know, that started the journey. And I think.
So that was really a whole thing that. When I was committed to my own journey, and Holly Kim had been committed to her own journey, you know, even though I was in this seminary and she was in the streets, we were both on the same journey, and we were about two, three years, four years down. Down the road of that journey when we met. And then, you know, it's become our life's work, really.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: I'm always impressed by individuals who have struggled with addiction in some form or fashion and overcame. And then, you know, I've coached different people, as I know you have, that have addictions, whatever they are, from gambling to alcohol to drugs. It's a lifelong.
It's a lifelong situation.
And I wonder, just wonder how many people out there actually drink that aren't diagnosed alcoholics. Sure, there's so many. I feel like it's so commonplace because people drink all the time, and a lot of them just drink too much and that kind of thing. But that's really impressive. So, okay, so how did you go from what you experienced in life to what you do now? Like, what was that path like for both of you? So yours started a little later. Holly Cam, yours was for, you know, you didn't know it, but it was something you had experienced most of your life. So at what point were you like, hey, this is what I Want to do.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Well, I always say my alcohol is my drug addiction. This is my consequence, you know, because if. And my parents. Because if I believe truly that I would have been a dancer, if there would have been some stability in my home, but because of what I lived, what I learned to survive, and then, you know, not wanting to be a survivor anymore, wanting to be alive, is why I took the journey. You know, it's like being in recovery. A lot of people don't know what that means. I think it's doing some kind of program, but it's not. You're recovering who you really are, who God intended you to be. So in that recovery of learning who I was, I was already married before I met Dean, and, you know, convicted felon and all that fun stuff, and, you know, ended up divorced. And this was something that I had gone to treatment when I was 15 months sober because I was very suicidal. Went to outpatient, then I went to a halfway house. And through that, they had a job opening about six months later. And I happened to call there about my taxes or something. I needed something. And she. I was just asking about what was going on, and she said that Tommy was leaving. And I said, well, I don't know what Tommy does, but I'd love if I could work there, you know, maybe at night or whatever. And I went in and I started getting trained as a substance abuse counselor. And I've been on that, you know, learning and educating myself through that for the last 42. Well, say 40 years. So through that process, there was a gift. And I think because of my strength internally, to not allow addiction to win me.
It was like, I'm not a competitive person, but when it came to this, I was going to win whatever it took. And through that process, I began to have a passion and a fire that if there was anything that I had that I could learn and give to another human being to keep them from suffering just one more day that I wanted to give it. And then that's where the passion came and the gift came. And I think because the intention of my heart was pure of really wanting to hold other people's hand and teach them how to love themselves, because it's a lifetime journey. Everything's a lifetime journey. You just don't know it, right? So, you know, for us, it's learning to say no to things that will sedate us and how to learn to live without sedation on every level, on everything. So I don't miss anything that God has for me.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: I love it. Dean, how about You. When did you know? You were like, hey, this is something I want to do.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: It really evolved, you know me.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: No, I'm joking.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a. That's a given.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I'm joking. I'm joking.
[00:17:09] Speaker C: You know, it's really interesting. I mean, I had two paths when I finished high school. I was an athlete, played baseball, and then also had very, very good.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Played with Bo Jackson in college.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:22] Speaker C: And then I also had an encounter when I was 16 years old at a Catholic high school retreat that made a tremendous, tremendous impact on me. And so, you know, if you grew up Catholic and you have an encounter with God, you think priesthood kind of thing. So.
So I. And I couldn't think beyond that. But so I knew that there was a calling, in a sense that I felt attracted to that had to do with serving and caring and loving and also had this passion for sports. And when that passion for sports lifted, then I pursued this other route.
But eventually I left the seminary because it really wasn't. It really wasn't a lifestyle that I was okay with. And it also had the limitations of that hyper religiosity that. I mean, I certainly believe in the Catholic Church or Christian churches, but my relationship with it wasn't healthy, so I had to leave that. And that sort of evolved into counseling and coaching. I mean, it was kind of the same thing. And. And being committed to my own growth process, I think, you know, I always say that our greatest secrets can become our greatest treasures if we do the work.
And, you know, so coming out of a family that was impacted by addiction, coming out of my own struggles with that, coming out of learning to become emotionally awake and to communicate and learn to live in my body and learn to recover, and all those things became really the gifts that I've been able to give to other people and continue to be that. And so I think it's just an evolution of that. Our greatest secrets either become a place of our greatest shame, or they get transformed, and there's no shame about it. And it's the elements that we give life to others.
And Holly Kim and I have shared that same passion. So that's how it's really evolved over the years.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: That's really neat.
So let's talk a little bit about what you see and what you typically do and how you help people. Let's transition to that a little bit. So you mentioned Holly Chem about.
I think, what I. What I take it as from what I do as saying no to some things that we should say no to. And I think part of what you said and, and I think that's more about also aligning with your values and living your full life. And so I think we're probably on the same page with that. So tell me a little bit more about what you see, like the most common things that you're seeing with people out there today and how do you help them? What's the process you're using to help people get from where they're at to where they have to go? Just. That's kind of a general question, like vague.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: But that's okay, I got it. Yeah.
For me, I think that what's been interesting is that a long time ago when I first started working, I worked with people that were maybe a month to three months sober and then went into working with people that are just getting sober and then I started specializing with people that were five years sober. And through that process, becoming a life coach, board certified substance abuse counselor and a life coach and then being ordained as a minister and through the process, process being able to work with all humans, right? That a lot of times they came for one thing, either their marriage or they want to be married or they're using, or they don't want to use anymore or they don't know how to do something right. There was one thing specific that kind of messed them up or was messing them up and. But they're functioning right, but it's just not enough. And to today even being working with people that have everything like a, say like a pro basketball player, but he really sucks at free throws, so he gets a coach for that. So we go from one extreme all the way to that, but always the answer is the same, to go all the way, no matter where you're starting on the scale for me and for us is bringing them all the way to who they really are, who their true selves are. And how do you really, really love what's inside? How do you love the wounds from your life and how do you love yourself when it has done things that have hurt you and others that you love and it still might want to do that, you might not allow it. You may say no, but how do you still love that part of you and catch it before it brings you to a place to where there's more damage versus trying to change that part? For me, that's not the goal. I don't do that. I'm not trying to change the part of me that thinks in an unhealthy way. I learned to love that part of me and not Empower it and learn to love the wounds in me and not empower them or become them. So that's what we really do. We have our own language, our own thing, but that's. That's really the crux of what we do.
Go ahead.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: I want to hear.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: I want to hear what Dean has to say. But I just have a quick question. So what do you do with people? Like, I feel like it'd be much easier. I hate to say the word easy, but it'd be much easier for a lack of a better term. Let's say I know I have, like, these one or two major things going on with me, right? Then it's much easier for me to identify the problem, and then we start work from there. What about people who come to you and they say, I. I'm just, you know, I'm not. I don't have any major problems. Maybe I don't. Not sure where I'm going in life with my career or whatever. So, you know, like, I guess you uncover stuff. Is that kind of what, like, is it more of like an uncover and like, you don't know what you don't know until you go through the process?
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Yes. Well, like, we work with actors and stuff like that, and we have a. You know, we just wrote a program. Some of our friends are actors, writers and directors and producers. And in that, like, they have a great life, right? Really great life. But there's damage in life, even though you're handling it, but who wants to just handle it? So it's like, you know, in the pro, one of the biggest problems, the hardest client to work with is somebody that comes from neglect because you can't see what you never got.
So a lot of times they'll come in and they have. They know things aren't perfect or right or something's missing, but they don't have no idea why. So in our process, it's always asking lots and lots of loving questions and lots of hard questions and just helping them connect the dots with kindness and love and being able to walk that journey. We call it a roadmap. Just walking that roadmap and keep going, but always with love, knowing. And they're always like, well, what am I going to find? I'm like, already lived through it. It's done. What we're going to find is things that we didn't realize, how they connect and why things are kind of maybe a pattern, you know, and how to really love that and then get to where it is, where the answers come, where I Can really have inner peace. I can really get it silent. That doesn't inner peace think. People think that that's a lifetime. Every day, all day, when I reach it. No, it's how to get there. And when I get there, once I get out, as Dean always calls it, out of the river, out of the roadmap. Get back, you know, back on the. The bumpy road is how do I get back to the inner peace? And that's the process that God has showed us, that we do and teach. And we don't just want to do it with you. We want you to have the lifestyle to leave us and do it. So we want to train you in what we've learned how to do and what we've been teaching for what, 30 something years and give it to you so you can do it. And you know, you. Then you don't need us. I mean, you may choose to be with us, but that's real different.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
Dean, you got something? Should we let him talk now? I guess we could. Go ahead. Dean, what do you got to say.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: If you had something?
[00:25:36] Speaker C: It's interesting when a person comes, right, just like you, you do with coaching, there's an identifying problem, right? Or they wouldn't come and they may not have clarity about it. So I think the way we approach it is we use a specific paradigm to help people slot things. But we ask questions. You know, what are three things that you do when you're stressed out that are unhealthy behaviors? You know, what are three experiences any time in your life that have been difficult for you, that you haven't fully overcome or you had to overcome? What are the three best characteristics about you or people say about you? So we start slotting, like into the slot of the wounds that we've had, of our coping behaviors that we've developed and who we really are. And once we start getting clarity on what those different buckets are, then we start applying the problem with that paradigm. And it actually creates lots of insight and lots of understanding. And as you know, awareness is the first step of change. And then secondly, after the awareness is to implement and to do something about it. So. So we work on creating that awareness through this roadmap we call the Voices within. And then we challenge them to start doing actions, to start getting clarity and moving out of where they want. Because we all have diverging energies in a sense. A part of me maybe want to be close to my wife. A part of me might be scared to get hurt, and a part of me may stay Distant from her. So I got all three of those going on at the same time, which creates an issue.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:19] Speaker C: So I need to be able to slot all that so that I can have. What I want is to be close to my wife.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Interesting.
I was thinking before this, you know, because I. I know you also work with married couples, and I was curious. You know, the divorce rate in the country is, like, through the roof. Right. In certain states are higher than others. And we won't name the states. California, but.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: They always want to stay pretty people.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the. The numbers are high. And so, you know, I'm wondering, you know, because a lot of my channel also is. It focuses on, you know, individuals over 40. And I thought that it was interesting to think about the fact that I was having this conversation with my wife. We have a great marriage, but we've talked. We were laughing about how much we. She really hasn't. She's pretty much the same person, but I feel like I've changed five times since I was 25. So she's like, who are you? You're not even the same person that. When we got married. I'm like, well, I'm better. You know what I mean? So. But I just think it's interesting because people go through all these changes in life, but yet you have to stay in step to some degree when you're married. Right.
So how do you help people work through when they go through changes or they're having these marriage problems? Like, do you do anything different when it's a married couple? Or is it the same process? Do you separate them? And, like, what are you finding that helps married couples out there?
[00:28:48] Speaker B: I'll go, and then you can finish. Okay.
For me. What I see. Okay. I'll deal with the problem, and then he can go from there. What I see is that two true selves get married. Right. We tell you all about our wounds. Okay? We have much compassion for each other. We even tell on ourselves, on all the yuckies we do, you know, or we've done in our lives. You know, like, I used to do this. Oh, my God. And so we. But where the true selves get married, and then as life goes on, our spouse does something not on purpose, usually 95% to 100%, but they do something that triggers those old wounds. And after that happens a number of times, all of a sudden, my spouse becomes them, connected to the people that hurt me. So now I become my protector and I become guarded. And that's not who you married. After a while in The. And I do the same to my husband, right? Not meaning to, but that's what happens in the end when, by the time they get to us, the true selves aren't even in the house anymore. They've left the house, and the two people that are living there are their protectors. And that's not who fell in love. That's who they like. They don't even like it themselves, but they become that. So those two people don't get along. So when they come to counseling, one of them has been awakened, their true self is awakened, and says, I don't want to live with this guy anymore. I don't want to live with her anymore. And who are they really talking about? They don't want to live with the part of them that is protecting them from ever being hurt again. So they come to us, and then what do we do?
[00:30:28] Speaker A: Q. Dean.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah, Cluedine, that. That's. I gave you the problem. Okay.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, if we can get both people committed to working on their own process and then sharing that process with each other, that's really where healing occurs. And oftentimes the problems in a relationship are the things that are happening, but more often, it's. It's being triggered and playing it. I mean, for example, if I had a real controlling, say, mother and my wife did something controlling, well, I can be.
She deserves out of a 1 to 10 scale of anger, my wife might deserve a 2, but I'm feeling a 9 because of what it triggered. And if I don't have an ability to separate that two, she's going to get the entire nine.
And so that's the key, is trying to help people understand, like you did in the beginning of the interview, connecting your histories to your present and trying to separate what's about my history, what's about the present. And really the way out of that loop is two very simple principles that I teach. I say if you all adopt these two principles, we can reconcile anything. And they're spiritual principles that have psychological application. They're repentance and forgiveness. Repentance is to have a heartfelt sorrow for the things that I have done that have hurt you, taking full responsibility for it and making a commitment to learn to do it differently.
And forgiveness is recognizing that I have been hurt by things that you have done and by life, by things others have done. And I'm willing to lay down that hurt on the altar and ask it to be removed, ask God to remove it. Now, if I practice those two principles, then we can reconcile anything and Jesus talked about it. He said, you know, repent and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Basically what he was saying is that heaven's around us and we can activate it by practicing. These two principles have repentance and forgiveness. But the opposite is true too. If you want hell in your relationship, never apologize and never forgive. And I promise you, you have lots of hell.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:49] Speaker C: Every time it works.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: So. So really, if you get the couple to come and they really get committed to that, not only repenting to each other, but the things in life and forgiving not only each other, but forgiving the hurts in life, then there's great restoration that goes on. There's a lot to be said about that. But that in simplicity is that if we get them committed to those principles and they have buy in to say, okay, I understand that this is what I need to practice, then we can reconcile really anything thing.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: I love the, I've never heard that before, that, you know, you. They become the person that did the past trauma to you. That's really interesting to me. I've never heard that. But that makes so much sense.
[00:33:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: How much? I mean, I know the. I know the answer is communication. I feel like communication is a big part of a lot of problems, whether it's business coaching that I do or whatever.
How do you, what do you recommend for married couples as far as communication? Like, where do you see the gaps there? I mean, obviously what you just said was great. Is there a regular cadence of communication or something they should do on a regular basis to make sure that they don't get too far apart with these things? Because I feel like if you're communicating and you do something that you start becoming some person. But we talk about it and I nip. We nip it in the bud before it actually gets blown out of proportion. That might help or no.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Am I off?
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna go in there. Okay. There's skill. And that's what you're talking about. Okay. There's. There's skill on how to communicate. And then the other side for me, I'll add Dean, talk about skill. The other side for me is that in that process, if I don't know who I am and what's going on internally, then it's going to come out like two or three messages. Like, I'm gonna be given double messages, like, I miss you, but I can't stand when you come home.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Gotcha.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Ye. So it's like if I don't get what's happening internally and that's where the work comes in. If I don't get my own self and I can't separate and communicate that correctly, it's always going to be in a mess and confusion where then you have, you know. So mine is do the work and then there's the skill. So you want to go with the skill?
[00:35:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I use. The guideline I use is that you have to make a commitment to be direct, honest and loving.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: You have to make a commitment to that. That if something's going on, you need to be direct, you need to be honest, but you need to do it not angrily, but lovingly. If we can do that and that becomes a guideline for communication, we're going to be able to work through a lot of stuff. Also think that there's the guideline of grace.
In John's gospel, Jesus was full of grace and full of truth. Right. And grace is to have an unconditional acceptance of where a person is at that moment and just being an embracing of the other person. Truth is communicating. From my perspective, as true as I see it now, the both of those elements are important. But I always say you need to lead with grace and then you speak truth.
If you get the order mixed up, you're going to create a mess.
If you lead with truth and then give you grace, if you accept my truth, then work together, it doesn't work so good. And so I think that's a real key is practicing that.
And there's lots of fruit that's gone from that. If you're just graceful towards someone and you accept someone where they are and you don't speak truth, then you enable unhealthy behavior.
If you speak truth and then you don't have grace, then you might be communicating what's true, but you're probably creating more damage than you're helping. Like, I could be late all the time and my wife could say, you're very inconsiderate. SOB. Because you're never on time and you're always late.
Okay, well, it may be absolutely true, but she's probably not going to get the best response from me. But if she says, you know, honey, it works out so well when you get home on time. And I understand that you have a lot on your mind and yet you work really hard and it really works out well when you make it home on time. And it's very disruptive when you're not. Now, if she honors who I am and what I'm doing and sees things from my perspective is very graceful. Look, when she tells me the truth. I'm like, okay, I'm going to work on that. I'm going to work on that. So in a couple, that's what I say. Those simply in communication. Direct, honest and loving. Lead with grace and make sure you speak the truth.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: That's great advice. I like that a lot.
I feel like I could talk to you guys for another two hours.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: No, we could.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Tell me about the book because I want to make sure people understand that you have the book and where they can get it. And where would you like people to go if they have questions or they want to get in contact with you?
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Okay. You want me to. Yeah, go ahead. Our website is called I have a Voice. Don't you have a voice? I have a voice dot com. And there we have our book, A Roadmap to the Soul. We have our YouTube channel, which has over 2, 300 free videos on all subjects. We have our podcast there. What we do is we do live coaching like this. So somebody comes on with a problem and Dean and I coach them instead of just talking about it. Yeah. So we do that. And what else? And the book is there. You can get that link for the book.
[00:38:35] Speaker C: And then we have Transform you, which is our four month coaching program for individuals and couples. And you can get information at I have a Voice. Dot com.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Right. It's an online course.
[00:38:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's great. Online course.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: That's what we were doing before we got here.
Yeah, we do live zoom calls. We offer that twice a week and it's a four month course, so it's good.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Love that. Well, I appreciate you coming on. I'm. I think that a lot. I know that a lot of people got a lot of value out of this and we might have to do this again because I. Yeah, we could have gone on for another hour for sure.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: And we won't be late. Next time, we apologize.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: No, you're good, you're good. No, you're good. But I appreciate it and thank you for being here.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: You're welcome.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: And we'll. We'll catch everybody on the next episode. Take care, everybody.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
