489. An Example of What’s Possible

It is Thanksgiving weekend. And I’ve been thinking a lot about the things, people, experiences, and places that I am thankful for. And one person is standing out in my mind a lot. I’m going to tell you why this person is on my mind more than usual even, why this person has been so impactful in my life, and share with you some of the key turning points that changed everything for me in my personal, professional life, and in every other way. This is episode 489, An Example of What’s Possible.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we transform our lives by transforming ourselves. My name is Jody Moore. In the decade-plus I’ve been working with clients as a Master Certified Coach, I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to become empowered. And from empowered, the things that seemed hard become trivial, and the things that seemed impossible become available, and suddenly, a whole new world of desire and possibility open up to you. And what do you do with that?

Well, that’s the question… what will you do? Let’s find out.

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Hope that you are having a lovely week. If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope it was enjoyable and peaceful and all the things. And thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

So I recently heard this quote from the poet Rumi. It says, “The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep.” 

So I love this quote because I’m kind of at that stage of life where I wake up in the night a little bit more than I used to. And sometimes I have a hard time going back to sleep once I wake up and it’s easy to get frustrated by that and start thinking thoughts like, I’ve got to get back to sleep or I’m going to be so tired tomorrow. But this quote from Rumi really shifted it for me. I decided from now on, if I wake up in the night, I’m going to decide it’s because the breezes have secrets to tell me, and I’m going to try not to go back to sleep.

So recently, I woke up in the night, and I started to just think about things in my life, think about experiences and people, and it is the month of Thanksgiving. So I try to focus even more so on gratitude. And I kept thinking about my teacher, my mentor, my coach, and my friend, Brooke Castillo. She just kept coming to my mind.

Now, I will mention that you guys have heard me talk about Brooke Castillo a lot because about half of the tools that I use as a coach and that I talk about here on this podcast, I learned from Brooke. So I’m constantly referencing her. But today I wanna do something a little different. I don’t wanna dive into the tools that she’s taught me. I do that all the time. 

I wanna talk to you about how she has been such an example of what’s possible to me in kind of more subtle ways, just through the life that she lives and the person that she is. And I’ll tell you that one of her kind of driving motivators in life, you might say, the purpose that she sees as her life that really drives her and inspires her is to be an example of what’s possible. And she does it so beautifully.

Now, before I build her up, let me just clarify that I know that she is not perfect. She knows that she is not perfect. I’m not suggesting that she is. I’m not trying to put her on a pedestal above anybody else. In fact, she has some teachings or values or ideas about life, et cetera, that I disagree with. And I love that she and I can disagree. And in fact, I remember talking to her once saying, I don’t even agree with everything you teach. And she’s like, I know, I hope not. I think that would be weird if anyone agreed with everything I teach, right?

So anyway, I don’t mean to elevate her in an inappropriate way, but I do just wanna take a moment to celebrate and be grateful for her. She is closing down Self-Coaching Scholars, which has been the coaching program she’s had for many, many years, and she’s taking a pause from certifying coaches, and she’s gonna spend some time with her family, and I’m sure she will be around doing many other amazing things, because she’s very ambitious and brilliant. 

But it’s sort of the end of an era, if you will, for a lot of the ways of teaching and coaching that I’ve known with Brooke Castillo. And that makes me feel both kind of a grief that that part is coming to an end and also just tremendous gratitude and abundance and kind of a nervous excitement for what lies ahead for me and for all of us and for her, right? As we discover new teachers and come up with our own ideas.

So I wanted to just pay a minute of tribute to her on today’s episode in gratitude. So if I talk about her in past tense, it’s because I’m just remembering my experiences with her, not because she’s not still around and thriving and doing amazingly well.

Okay, so the first thing, and I’m going to talk about four really major ways that Brooke has been an example of what’s possible to me. And the first… The first way is around the topic of love. So she did teach me some formal things through, by formal I mean through coach training and some of the tools that she teaches us as coaches and as her students around this topic of love. 

For example, she was the one who really laid out for me in a clear way that love is an emotion that we feel in our own bodies and when we choose it, we’re the ones who benefit. It doesn’t matter who or what the object of our love is, because that love doesn’t jump out of our bodies into anyone else’s body. It’s something that we should choose for us. It’s a reward we give ourselves, and it’s the best feeling emotion and the most useful one. If love is your fuel, you can’t go wrong. And so as often as possible to choose love.

But Brooke has also been an example of this in my life. As I’ve watched her navigate all kinds of situations, I watch her constantly do her very best to choose love. She believes that everyone in every story is 100% lovable and that our job is simply to get better at loving and embracing people exactly as they are. And again, I’ve watched her do this time and time again with some of the most challenging people in some of the most challenging circumstances. And that’s not to say that she’s perfect at it, but I watch her be pretty darn good at it a lot better than I’ve ever been at it and a lot better than most of the people I see around me. And it’s so inspiring to watch.

For example, I remember when I kind of first started working with her, I was going through coach training. This was over 10 years ago. And somebody came to her and said, hey, I think you should know that somebody is spreading these bad, nasty rumors about you. And I think it was maybe one of her trained coaches or something. 

And before they could even give details about who or what they were saying, she said, just go ahead and assume that it’s all true. I don’t need to know. And I was like, what? She literally just chooses not to engage in drama. And as we asked her about that, she said, you know what, if they believe it about me, it’s true for them. And there’s probably at least a percentage of it that’s true that I would even agree with, whatever it is they’re saying about me. 

And so we don’t need to get into an argument here. I’m just going to go ahead and like, all right, whatever it is they’re saying, you can just go ahead and assume that’s probably true. And it was just amazing to me to watch her not engage in being defensive or attacking back, and she really has this keen awareness that human beings are just doing the best they can. And sometimes our best is great, and sometimes it’s just really not good. And she doesn’t let that prevent her from loving other people or herself. It’s really inspiring to watch.

Every opportunity you get, choose love. I also love this question. She asks, what would love do? What feels most like love? Because it’s difficult in certain situations, right? Love doesn’t mean letting people take advantage of you. Love might mean having a boundary. Because love includes love for other people and also love for yourself. Remember, everyone in the story is lovable. What feels most like love? What would love do? Not easy questions to answer, but really, really useful questions.

All right, the second way that Brooke has been such a great example to me of what’s possible is in the area of generosity. I’ve had the privilege of going on a trip with Brooke once. So first of all, it was a mutual friend of ours, 50th birthday. And so she invited a group of us on a trip. She was very generous in footing most of the bill for the trip. And so that was amazing and so kind of her. But what really stood out to me and impressed me is that Brooke is not only generous with her money, and she is very generous with her money, but she’s also generous with her time, with her attention, and with her love.

So we were able to stay in this really awesome casita right on the beach in Mexico, and there were people there helping us, right? Taking care of us, cleaning the place, getting us food, like this was the most pampered I’d ever been in my life, and it was the most pampered Brooke had ever been at this point.

 And so there was one gentleman in particular who was with us kind of the whole trip, and what I was so impressed with was how Brooke really tried to get to know him. She didn’t just treat him like he was the hired help. She engaged with him. She was interested in him. She asked him about his family, about who he goes home to at night, and is this job hard, and are people nice to you, and what is it like? And she’s genuinely interested in his life.

And because, again, this was like a pretty high-end experience that most of us don’t, you know, indulge in that often. She said to him, I don’t even know how to tip you. Like, how do people normally tip you? And she said, tell me what’s the biggest tip you’ve ever gotten? And he told her and then she was like, let’s tip more than that. Not to beat anybody out, not to win anything, just because she loves to be generous.

Again, I love how generous she is with her time and her money, but with her time and her attention and her love and her respect for everybody. I’ve watched her over and over again be generous. She’s been generous with me and with all of us as students, she continues to give, she genuinely cares about our success, and she goes above and beyond every time to deliver for us and to help us achieve what we’re trying to in our lives.

The third area where Brooke has been such a great example to me is around the topic of integrity. So in the LDS Church, we talk a lot about the importance of honesty, and it’s even one of the Temple Recommend questions about whether or not we’re honest in all of our dealings. And I used to think that was kind of simple. It was just like, are you lying or cheating or stealing? Let’s not do that. Let’s tell the truth, right?

But Brooke really took all of this next level for me when she taught me about things like saying no when it is a no, and only saying yes when it is a genuine yes. And that when we say yes, but we really want to say no, we’re not operating at the highest level of integrity. We might even call it lying. Right? 

And she again, not only taught me this as a teacher, but I’ve watched her do this over and over again. I’ve been at the receiving end of it even. I’ve heard her say to myself and others, I love you and no. It is always a loving no, at least in my experience, but it’s a no sometimes. And the beautiful part about this is when it is a yes, I know that she’s telling me the truth. 

I know that she’s not just people-pleasing or trying to be polite because she’s really good at being honest and living in the utmost integrity. And it makes it so that our relationship is so much better because we don’t have to play a game and we don’t have to guess. And I know that what I am seeing is what’s real with her. Again, not that she’s perfect in any of this, but she’s far better at it than anybody else I ever met.

Now, as a coach, this is her superpower, truth-telling. In coaching, sometimes we have to tell people truths that are somewhat difficult for them to hear. We have to point out what’s really true. That’s our job as coaches and the type of coaching that we do. And it can be challenging for people to hear. And if you’ve ever had someone tell you a “truth” that’s hard for you to hear, I will tell you that your soul knows where they are coming from, okay? 

If somebody is frustrated with you or judging you or resentful of you or upset with you and they tell you the truth, it’s very hard to receive. Because we feel the judgment, we feel the upset, we feel the responsibility they’re trying to give us for their emotions, and then we become defensive and push back, and ultimately that often turns into a fight, right?

But if you’ve ever had someone tell you the truth, the truth that’s hard to hear, because they love you, not because they’re trying to feel better, not because they’re trying to control you, not because they even care whether or not you change, They just love you enough to tell you the honest truth. It is such a gift. And it’s pretty rare in this world nowadays. 

It’s a tough thing for people to do. And Brooke has a handful of times in the time that I’ve known her, told me the honest truth because she loves me. Even when it was hard to hear, it was such a gift. I’m so grateful to her because all progress starts from the truth. I never could have grown and evolved and changed as quickly and as significantly as I did had she not been courageous and loving enough to tell me the truth.

This is also why her coaching is so inspiring to listen to, because she tells people the truth and she does it with lightness and humor at times and playfulness and compassion and love, but she doesn’t sugarcoat it and she doesn’t beat around the bush. And when you tell people the truth in that way, there is something so powerful and spiritual about it. Brooke is such a great example of integrity to me.

Now, the fourth and final way that she’s been such amazing example of what’s possible is just in being the woman that she is. So I have to go all the way back now to when I first discovered Brooke Castillo. It was before she ever had a podcast. We were all blogging at the time. I read her book. I was introduced to her at my corporate job. And so then I went and got her book and I started reading her blog and I loved it. I was eating it all up.

But when I went through coach training and heard her teach live for the first time ever, I could not get over how confident she was. It might’ve been the first time that I had seen a woman who was truly confident, at least as confident as Brooke was and is because she didn’t apologize. She wasn’t ashamed of her strengths and trying to downplay them. She owns that she’s good at a lot of things. 

And she’s also not ashamed or embarrassed of her weaknesses and trying to hide them. She owns that there are many things that she’s not good at, and she doesn’t apologize for those either. She may say, this is something I want to get good at, or this is something I’m just not good at and I don’t care to be good at it, but she was so real and confident and outspoken. And I had never witnessed anything like that in another woman. And it really spoke to my soul. It really awakened within me a version of me that wanted to be confident like that.

It was like suddenly I had permission to own that I think I’m good at some things and I don’t have to apologize anymore and I don’t have to wonder if that’s going to make other people feel bad. I can just own my strengths and I also don’t have to hide and apologize and be embarrassed of my weaknesses. 

It was so transformative, those six days I spent in a really intensive coach training with her in the very beginning, that was the first step of my training, were literally life-changing to me because of the things I learned, but because of watching Brooke and the way that she is with other people and in the world.

And I do think it’s this level of confidence that makes her so good at loving other people. She is also this way about her body, which again, I had not witnessed before, where she is able to love her body to the extent that she doesn’t have to hide it, and she doesn’t have to be embarrassed or ashamed of it, and whether it has gained weight or lost weight is irrelevant. 

And from that love of her body, she takes very good care of her body and has gone through major transformations to become healthier and have better habits around her body. And it comes easily to her now to live that way because of how much she loves her body. That is something I just had not witnessed in that way until I met Brooke Castillo.

And again, I’m becoming my own version of all of these things, but sometimes having somebody lead the way in terms of what it may look like can give you an idea, but also just give you permission. I feel like so many of us women are needing permission to be confident and to be strong and to be outspoken, if that’s your nature. And I’m so grateful to Brooke for being that example in my life of what’s possible.

So, sum it all up. Brooke Castillo, I am so proud to call you my teacher, my coach, and my friend. Congratulations on the end of an extraordinary era. I cannot wait to see what you do next. Thank you for being an example of what’s possible.

Oh wow, look at that. You made it to the end. Your time and attention is valuable, and I don’t take it lightly that you made it this far. In fact, it tells me you might be like me; insatiably curious about people and life and potential and connection. Maybe you have big dreams but a small budget and no time. You’re tired, but bored. You’re content, but dissatisfied. Sound familiar? Come to a free coaching call and see for yourself what’s possible: jodymoore.com/freecoaching to register. That’s jodymoore.com/freecoaching.