EXPERIENCE 32 | Navigating Change & Transition with Award-Winning Author and Consultant Cheryl Benedict

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast, this is your host Kurt Bear, and I'm joined today by Cheryl Benedict, and Cheryl is the owner of Morph Consulting and an award-winning author of The Wisdom of Transition, navigating change at work. And Cheryl won the award in 2020 for the Sound Advice Book Awards, and I'm really pleased to have her in the office with me today, and Cheryl, can you just set the stage and tell us a little bit about the book journey and also Morph Consulting to just help people understand who you are? I love to, I love to, so I've owned Morph Consulting for 12 years as a leadership consultant executive coach, but what I recognize is that most of my journey as a career counselor executive coach was around change and transition. So I had an epiphany doing a presentation not far from here, and berthed to the Northern Water Conservancy District on change and transition, and after that I realized, wow, I think I need to write a book. So it took about five months. I've uncovered it. Well, I knew that I was feeling a connection to that, but I wanted to actually feel genuinely called. And so as a result of doing that presentation, it felt like, okay, I'm the right person with a right expertise to write this book. And again, that was your experience finding success with clients and stuff where you were like, people tend to call me when they're now beginning to change, and that's how I, what I help them do the best, or not just you help them do, but coaches in a lot of respects, right? Absolutely. But probably I cut my teeth on this topic as an out placement consultant, have you ever heard of that before? It was a big deal back when Michael Hammer was around and organizations were flattening and they had to let go of really talented people, but through no fault of their own, but they wanted to provide career continuation services for them, hence the birth of out placement. So it was a career counselor for that. And so every day I would have eight people come into my office who had just been fired. And I noticed that when people are going through that kind of epic amount of change, it triggers this internal process called transition, which always begins with an ending and ends with a new beginning. But how do you travel that terrain is largely what the book is all about? And I don't want to spell the whole book because we want to sell some books and stuff, but do you feel like it's a good place to start is to sketch out kind of the paradigm of that? Sure. I'd love to. Okay. Yeah, I'd love to. So I mean, COVID, gosh, we're right in the midst of probably the biggest one. Many of us have ever been through, but when there's a major external change that often we have no control over that's thrust upon us, it triggers this internal psychological emotional response called transition. And as I said earlier, it begins with an ending. And so what the ending means is the recognition that it's never going to be the same again. Yeah. I'm never going to be the same. My life is never going to be the same. I don't know what it's going to be at, but wow. And so some of the predictable stages that go along with that are what you find in grief. Well, that's what I was just thinking about my wife and I had a big loss last year in the passing of her mother unexpectedly. I remember that. Yeah. Those friends passed this spring in the same fashion. And, you know, I'm thinking about the fight or flight thing when you're confronted with a challenge, but this is kind of post-challenge. So transition is kind of a similar type of thing, but it's that, hey, I've turned a page here. The old life is gone. You know, I imagine breakups of engagements or see that all kind of initiate this thing. Sure. But often it's a feeling of shock, like I, like in the case of your mother in law, I can't, I can barely take it in. It almost bounces off you like Teflon, like this is so hard for me to even wrap my head around that there's that sense of a coping mechanism of shock. I'm going to keep this at arms length as long as I can. And then, then a sense of where we fall into many of the stages of grief, where denial, it's not true. It can't be true. And then wanting to blame anyone or anything else to keep it at arms length. And then anger often, this isn't fair. And then sadness, of course, you know, worry until we anger with my wife on Mother's Day we can just ask something on that. And so, like, what do we do like that? Well then you move into, I talk about it a bunch in the book, but then we move into what I refer to as the in between. And the in between is very much a sense of, do I, am I going to eternally resist this? Is there any way that I can welcome this, find a way to make peace with this, find a way to actually accept this? And I think that's the grist for the mill in the in between zone when we largely drop outside of time and space life is largely in a space of suspended animation. There's a sense of heavy fog. And I don't see heavy fog as negative current, it's more this, you know how fog sort of insulates us, it's almost like a protective mantle that allows us to only see a couple of inches in front of our face. So I think it does that so we can introspect so we can reflect on, okay, who am I now? And what matters to me and what are my values and how do I want to navigate this and can I move to acceptance? It's really interesting, I just met with somebody this morning actually who is in a, is kind of in a new business transition or whatever, but the transition to that was she had major brain cancer tumor removal a couple of years ago, knocked out of the workforce for a time and things like that. And when she got through that transition, it was with a real renewed sense of purpose and ability to do what she really wanted to do. Beautiful, wow. It was, it is, you know, and there's actually a podcast that you should probably be on that it's called the re, re, I can't remember, it's a, it's a fellow in loved one, need us guy. It's basically the whole premise is, it's somebody that's had a major life change. Yes. It reformed themselves. Yes. Yeah. But I'll get it back to you. Oh, I love that. And you should be on this podcast. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. I met it for sure. Yeah. I know I'm sure he's live. I think he's zooming mostly. So anyway, so how did, how did that play out? So you're, you've got this idea, like talk to me about the process of writing a book because I've got ideas of writing. Do you? Really? Yeah. I've had lots of ideas of writing a book, you know, different things, but nothing that seemed important enough to, to put the effort into squeeze it all out. Yes. The effort to, that's not even as scary as the effort to try to make it so that people read it. Yes. And so it talked to me about that process of, of first giving structure and, and teeth to this idea, um, and, and the writing process. I think did you say it was five months? It was. Yeah. And, and honestly, I didn't have a clue. I mean, I've never written a book. I didn't have a clue. And so I let my husband, Paul, know that, okay, I feel like now's the time. I'm feeling called and, uh, okay, God surprised me with your goodness, show me how the heck do you do this? And so Paul has kept track of, and kept track of an author that he's loved since he was 16. And he went to his website and said, guess what? This guy hires himself out as an author coach. I have no idea what that means, but you might want to connect with him. So I loved a book that, that he wrote that, that, you know, I've continued to love all these years. So I reached out to him and he said, interestingly, I'm finishing with a client next week. Do you want to start? I typically have two clients I work with at it at a time and I help them with the bones. Yeah. I help them with the structure. I'm, uh, I've done 33 of, of my own books and I've helped 40 other people right there. You want to show them while you're here? Yeah. His name's John Selby. Cool. So John helps you kind of sketch out the outline of sorts. Well, he just immediately says, okay, so how many themes do you think you'll have? Pray on that, meditate on that. And I came back with, I think, maybe 12. And then he said for each theme, there are a couple of sub themes. And so the themes become the table of contents. And he knew exactly how many pages a chapter should have. He knew, I mean, you know, when you've done that many books, he understands the structure. Yeah. So that was wildly helpful. So what we would do, we'd get on the phone, I spent every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, writing. Okay. And we would spend Thursday together and we would record our conversation and he would ask probing questions, I would respond. And then my job was to take the recording on Zoom and translate it, basically transcribe it with drag and naturally speaking. And then I had content. And so then from the conversations, it opened up the door for me of what I wanted to write about. So it helped me overcome any potential writer's block and it just flowed. Did you actually write with the drag and naturally speaking subs? I did, yeah. Or just edit what you had said in the conversation and things like that. Both, but his questions were so good that it just opened the door to the wisdom that was within. Yeah. I think that's so interesting and it actually takes some of the burden off of imagining my own books. It does. It does. And so having, I would imagine when I do my second book, which is, which is something I'm planning to do, but for your first one, gosh, to learn from somebody who's figured it out, saves, right? He's been a part of 73 books, totally, totally saves a lot of time. And also it, I can be creative within a structure, but to just begin, I mean, I tried to just begin. I think I came up with 40 pages, but not a book. Right. Right. Interesting. And your book is a couple hundred pages. Yeah, close to 200. Yeah. So I guess let's get to no share a little bit more before we get too much into this book. I want to come back to the book, but I think it's better if we maybe set up a little bit about that background and your life journey because that's part of the value proposition here at local experiences is let's, let's meet you all the way is where did you come from? What, where did you grow up? Yeah, I grew up in Kansas City, but I always wanted to move to Colorado. Right. As the most people in campus. Totally. I know. I know. So what was that avenue for you or did you stay local for high school college? Things like that? Yes. I went to, I went to the University of Missouri, got a degree in psychology and communication and then moved back to Kansas City, got married and we almost immediately moved to Ireland for my former husband's job and we were there for three years, which was very formative. For me in my mid 20s to live outside of the United States, he worked for eight on products. We actually both did. That's where we met and he was the general manager. So they had a manufacturing facility in Port Harlington County, leash where they made all this soap and jewelry for eight on for the 26 countries. They were in, so he went over to be the general manager. Interesting. Yeah. And I, and I, for the time, so many companies have had Irish headquarters and things in the last decade or so, but 25 years ago or whatever, that was a really rare thing. Well, I think the idea that Irish development agency offered a 10 year tax exempt status to any American company that came over and provided a labor rich opportunity. So they were starved for jobs and so, gosh, there were so many American companies that built facilities there. Yeah. So it was a bigger trend than I realized. It was much later when an auto box was opening offices, the things like that that I became really aware of the Irish financial markets and all those kind of things. So we're in Ireland for a few years and the other people. Ireland for three years. Yeah, huge. And I couldn't work. I have a green card at 24. I didn't have any amazing skill that an Irish national couldn't have created. So that was very interesting at the genesis of my career. I took walks in the Emo woods every day with my German short hair pointer. I went, I traveled to the sleeve blue mountains and to Port Leash and to Kilkenny. And I just, I found, I found it was an incredibly introspective experience where I could write. And in the book, I talk a lot about, it was a journey of healing for me because I had largely repressed all of my emotions growing up and I realized that I needed to connect in with my emotional body. I knew that I had healing I had to do. So in complete transparency, I think I really use most of the time to to heal to work on you. Yeah. To work on me. Talk about some of that family upbringing and some of that. Sure. Yeah. I think it plays in that because I really feel like I've been a student of transition since my parents divorced when I was five. Oh, wow. And I've never talked about this before, but it really, when I was first writing the book, it was in some of the earlier pages, but I realized I can either write a book that's going to be appropriate for the clients that I work with mostly engineers and architects. Before I can write a book that's way more spiritually oriented, I decided to choose more of the kind of book that would fit. Well, more good for more people perhaps, but maybe there's going to be part of the knowing Cheryl Moore journey that your fans can dig into a little bit of the road. That's adorable. So your five years old, your parents, they got a divorce, I'm an only child and my, I think my parents made a decision that I do weekdays with my dad and stepmother and weekends with my mom. So what would happen was every Sunday around six o'clock, we'd get into the car, drive the 10 minutes to my dad's house. And I realized that during that 10 minute drive, I had to transition from what it was like to be a little girl at my mom's house, which was largely free and unfettered and not really no rules, kind of raise yourself in a way to my dad and stepmother who were very strict, very, well, yeah, and I used free range children to describe my upbringing, which sounds like your mom's house. Yeah, I was a free range chicken with my mom, but with my dad and stepmom, it was very rule based and very strict and lots of discipline. And I, yeah, interesting, well, that, so every week you had to go through that kind of a transition. That's right. And then Friday, I'd go back to my mom's and Yippee, and, and so I endured that until I was 13 and finally I realized, I can't do this anymore. I was pining for a sense of home and, and I didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere, but I do feel like having to navigate that transition every week made me appreciate what it is for people who are in transition. Stronger at it, probably. Yeah. Right. Like that's how you get stronger at things. Right. Right. The 10,000 hours. It was probably also like you mentioned, you know, you weren't really in touch with your emotions necessarily as a young 20 something and it was probably because you kind of tamped them down. I had to to survive. And I always felt like if I had a brother or sister, maybe we could have gone through that together. But the fact that I was alone in isolation, I think my, my coping mechanism, I'm a three on the anyogram. So my coping mechanism as a three was largely to try to please the different parents, you know, which is very three. Maybe strict rule follower when you're with dad and stepma. And then when I was with my mom, painting and picking wildflowers or whatever. Yeah. Exactly. Interesting. Talk about a bifurcated existence. Yeah. Yeah. So what happened when you were 13? It sounds like that was a transition. It was huge. So the school announced a change in the dress code and my stepmother was trying to at the time, shorter skirts and, you know, it was kind of the advent of the, in the, what, seventies. And so shorter skirts and my, my stepmother was putting me in these doubty clothes that she'd made that fell below the knee and, and then I was like ridiculed at school. I was the last thing from being hip in, in middle school. And, and so it was just painful, I felt like, um, like to use a good Irish phrase and eat it. I just felt like, God, I, I would love to just wear clothes that allow me to look normal instead of like a consummate weirdo. So why are you punishing me with these clothes? I know. I mean, I know she thought she was doing a lovely thing, but it was very, very narrow. So anyway, my mom and I went shopping that weekend because the dress code changed and we got these really cool pantsuits and stuff I could wear. And I called my stepmom and dad on Sunday and said, guess what? The dress code changed. My mom and I have bought these gorgeous clothes. I'd love to bring them because my stepmother's thing was the minute I arrived at her house on a Sunday at six. I had to strip at the front door, take all of my mom's clothes, stick them in a bag and put on Colleen's clothes. I think she was a little crazy, you know, and then I'd get handed my mom's clothes on Friday as I went to school and I'd take them with me, but I was tired of that embarrassment and that humiliation and that making me feel like the environment my mom had, which was lots of animals, was less than. So I thought I was so excited about the dress code changing and she adamantly said, no, you can't bring those clothes here. I don't care if they're brand new. And something inside me snapped and I said, okay. And then I ran down the hall with my mom and stepped in Mac and I said, you know, if she can't be flexible on clothes, how in the world are we ever going to make it through my teen years? I had just turned 13. I said, I don't want to go back. And my mom and Max said, well, you could stay here. I said, you're kidding. I could actually be here full time. And I thought, why didn't you say that? Totally. You're like, why did I have to go through this? But they said, you can stay here full time. So I called back and my dad and said, I'm around their way to square dancing of all things. And I said, look, you know, I'm not coming back. If we can't reach some kind of compromise, then I don't think it bodes well for my teenage years and I'm going to stay here. And how was that responded to? Well, it was, you know, they thought I was just smoking something. I think they thought, right, you know, and I didn't go back and my mom picked me up after school and and they got the very clear message that I wasn't coming back and they sent all my stuff to me in a truck and did not speak to me at all during my high school years. But in many ways, that was a blessing. You're going to love you to make that break. It did. You need to put down roots with my mom and then she found a church that I got very involved in. And that particular church had such a gorgeous youth program, Kurt, that we got to put on our own sermons every Sunday in our own, like I every, probably every third Sunday I was either I was either facilitating a sermon or I was leading a guided visualization meditation or I was leading singing. So I became very comfortable up in front of a collective as a, you know, sort of youth minister guiding the guiding the thing. So when my Methodist grandfather died, I was 15 and I asked the family, can I facilitate his funeral? I mean, he was a big deal. Grand Avenue Temple in Kansas City. I think he had 3000 congregants, but I just said, can I facilitate the entire funeral? And can you believe it? They said, yes. So I brought my best friend, Steve Eppley, he played, you've got a friend, lean on me. I facilitated the whole thing and on the drive over there in the hers, I had one of those watershed moments where I thought, I'm supposed to be a minister. Like there's something about this that feels so right, you know, just that inner sense of knowing. And there was no uncertainty. And I didn't have the sophistication of 15 to understand how that would manifest. But I knew that this was a call. Anyway, the funeral was beautiful and heartfelt and an indicator to me that you're heart-full like stepping into that thing. I often times talk about, you know, faith and God, but also the universe and how things flow and whatever. And when you're in the place where God wants you to be, things just kind of flow right. They do. They work. You know, when you're going against the coast, you're not swimming across the river or upstream. And so that's lovely that it just, it's lovely that the adults in your world, I guess this was your mom's dad? It was. So my mom and then my aunt and uncle, they said, yes. I mean, isn't that, I mean, I just think back how much trust they must have had. Yeah. In me. Well, it probably shows, I suspect how much you had blossomed in that two plus years that you've been both involved with the church, but also involved more fully planted in your family. I'm sure the emotional recovery was starting by that time already and things like that. So what a grand story. That's beautiful. So where did you take that from there? Like, what do you do with that as a 15-year-old? Well, I kept doing it every Sunday, you know, sermons and leading people on guides. I did meditations, which, by the way, I loved, you know, a full 20 minutes to have people drop into their body and it was almost like taking people on a journey, which I loved. And then, yeah, no, my grandfather was a Methodist. This was, I was a part of a group called the Youth of Unity. Okay. Yeah, Youth of Unity. Well, actually, it was a, it wasn't a Unitarian, it was a Unity, so it was a Christian. It was a Christian. Okay. I haven't really seen Christian churches embrace meditation that much, you know. They were very… They were, they go to Christian church and I meditate for a little bit of time. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was very cutting edge. It was considered new thought it was created by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore at the turn of the century. There were a lot of movements during the Theosophical movement, science of mind, Christian science and unity. I'll really grew up about the same time, but it was the power, it was affirmations, the power of thoughts in mind, manifest after their kind, it was very much of a, we are co-creators of our experience. Yeah, kind of a precursor to the secret or things like that. Yeah, it was kind of a very new thought, new age. So I was raised in that. So even when I was 13, you'll love this. My, Mac and my mom and I took this course called Psycho-Sybernetics by Maxwell Maltz and it was the power of manifestation. So with 13, I learned how to create a vision board with images that captured the emotional excitement of different things I wanted to bring into my life and then writing affirmations to go with it. And it was all about prayer and co-creating with God to bring about in your life the highest and best. Well, the funny thing is is that I desperately wanted a baby brother. So I created a treasure map for a baby brother and I put it on the back of my bedroom door and my mom walked in and let out a blood curdling scream. She said, no, I don't want to have a child and she tore it up and burnt it. I thought, wow, that was intense. But anyway, I thought it was, no, she didn't, but my stepmother and dad adopted a little boy, unbeknownst to me and he came, came about a month later. So you missed the target geographically, but he manifested all the same. I know. So take me through, I guess we already kind of went to college and Ireland and stuff like that. So let's just catch back up there unless there's some major kind of events in the rest of those high school years that we should check in with. No, I think, I think university for me was a thrill to be able to, yeah, that was a thrill to have the independence of finding out who I was separate from, from family. And um, well, it sounds like you found your, your sweetheart in university or right after I guess you know, actually I met, so that was my former husband and I met him when we both worked at Avon. Yeah. So that was after college. It was, yeah. And fell in love with some products. Got to move to Ireland. Yeah. And so we're back here. We German sure her pointer, which is almost a full-time job, just German short hair, right? Right. And you're really finding yourself and planting, um, you know, your roots there, probably growing as a young woman. And then you mentioned three and a half years in Ireland and then back here to the States. Well, we, we, we had plans to move to Germany for three years. And I was really, I was really ready to be a permanent expatriate going through the, all that again is another exam, and I talk about it in my book, but another example of a very dramatic, external change to move to another country as a newlywed, wow, nothing was familiar. And so, but it, but it changed me a measurably and it made me realize that I could do this again and again. It was really fun. And did you move to Germany? We didn't because my former husband literally on me, all of our stuff was already en route. There were about, I think three or four goodbye parties that we were planning and then we were going to move. He thought, why do I keep having blood in my urine? And he thought, you know, maybe I should check that, that out in Dublin before we actually travel to a country where English isn't the number one language spoken. So he took our only car and took it to Dublin and went through a series of tests. And I got this phone call from Matt Ferry, who was the HR guy because he drove with him and Matt said, could you talk to Bob? I said, sure. And Bob was on the phone weeping and said, Cheryl, I have kidney cancer. And they want to operate immediately and he said, can you, can you come get me? I thought, how am I going to come get you, got our only car? So a friend took me to the Dublin hospital and I collected him. I think the reason he was so traumatized is that his dad had died on the operating table. I think he was just really afraid that that might happen to him. So he said, I don't want to do surgery in Ireland. You know, if they couldn't figure out why I had blood in the urine for a year then this is not the place. So we got home. He called the guy who is his contact in New York and said, Paul, I don't know what to do. He said, look, you get the next flight to New York City and I'll check you in at Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital and we'll get to the bottom of this. Well, I had to find a home for our animals and I had to call four different people to say the incredible surprise party that you had planned for Bob. We can't do it. So word got out throughout the tiny 2000 person village of Port Arlington and we had 70 people in our home who spent the night with us and we just drank and wept and loved on each other and there was a caravan of 12 cars that followed behind us to the Shannon airport. We took off and didn't know if we'd ever return again. And then, I guess, where's it going from? Well we went to New York City and that was quite a shock. Living in a little tiny village of Ireland where it's just so sweet and peaceful and slow and relationship rich to suddenly get thrust into New York City. I mean, I was shocked and my mom and my dad said, do you want us to come join? And I thought, how are they going to help? They're from retail, Missouri. I mean, they're going to have a clue how to navigate this. And so he had reached out to a friend of his who said, look, we'll check Cheryl in at the, what was it called? The New York men's club and they had just started letting women in, but they thought I'd be safe. Well, what we didn't realize is that they felt a tremendous amount of anger at women being led into this exclusive men's club. So I had to, when I would leave for the hospital, I would have to have a business suit, a hose and heels on. And then I changed when I got to the hospital. And then when I was getting ready to go back to the men's club, I'd have to put that clothing back on again. I mean, it was surreal, truly surreal. And Bob had the surgery. He survived, but the idea of moving to Germany, you can't, you know, and that was a huge, it was a huge, hugely invasive surgery to remove a kidney. So we stayed in Cosscob, Connecticut while he healed. They said, look, we'll, we'll pay first class, you know, for you to go back, have those going away parties, collect your animals, we'll send all your stuff from Germany back and they found an opportunity for us in Southern California. That was pretty stand up. Now they were amazing. They were truly amazing, but, but I was ready to move to Germany. Yeah. And you had kind of accepted this. We're going to move over three years and have this new national cultural experience and make all these new friends. And I thought I'd get to go back to Ireland once a month to be with my friends. And, and so it was jarring. It was really jarring. So we moved to Uppling, California and a man, God love him, said, look, you can have my job as a general manager. I'll move over into sales because I love you so much. You come, heal, I'll take care of you. I mean, that was so loving, but it was the deterioration of our marriage because after the surgery, I don't know what happened. I really don't. It was as if I think he felt so ashamed. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe you can explain it through the, the lens of being the provider or being the man, but it really unhinged him and unwillingness perhaps to take risks anymore. Yes. And that kind of, frankly, neuters a man of their usefulness, a lot of course. Right. And so, yeah, and if he feels that way, it's hard for you to respect him and cherish him. And he doesn't feel like he can cherish you because he doesn't know how to. So I'm sorry to hear that. So I guess you divorced not too long. We were able to keep it together for about four years, but it was very sad because I just loved him so much. And I know he loved me, but we couldn't find a way to talk about hard stuff. Yeah. And I went to counseling, he, he didn't want to go. Yeah. So. Interesting. So where's your chapter? Pick up next then. And were you working now that you're back in the States? Absolutely. Yeah. I moved into career consulting, the out placement world where I could help people who had just been let go through no fault of their own, process the emotion of the ending of their job. And, you know, what I realized when I would do a two-day career transition workshop for all these people who had just lost their jobs, I would start to talk about resumes and putting together cover letters and putting together a target market list, and they would look at me with this glazed look over there. For 17 years, I didn't think I was going to get another job. And I realized if I didn't deal with the emotional content that all of them were feeling, we couldn't move forward into productivity. Yeah. And not actually get them a job that they wanted to have, you know, with your glazed look in your face and your emotions all tangled and stuff like that. Nobody's going to see you as the person that's going to make a big difference for their company. Well, and when you talk about why did you leave and you're full of anger and rage and blame vitriol, totally, totally, it's not exactly optimal for looking for a job. So I built into the two-day program almost half a day on how do you navigate the emotions of this ending with shock and denial and anger and blame and worry and sadness. Let's talk about that. And so then I started studying really transition and realized that if I could name that and if we could talk about that, then they would feel seen and heard and then we could start to move into all of the other stuff you have to do when you're looking for a job. No. Was your educational background in line with this? Or was this something that you just, you started pulling a thread and you just wanted to pull more threads and tell you could uncover the truth of this transition and especially this emotional blockage to the next step? And I think my past led me rather brilliantly to it with being a student of transition from five on, moving to another country, all of it. I think that I was naturally predisposed to understand, but I also had one undergraduate degree in psychology and another in communications and I've always gone deeper than most. Did you chose those because of some of that? Probably. I mean, I started out as a journalist, a major. Yeah, I started out as a J in the J school, but was so enamored with the courses you could take. Like small group communication, nonverbal communication. I loved it. Gosh, it was so much fun. Interesting. Interesting. So, you made a big difference. It sounds like in this up placement career path and do you want to take us from there? Like, major highlights along that journey and you're still in California, I trust. Yeah. I was still in California. I was creating an amazing network. I was wooed away by two other outplace firms with really gorgeous promotions. I mean, I was very successful in that, but I lived in Laguna Beach. I'd moved there after Bob and I brought our marriage to a close and I was sitting out on my deck looking at the ocean and I heard a voice and the voice said, darling girl, it's time for us to move to Kansas City, move back and I said, God, I don't want to move back. Are you kidding? I'm living the dream and God said, nope. You need to move back. Your life is there, your complete here. So I was like, let's make a deal. I don't want to. God, the only way I'll move back is if you find me a job, you find me a place to live and the land speaks to me because in Southern California everything is reliant on water and sprinklers and I wanted to really feel the pulse of the earth. Yeah. I went to Kansas City as well as grow stuff from my rather arrogant hubris, that's what I did. Anyway, I went back for a week and told my dad that I was thinking about moving back and he said, okay, and he found me a place to live. He found me a job. I went for a hike and I felt this surge of love pour up from the ground. And I moved on, banded me and said, okay, God, I guess I'm moving back. Let's cover the chapter where you reconnect with your father because that was a pretty traumatic break when you kind of went to live with your mom and stuff. So sounds like obviously he was back in your court by this point in time. Why don't you back in Kansas City? Is that something we can touch on here? Maybe briefly. He came to Laguna a couple of times and saw me. And I loved it that he came back and said, why are you here? Like what are you doing here? You have no family, you have no connection, you're single, why are you here? And I listened. I thought that was kind of a cool thing a dad would do. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. So back in Kansas City, got a job that's in the same field as you're proud of. Actually no, this is a fun story. So I knew that I was feeling called to serve children who were making the transition into adolescence. And I knew that I really knew next to nothing about that. But I knew that I could partner with 12 older teenagers age 14 to 16 and meet with them every Thursday over pizza and pop and ask the question, what was it like for you as you made that transition? What do you wish you would have had emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally? What was missing? And for three months we met every Thursday and I started to realize we have a program. We have a program that I could create with 12 teenagers for the demographic of kids age 10 to 12 to create a rights of passage program, like a full on, fully funded 501C3 that we could support kids making that transition with the teenagers as my teen leaders. So that was a big deal. We called it Earth School Essential Arts for remembering the heart. We did it as a part of a church because I got $120,000 grant before I had a 501C3 so I had to park it somewhere. So I parked it at Yundee Church of Overland Park and so it was really fun. So I had Earth School going as a after school program and then as a week over, a weekend sleepover and I was doing a talk, this is the part that I love. I was doing a talk at that church on the power of trusting your intuition and there was a man in the audience who said, there's a man who works for me at this telephone prayer ministry who said he'd like to get involved with kids, can I introduce you? This is a story of how I met the love of my life. Oh, awesome. Yeah and so I said, cool, I'd love that. So Paul and I met and I asked him if he'd like to come to a summer camp that I was going to hold for 36 kids, 12 teenagers, his teen leaders and 10 adults, would he, might he like to come and run the boy's side of the program or at least navigate a family group a pot of four boys and one teen. He said, I'd love to. So he arrived to camp. I swear he was like the Pied Piper. He had maracas and hacky sacks and the kids were enchanted. Paul is amazing. I know. Paul is cool and I watched him throughout the five day summer camp and his instincts were impeccable. I thought, wow, he, he's exactly who I want to run the boy's side of the program. But I thought boy, I'd better be honest with him about the infatuation I was feeling. So program was over. We talked on the phone and I said, I'd love for you to run the boy's side of the program. I said, however, I need to own that I'm feeling very drawn to you and I don't want that to get in the way. So I feel like if I can name it, then it won't be a hindrance. He said, are you kidding? I think that you're the one for me. And so he said, how about you write down everything that you think could be an obstacle? I'll write down everything. We'll meet in 45 minutes at the 51st Street Cafe and let's take it from there. So we met at the restaurant in the back and I read his list. I read my list. He read his list. We decided it was worth it and we moved in a month later. And we celebrate our 21st anniversary, June 21st. Awesome. Congratulations. Yeah. What's Paul's last name? Benedict. I guess Benedict. So what would he have said, like it seems like it was just this instant attraction? What would he have said about it was about you that really drew him to you? We both, I needed to just do a quick backstory. I had written what I wanted in a partner and basically gave it to God. He had written what he wanted in a partner, basically gave it to God. And the number one thing on both of our lists was, loves God. So we really shared that. But it was an instant soul recognition. Yeah. I think that's some of the strongest relationships I've known, like it was that I just interviewed Craig and Molly Secker, who are realities for children, which is an organization you should know about actually up here in Lyra County. And they met at a bar, but they like left the bar to go for a walk together and spent the night talking in city park until dawn. There you go. You know, and I'm sure both of them dated other people or things like that, but they just knew that this was time well invested. So that's cool. So following up with Paul, you're in Kansas City, got this program. I'm got. Right. We're doing our school together. That's right. We're doing our school. But then the team leaders graduated from high school. Sure. They did. And then I thought, I'm done. Like my contract was with them. And also with complete candor, I was tired of being poor. Yeah. That's the bane of many a nonprofit religious distance, right? Well, and I didn't, I really never figured out grant writing. I really never did. I love to put my energy into the delivery of the program, but the grant writing, I felt woefully inadequate for. So I returned to out placement as a vice president of client services and that felt like a good fit for me. I mean, I felt like I'd answered the call to serve a demographic of people who I felt were largely unserved, you know, because I would have friends say when their kids would turn 13, call me when you're 20 and I thought, oh, gosh, I don't like this stigma connected to teenagers. That's not fair. So I felt like I helped break through that. Yeah. Well, and you were like an early adult in a fashion by standing up to your stepmother and your dad in those years and really declaring to a certain extent, I'm adult enough to decide where I live. That's right. And mom says I could stay here. That's right. And I knew I could raise myself like I knew my mom was not going to enforce much structure. I knew that it was going to be up to me to to navigate that, but I thought I'm going to do a way better job than this heavy handed oppressive. I knew that wasn't going to be good for me. Well, and I think I actually, I wish I had a copy of it here to give to you, but I just ran a Reddit book that my friend gave me yesterday. I read it last night. Oh, wow. First time I've read a book in two hours in a while, but it's a shorty and it's really about the notion that the Christian church has done so much to be, you know, the behavioral Jesus is a lot scarier than the grace filled Jesus. And just that notion that we're chasing people away from, I was describing it the chill this morning. I said, it's like grace is like a store with free ice cream every day, but nobody wants to go to the store because they've heard that's where they strap you in chains and make you do stuff or not do stuff mostly. And so anyway, I'll digress, but I'm feeling that same kind of affinity for your path where you wanted to open people up to this, oh, just the freedom of relationship with God and knowing that it's a love filled thing, not a rules filled thing. Well, and I always felt that as a little girl, just this incredible love for God. And for Jesus, I mean, I don't know if it was because I went to Lutheran Sunday School with my dad, but I remember going to Lutheran Sunday School with my dad and my mom would be sitting in a full lotus in front of a candle flame meditating me. What a crazy dichotomy, right? But when my parents were fighting, I was probably four and a half, I was terrified. And I heard them running around the house screaming at each other. And I don't know if it was true. They actually had a knife or I just visualized that. But I was hiding under my bed, shaking, terrified, what's going to happen? And I felt a shift in the room, Kurt. And I looked over and coming through my window was Jesus. And like, fun. And Jesus said, I love you so much, you're going to be okay, but know that the first half of your life is going to be really hard. I'm not abandoning you, but it's going to be hard. But the last half of your life is going to make it worth it. Yeah. We've got some really great things planned for you, but it's going to take us a furnace time. And you have to go through. You've got to go through a lot to get ready, a lot of, well, preparation, maybe, or, you know, suffering, really, in some ways, totally, yeah, but so I had, you know, and then years would pass and I would wonder, did I make that up? You know, was that real? But then I'd have other meditative experiences that would confirm that was absolutely real. And so I've had a very clear sense, not consistently, you know, and there have been times that has been spotty, but a very clear sense that, that God is really all that matters and that, that I really want my reality to be in, it's in God that I live and move and have my being. So. And I'm really grateful that I'm married to somebody who puts God first. And then we both became ministers together. So I got ordained as a minister first. I was actually ordained when we met and I would go and do, because you wanted to make a bunch more money. I thought. Yeah, right. Winnings and funerals. And that was fun. And then was all prepared to, I had my application ready to submit to the Unity Church to become a minister. 9-11, we all, I was on the board of that church and I went rushed to the chapel so we could all pray after 9-11 and as I was praying, I heard very clearly, right idea, wrong organization. So right idea to be a minister, but not unity. Yeah. So I thought, okay, I'll just trust. Yeah. And so where did that lead you from there? I went ahead and the minister at the time recommended that I get ordained through the alliance of divine love. Okay. So I did that and did a lot of work with that and then kept my membership or my card current. Yeah. Your ordained minute card. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever they call of you, I'm marrying a friend of mine and her fiance this fall and the delivering the yeah, whatever they call that and it's an interesting and semi awkward kind of a thing for me, I don't feel a call of minors or ship necessarily, but I'm pretty good in front of a crowd and stage or whatever. And so it's fine. I don't think I'll be okay, but it always, I love that you're, you were drawn to that instead of like stepping shyly into it like I've been doing here. So where's your path go from there and it was Paul also then drawn in a different direction because he was going in the direction of a ministry role as well. Yeah. So we both, so we were a part of a mystical Christian group called the Order of Christ Sophia. We both were ministers in that. We both went through all of the studying and all of the initiation. So he still refers to himself as Reverend Paul, which is cool periodically. I refer to myself as Reverend Cheryl, but for the most part, I earn my living in a very secular way. So I, you know, I'm a leadership consultant and executive coach and I don't want anyone to feel awkward or uncomfortable when we get into the room or whatever. Yeah, totally. And so where did that transition happen? Because that's probably just, you said 12 years and morph consulting. And so that we're getting close to that, but then we're not there yet. Well, so even when I was with morph, we were a part of the Order of Christ Sophia, so we were both serving as ministers on the weekend. So not a paid gig. We had a chapel in our home and people would come every morning for communion and every night for evening prayers and classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a Sunday sermon and brunch after. So it was a non paid gig volunteer, just to serve. So for your employee, when did morph come along or 12 years ago? Yeah, you left the out placement kind of career path. Well, I got certified as an executive coach and then the first person that I was an executive coach for, she wooed me away to come work for her organization as a vice president of organizational development. And then the one of my very first jobs I had to do was fire the guy. They had on retainer to do all the OD work and apparently I did a good job because five years later, he said, Hey, do you want to come join the faculty of the consulting firm that I work for? And I thought crazy. Right. Wonder without a light, be like to be a consultant. And how do you deal with a, how do you deal with not having stable income? Yeah. But I, but if felt right, I prayed about it and said, Yes. So that, that started me on the, on the quest of learning to be a consultant and learning to put together leadership programs. And so that was an, an amazing. Yeah. And so that's a bit of a shift, right? Like your consulting wasn't, your coaching hasn't really been focused on that out placement element or the resumes and career stuff as much as it has been general leadership development and things or is it the same demographic or some of those completely different, different demographics. So the out placement was with people who had lost their jobs or I was doing executive coaching for people who were in jobs, but just wanted to be more effective or prepare for what's next. Moving into the consulting world, then I was already an executive coach. So I took that on, but it seemed like most of the work we did was scenario planning. Some leadership programs, I mean, I learned a lot. And then our little consulting firm got sold to a company here in Denver, FMI, which was a construction consulting firm. And so they wanted, they wanted representative of the engineering world. They wanted to bring engineering as a part of their, their demographics. So they had, they brought, I think just five of us over and we were there for two years and then one of the guys from there, actually the guy who, who I had to fire my first talent job said, hey, you want to start our own company? I thought, wow, I am intrigued. And so we decided to start more of consulting 12 years ago and yeah, it was really cool. That's a, I was the, became the interim president of a bank at one point in my career. And one of the first official acts I did was to fire a young lady that was a teller with us. And she moved on to start her own art business, wedding photography, different things like that. And that was, I liked her. I loved her. But I knew she wasn't destined to be a good banker and kind of she knew that too and irritated everybody because of that. And I love that resonance of that story where this person that really became a major change agent in your world in the positive. Well, you probably recognize that you were a change agent for him in the positive as well because you moved him out of a place where he wasn't positioned to succeed, I guess, or. Well, I think I think the organization had hired him to provide kind of organizational development consultancies so they paid him, maybe it was $5,000 a month to, to basically be on call. Right. Well, when they hired a full time person as the vice president of that, they thought, hey, I know how we can save $5,000. Yeah. No kidding. We don't, we don't need Joe anymore because we've got Cheryl. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Gotcha. So it wasn't really a firing for cause as much of a layoff. Yeah. It was more. Shoot. We've kind of replaced you with an in-house. Well, in a way, it's kind of cool because if reframed, he could say, wow, I was providing so much value. They recognize they wanted to have a full time person in that spot. Yeah. So I would imagine he could reframe that in a positive. Fair enough. Like he did because he formed a relationship with you and formed this company. So, so you're a co-founder of Morph thing. Well, actually, there were four of us. So it was Joe. Morph was May, Ogrin, Rye Falconer. I was May. Okay. I changed my name to Benedict, I don't know, probably 10 years ago when I decided, I think we're going to stick. We can have the same last name, but it was May, Ogrin, Rye Falconer and Falconer was married to Joe Rye. So she left first and then the O, Tammy, Ogrin, got her PhD and decided, you know what? I think I want to teach the women's college, love you guys, but bye. So the O and the F left and so it was just Joe and I and we stayed together probably for a couple of years and then he felt a call to move on to something else. So, and I changed my name to Benedict. So it could have been Morph. Right. But it was just B by now. Right. I discovered that, well, you'll appreciate this. I could hire people who are scathingly brilliant in the stuff I'm not. So I've got an amazing accountant, an amazing tax guy and somebody else to manage the 401K. I don't have to know how to do that. Yeah. Well, huge relief. For sure. Yeah. That's one of the super challenging things about being a consultant or having a practice or or even being a small business of fewer than five or ten employees is just so many things to do between taxes and paperwork and consulting and hiring and HR policy development and all these things that it's it's almost not sustainable for a lot of organizations to stay really small. I'll bet. So that's great. So tell me, let's I guess tell me about Morph in its in its big picture form and some of the clients that you serve and things like that because you're still actively pursuing Morph. Oh, yeah. The book hasn't paid your all the bills yet or anything like that. No, not even remotely. Morph is a thriving lucrative business. So I mean, yeah, it's incredibly successful. So so I did a I did a vision board probably 11 years ago where I did where I asked myself okay, Cheryl, who who are your ideal clients, not in name, but but what do they look like? What do they feel like? What kind of relationship do you want to have with them? And I recognize that I wanted to be in relationship with client organizations where I could be there for the long haul. I'm not drawn to an event or a come in and do a succession planning. Yeah, no, I'm I'm enamored with forming relationships that go deep, truly becoming a partner and a trusted advisor and that I wanted to be within organizations for the long haul. And so and that's worked who are the types of is it all over the spectrum? Is it engineering focused or well, I decided to specialize in the built environment. So engineering architecture construction, but the firm that I've had the longest relationship with where I'm on retainer every year for the past 12 years is an 800 person predominantly engineering, but some architecture and they're in Greenwood Village in Denver. And then I have another nine year relationship with another organization that provides leadership programs. Well, that's how we knew Steve together. Leadership programs for for the members. And so I love not having to worry about money until the one time a year where I recreate a scope. And then there's some angst, but I love not having to worry about that. Yeah. I love having the gorgeous assuredness that I've got healthy checks coming in every month. If you've got long term relationships with companies much larger than yourself and things like that, like that speaks that they finding value in in your services as well. And so who's your team outside of the financial people and I guess you have people like help put on workshops and seminars and. No, it's just me. No, that's just you. It's just me. I discovered that I actually love doing it by myself, but I just launched a leadership program Tuesday Wednesday and I the woman who was the program director of a nine year leadership program that I did that I mentioned with Steve, I asked her if she'd be my zoom master because it was going to be completely online for the day and a half. So we created a run of show where we literally accounted for every minute of the day and a half. So she knew exactly what she needed to do because it it was wildly complicated with loads of moving moving breakout rooms and small room small small groups and yeah, it was a lot. Sounds like it. Yeah, I I don't even want to play in that kind of thing anymore. I was a caterer for a little while and playing those big events and getting all the things ready and stuff. I can do it, but I don't find joy in it necessarily. That's the key. That's the key. And you know, I recognize that one of my top five strengths is maximizer. So I I experienced this intrinsic love of helping to maximize the potential of others. It's as dramatic as is if as a three on the anyogram, I was I was achieving things on my own. Kind of cool. I've really chosen the perfect perfect occupation in your in your outplace and stuff. I'm imagining that you've gotten to be really gifted and like just understanding what people's driving forces are and do you use things like Myers-Briggs or I do I do yellows or different. Yeah, no, no. So with the leadership program we just launched last week, I had them do strength finder and Myers-Briggs before we came together largely. So I know the makeup of the class. And it was really helpful for me to know that I had 25 introverts and 14 extroverts. It was like, wow, okay, that tells me I need to build pauses before I ask for a group share. And so I had them do Myers-Briggs and strength finder before. And now between last week and the next session, which is August 3rd, they're going to complete a 360 on themselves and a Harrison assessment. And then we'll get to anyogram during session three. By the way, would you like to guess what my anyogram is? I already know. How? I was just into the podcast where you shared it, I owe me. So I know you're an eight wing seven. That's right. Yeah. Would you have spotted that otherwise? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe if I knew you in the banking world, but I would, I'm feeling you're seven more than I am eight in this environment. Right. Because I don't need to challenge you. Yeah. And kind of into all that stuff. Yeah. I was just thinking about that I lost the handle. I was just thinking about that session that you were talking about in the 25 introverts and 14 extraverts. And I was thinking about my relationship with my wife. And we do a little Bible study thing and warnings together in bed before we get our day started. And it always ends with a question. And as soon as the question is finished, being answered, I'm, are being asked, I'm ready to answer the question. And she was just like, sit there quietly for 20 seconds or something like that. I'm like, well, do you have an answer or not? I'm recognizing that those pauses for thinking, it's not just introverts are shy and they don't feed as much of energy, but she needs to think and process before she's positive things. That's right. I mean, we'll guard our thoughts till they're almost perfect. And we are internal processors. So a perfect example of this, I ended day one. I could tell people felt like they were drinking from the fire hose. So at the beginning of day two on Wednesday, I said, I'd like to capture overnight musings. Like what have you thought about? What have you felt? What have you dreamed since we left each other at five and are reconvening and eight? And I said, because we have 25 introverts, I'm going to fill the next three minutes so you can gather your thoughts. And so I told them what I had really appreciated that I was thinking about as I was drinking a cup of tea that morning, and then I said, did I give you time and they giggled? And 16 digital hands went up and 16 people were then willing to share. So instead of only occupying 15 minutes, which is what I had on the agenda, we went for 40. But that's where the gold was because they were sharing, you know, I'm so grateful that I'm a part of this leadership program. I feel so honored that the company is invested in me to engage in a full year of working on myself and developing myself and getting myself ready for what's next. They could never have access that. If I would have asked them for key takeaways at 4.45 the day before, they needed time to digest. Well, and if you just put that question on a table and didn't give people at three minutes, then of those 12 or whatever extroverts that were in the audience, eight of them would have answered. That's right. And the introverts would have felt like, wow, whatever, I'll get it next time. Totally. But I stumbled across that. That was not intentional. That was a, wow, yay. I'm so glad that I built overnight musings in because it gave it a chance to land. And that is it was landing. I think the part of me that feels a bit like the Native American grandmother spider weaving a web of interconnectedness. I finally felt like, ooh, I've landed as grandmother spider. Even though we're all zoom, I'm feeling a tendril of connection to everyone and it's begun. It's begun magic. Yeah, that is very magical. So, um, and when was it? This was just recent. Yeah, Tuesday, Wednesday. Okay. Yeah. Fourth and fifth. Okay. So, Morph has kind of got its dozen or whatever stable clients and less, less I've got like a handful. So I work with a company in Berthead, been working with them for three years. I work for, uh, work with an organization in Greenwood Village for 12 years. The association I mentioned for nine years, uh, Texas Water Leaders program for a year. Um, yeah. I, you don't really care to find more clients necessarily to do that. I'm full up. Yeah. I mean, I, uh, well, I actually ended to client relationship last year because I, I felt like I wanted to really devote my attention to the, this leadership program and I felt complete. Yeah. And the book and, and I'm, you know, talking about starting my own podcast and, and from the content of this podcast, that then becomes book number two. Oh, cool. Yeah. I like that. So, um, what else should we talk about? Like, do we have some best principles for, most of my audience is small business owners or even aspiring small business owners? They don't have these, you know, 300, 500 employee organizations. They don't have the scope for big leadership programs typically, but are there some principles or some best practices that those five and 10 employee companies can, can really use to maximize their communication and, and help people really move into leadership because that's a big, the owner is almost always the leader, you know, until they get five to 10 employees. And then when they get to that between five and 10, they can't manage all those people anymore. So the leaders have to start rising up or being nominated or volunteer or whatever. But so that, that is a big key thing is like, who's rising up? How do I empower them? How do I make it equitable and just and make them feel comfortable? So I guess it's a big question, but you're an expert in this and so I feel it's worthy. Well, I mean, I kick the can around with Northern Water in birthed about starting a leadership program for Northern Colorado, um, much like what you're describing if it's a smaller organization where they could send a one person a year to, to really develop the leadership chops and it wouldn't be wildly expensive. So I think finding, if possible, a leadership program the folks can go to because that grows you exponentially, um, I would like to leadership Northern Colorado or there you go. Leadership for Collins, those kind of conversations. All of those, yeah, all of those, all of those are, are a wonderful way of doing it. Also the other advice I'd have for small business owners is if you can, well, I don't know, I guess it depends if you're like me, if you like, if you like to form long-lasting, long-standing relationships with client companies, then, um, I strongly encourage you to do that so you don't have the, the angst of payroll. Yeah. Just not winning it all the time. That's right. You know, you know where the income is coming in stretch here is it, you know, yeah, so you can count on it. I would say that you don't do leadership training, but you don't have to have like a full-time person in your company, totally, totally, and I think that, I mean, for another organization I did a three-day leadership training, which was really cool. We did Myers-Briggs individually, so I had an hour with each employee before we gathered and then we did three days and I think they got a tremendous amount from that. So it doesn't have to be a year-long program. It can be, I mean, you can meet twice in a year and have homework and reading and that's pretty reasonable. I'm checking it out. Totally. Yeah. I don't think it has to be a huge cost, but I think, I mean, I'm just looking at the organization, I mean, the organization I'm talking about, the CEO wrote the forward for my book. I think that when you have a culture of investing in your employees, it becomes a great place to work. Yeah. I think it increases a retention engagement and it makes you feel like, hey, you know, I want to put down roots here. This organization sees something in me that they want to invest in me. I'm going to stay. Yeah, yeah. I think that's a, that'll joke. You probably heard it. The CFO says to the CEO, you know, we're spending all this money on our leadership and training programs. What do we do if all these people leave? And the CEO says, I don't know, but, you know, if we don't spend this money, what do we do if they stay? Yeah, too shame. That's great. That's great. That's great. So I guess I'm feeling like, unless there's some real career or more things that we should pull out, it might be back time to get back to the book journey and some of that key elements. And then we'll jump into our, we've already talked a fair bit of faith family, no politics yet. But, like, on the book journey, I'm really curious about, like, where do you want to take it? Like, what's your, what's your hopes for this book? Because you're a faith based, I feel like I can divulge this to you as I was writing every time I would sit before I would write, I would pray that, that God's love and God's spirit would be embedded in every book and that it would help to awaken people to the desire to be in relationship with God. I mean, I don't mention God anywhere in the book, but that was my prayer, much like Jesus' parables that it could be received on seven or eleven or fifteen different levels that if people had eyes to see in ears to hear, they'd know the deeper content behind the words. If they didn't, maybe it could plant a seed to awaken. So it was very much a spiritual journey for me to write it. And so I don't really have, well, yeah, I do, let me back up though the reason I wrote the book was because I wanted it to become embedded in people's awareness and consciousness that if they were going through a transition to be prepared that they wouldn't be on top of their game. In fact, it might be as if thirty to forty-five percent of their normal operating smarts and bandwidth was subsumed and they were only operating with about sixty percent of themselves and what can happen when that happens, it's deeply disorienting and you start to figure what's wrong with me, all of it, all of it in end like memory loss, being forgetful, being more contankerous and angry and short-fused, like hey, it's like giving somebody a shake in that place and saying hey, you're going to get back to normal, it's going to take some time. That's right. So don't be yourself up. That's right, and don't make it worse by thinking what's wrong with me. I remember, so when my book was published and then COVID hit, I mean the timing was crazy, I was given the opportunity to do, I think fifteen webinars for organizations and associations, probably reach close to ten thousand people, didn't charge for it, it was my way to give, you know? And I remember I did a talk for the water education color out of the water leaders program and a woman wrote back to me, Holly, and said, Cheryl, get this, because I was telling people stories of not being on top of your game, you know, and that you might, as you're navigating the emotional and psychological aspects of COVID, you might notice that you do whack-a-do stuff. So anyway, Holly wrote to me and said, Cheryl, oh my god, I was telling my accountant that she said who I would ordinarily describe as an incredibly brilliant woman. I was telling her, you know, you might discover you're not on top of your game during COVID because we're all wrestling with this kind of crazy thing and none of us really know what we're doing. And there was a pause on the phone and she said, her accountant burst out laughing and said, oh my god, I have so got this story for you. There was this horrible smell in our house. I mean horrible. Sounded like something was decomposing with maggots and I thought, did a dog drink or rat entered? Did a cat stick a mouse that right and so finally she interteamed each daughter went on the search to try to find the cause of this foul smelling thing? And her daughter rounded the corner and there on the bench was a roast that her mom had put out to defrost nine days before and it completely forgotten and it was wreaking out the house. And so Holly was just saying, join the crowd, I keep getting in my car and I've left the car keys on the kitchen counter. I mean, none of us are operating with our full operating capacity because we're all in transition. June, you were all, everybody was kind of grieving that, not really understanding what. And I, you know, obviously the George Floyd incident, it sparked a lot of stuff, but I think had it not been for so many people being in that transition and grief and kind of place, like it wouldn't have been like it was, I suspect strongly. And the, I mean, social media blew up and turned in, you know, cancel culture. And like, it was not far from pitchforks and torches for a while. Oh, I know. And that kind of helps to explain it and is it getting better? You know, now that is what's your sense in the world now that mostly people are either vaccinated or, or whatever and mostly places are fairly well open. We've, you know, we're at least a little bit in the new normal now, right, or whatever, is that pressure off or is it really, we're still kind of waiting to see what's next? We're still just coming out of the fog as a nation, as a people's. I think we're coming out of the fog. I think we're rediscovering a new sense of purpose. I think that the people have had an opportunity to draw close to family, hopefully, not far away family, but in your house family. And that hopefully deeper relationships have ensued and a closer sense of where a unit we belong, but I do think we're in, you know, my change in transition model. I would say that many of us are making new discoveries. We have new insights were headed to a new sense of purpose. The fog is lifted. I mean, even just today, using myself getting to have lunch with Colleen at the ginger and bakery was so much fun sitting outside. I was giddy. I was giddy. I couldn't believe it. It's beautiful here. Great coffee there too. Well, I didn't try that. I just did tea, but, but just getting to sit outside, share a meal with someone I enjoy a measurably. I just, I couldn't believe it like, wow, I'd forgotten how cool this is. Yeah. One of the things I've noticed, you know, in terms of like a reset of priorities, maybe, is that whole notion of keeping up with the Joneses, you know, whether it's fancy cars, big houses, clothes, there might be still a lot of that consumerism going on, but not for its own sake. Okay. Okay. Now it's like, well, I got the, got the dough and we're going to all going to die some day anyway. So I might as well get that corvette. But before it was more of a, seemed like more of an ego kind of, to me, it feels like people are less materialistic now. Good to know. I've been gone through this. I don't know. I'm glad. I mean, my, my vantage point is I coach 85 people every month. So I have the vantage point of intimate coaching connection with them. You have a very small group though. Yeah. It's very small. I have a very small sample and they're, you know, mostly really well paid professionals and so I, I'm not as dialed into. They haven't suffered in those same ways as something. But I have, I have recently reconnected with a best friend from college. We were in plays and theater and dancing together and he's black. And he's shared from his perspective what it's been like to go through all this and, and we have, we hadn't talked really since we graduated from university. Right. So it's been an incredible conversation to talk about what it's been like for him. Yeah. And where is he? And what has it been like? And it's been really hard. I think he's just hid during COVID, really largely hid and, yeah. Well, that sounds not necessarily a positive thing. Yeah. So why don't we just jump into our faith family politics? So we've talked about faith sum. It sounds like, well, why don't you describe like, what would you, how would you describe your faith to somebody that, that didn't know you? Love for God, obviously, that you and Paul share, love of Jesus and awareness of, but also probably an appreciation for the mystical parts of sorts or this, that maybe what people think of mainline evangelical Christianity doesn't necessarily embrace all the time. And so describe that to me and some of your why along that line, if you would or even instances of providence or things that have convinced you of the nature of God and things like that. Hmm. What a beautiful question. I so love that you include this as a part of your podcast, I really do. Well, I mean, I would have to say that I'm happiest when I'm aware of being in an intimate relationship with God. I feel the most centered and the most connected. I mean, when I'm actually having the feeling of the peace that passes all understanding and the sense of the reality being that it's in God, that I live and move and have my being. And I think the thing that awakened me to that even more was, I mentioned that briefly to you, but I got the book published January 2nd. Three weeks later, I woke up on a Monday morning at 4 a.m. in excruciating pain. And I said, Paul, something's really wrong. And he called Ask a nurse and they said, get her to the closest emergency room, which was 36 miles away in Lakewood because we live in Evergreen. So he drove my Tesla, probably 90 miles an hour. I don't even know. All I know is that I was, you know, trying not to scream because the pain was so intense. So they rolled me into emergency room on January 27th. We had all of these book launch parties scheduled for that week, January 28th, 29th, 30th. And the last words I remember hearing were, ma'am, you need emergency surgery and you may die. And I did die. I had a near death experience and I was in the presence of God. And I felt so much love. Just there was nothing but God. You know, there was just the presence of God is all pervasive, none. Are you just heard these terrible words? No, it's just complete. Well, I mean, the surgery began oxygen or whatever they put you under and I have no idea. I think the surgery was fairly lengthy. You prefer a perforated ulcer, but I just know that I had the experience of leaving my body and moving into the presence of God. I could sense all of my relatives who had passed on over to the right, but all I cared about was God. And God said, you have a choice. You can come home with me or you can return. I said, I don't think I want to go back. People are so, I felt like I could see to the future like for the next year or two with all the racial injustice and everything that was about ready to percolate and overflow. I said, people are so mean to each other and it's so violent and it's so hard to be on earth. I just want to be in your presence all the time. And God said, well, I could make that happen. I said, how? And God said, well, you develop this kind of scaffolding that's over you largely because your dad would shame you and berate you for talking about how much you loved me. When you were a girl, I could actually remove that structure scaffolding off of you so that you could be in the direct experience of me any time you tuned with him. I said, really? And then I had the feeling of Paul and I could almost hear Paul say, I vote for you coming back. And I thought, okay, I'll go back if I can feel your love, God, all the time, if I could just tune in and be in your presence. And so God said, okay. And then I don't remember anything else. I think I remember seeing my aunt and my mom and I'm going to go on, you know, it's great to see you. And then I was a matter of minutes that you were clinically passed on. I don't know. I don't know. I just know that when I was in the recovery in the hospital, the surgeon, Dr. Charles Maine, who was an angel, said, you know, we almost lost you a couple of times. I'm so glad you're here. And I said, I'm so glad that I am too, you know, and I just, yeah, it was, it was quite a thing. So when I was finally home and recovering, I remembered thinking, boy, I've spent a lot of my time overdoing, wondering what it would be like to spend some time over being, bring that more into balance. And I realized that I pushed really hard to write the book. I mean, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, half of Sunday for five months, that was intense, really intense. I mean, all day long. And I think I just pushed, pushed, pushed, used a lot of willpower to do it. It wasn't easy and grace. It was push. And so I decided that to the best of my ability, I would only do what I thought genuinely called to do. That's really, I'm kind of thinking back to that trip to Ireland, where you could just kind of be for a while. And, you know, it sounds like your business and your clients, you don't have to go hustle for a new client and things like that. And you could even do a little less for some of them this next year if you wanted to, you know, and so is that part of your, your path here? I think I took, I'm trying to remember. I think I took maybe six weeks to recover from that, because it was pretty significant. And I'd never been in the hospital before. Never broken anything. So that was kind of a big deal. But, but, you know, happily or weirdly, COVID hits, I couldn't actually go physically do stuff in person so I could do it beautifully from home via the phone or zoom. So there really wasn't an interruption with my business. And I was able to meet all the deliverables and so that was, that was cool. And so how, this was, we entered into this in the faith segment, has he honored his promise there? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And how have you felt that like, I can just tune in, like I was, I was praying for, for our session, that we would both be lifted into the highest octave of good and that we would feel God's presence here, tangible, real. And I feel that here with us. And so I pray a lot. I pray before I do anything, I'll ask for guidance, I'll listen closely, it's very sweet. So let's talk to family a little bit. We've already talked about your mom, your dad, some of your stepmom, your first husband in Paul. Is, you in Paul never had any children? We didn't. For babies probably. For babies of course. For babies of course. Yeah. Is there any extended family out there that's engaged in your lives consistently, nieces, nephews, things like that? Not really. It's just us. Yeah. For Paul, he's the oldest of five kids. So he's fairly connected to family, but, but I feel like I, he's become family. Yeah. I like to do, usually I do it for people's kids, but in your case, it's, it's Paul, what's your one word description for Paul? Radiant. Oh, that's a pretty beautiful one. What would he say about you, do you think? Beautiful. That's some pretty matching matchy, just like your guys' feelings for each other when you first met. So faith, family, politics, what would you have to say about that? We've kind of touched on some things a little bit, but it's an interesting thing, especially when you're leadership training and, you know, people want to know what you think about things sometimes and, and whatever, and I don't gather you're very politically minded person more. I'm really not. What I discovered is that I'm pretty sensitive, especially after the near death and and I felt like I had to walk a really careful line between feeling somewhat informed and truly overwhelmed. So I've had to really ratchet down my consumption of news feeds and I find that I'm much more peaceful. Yeah. If, if I'm kind of separate, you know, be in this world, not of it, I feel like having had the near death experience, much of life feels illusory. Like I've kind of got one foot in heaven and one foot here and not that I'm packing my bags to go. I feel like I've probably got a couple more decades, but I don't want to lose track of God. And so I feel like I've been so disappointed, now I've been so disappointed by politics. I've been disappointed by the left, by the right. I was intrigued when you said on the eye of me podcast that you're more liberty based and I was going to ask you offline what that meant. I don't know if that's me or not. I can't really. It's a classical liberal libertarianism is a little bit coming out of that. Okay. You know, natural rights of people, God granted rights is a big part of my understanding, but also compassion for others. I love that. But for me, in libertarians in general would say that they think government is generally incompetent enough that it makes things worse oftentimes when they spend a bunch of money to try to make things better. And so let's just not try so hard. Let's try to work on the culture of people so that we make things better for each other. That sounds like me. Maybe that's what I am. I feel like Paul got very entrenched in politics during it. And that was enough. One of us in the house was enough. I needed to be more peaceful. I needed to be more moderate and not get inflamed. Yeah. It's actually been I quit my social media mostly Facebook at least the last summer and I mentioned to my wife that maybe I should get back on and she's like, no, you're so much better now. You know, I'm not full of angst and I can take my news when I'm on it. Nice. Anyway, throwing rocks at me for espousing my socially liberal but financially conservative values. So is there anything message that you would have for the politicians of this world that might listen or even business leaders that have that notion of politics or especially like from a leadership perspective, you know, we have these organizations now and I'm one that I really do value having a diverse perspective, a diverse group of people, you know, both in their wiring when also in their race, their age and but it almost feels like a minefield for some employee or hers right now, you know, if you're a oil company, do you want to bring any liberals into your organization because they're just going to do some kind of a protest walk out, you know, hunger strike or something if we do something and vice versa. If you're a tech company, you know, those condemn conservatives are just going to stir up the soup and make everybody angry. How did leaders get the most out of a diverse team without having them fight with each other? I'm really fond of the organizations that are employee owned, you know, the majority of the work I do with the organizations are employee owned, you know, for decades and decades and that creates a culture of each one of us matter and we all own this organization and we all have an equal vote and how can we co-contribute to the good that flows from these projects? So I think that I'm skewed because I recognize that a lot of leaders feel like they need to vote on behalf of the organization that may not match their own personal politics. Well, I think that's outstanding though and I think to me, this whole country we have here is kind of an employee owned organization, we can approach it more like that. What is the best for this organization we have? And that might not always be the best for any individual person, but yeah, what's the best interest? I'm flashing back to JFK, you know, ask not what you can do for your country or what your country can do for you, right? And so anyway, I'd love to see us try to be a nation of unified people striving together. I love that. I love that. I love that. I'll join you with that because I think it takes a tremendous amount of self awareness and self responsibility and emotional intelligence to say, okay, maybe that was not my viewpoint. Maybe we're not headed in the direction of my particular viewpoint, but I'm going to join this because I care deeply about the shared result. Yeah. So I'm going to commit to this. I'm going to hold myself accountable. I'm going to row in the same direction because I care about the shared vision. And I think that's, but that's hard. For sure. It's hard to abandon your original, original viewpoint, at least it is for me. Well, and I'm, I have, it's for my minority owners. I, I showed a little piece of local think tank back mostly so I would have somebody to be accountable for. Sure. I've been volunteering to be my advisory board for a few years. I sold them a little pieces or whatever. But I'd like to become more and more employee on over time, gorgeous, and become a B corp. Yeah. So for those of us that have that kind of motivation and Colorado has some really great programs to move toward esaps and employee ownership, what, what are the starting places or what are some of the best practices you see because you are in a world where many of your clients are a good example of best practices there. Like how do you, how do you do it? I'm scared of like, because locals become something pretty neat. Sure. And I definitely have a certain fear of letting, you know, too many cooks spoil the soup. Yeah, I could connect you with people who are brilliant at that. I don't think that's my level of expertise, but I would love to ask about the local think tank. Is that okay? We could take a short minute on that. Sure. And somebody who lives in Evergreen, Colorado, be a part of it or do you have to physically be here? Well, we actually, we have chapters here locally now and they are mostly back to in person meetings. A lot of chapters were, we're Zoom, of course, but we have one person that has a business in Aurora that drives up once a month for chapter meetings. And I have at least three smart and respected people whispering in my ear consistently that I needed to just do an all virtual chapter that starts that way and people know it's going to stay that way. And so I'll put you on list for that. Please. Yeah. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued because it is sometimes lonely being a business owner. For sure. I feel like I collaborate to some degree with the organizations that I do programs for. But really, it's just me and that idea of having being able to stand shoulder to shoulder with others really successful business owners is pretty appealing. Thank you. Yeah. I definitely set up another time to give you the full commercial in that. Nice. So, you know, our last segment is typically the local experience, but that seems likely that you're near death experiences has got to take the cake as far as being the craziest experience of your life. That and doing my grandfather's funeral, right. I think those two are a standout as watershed. Yeah. Moments for me. Let's draw out, like, how did that grandfather's funeral experience or moment change you as a person if that is something that you can reflect on? Of course. And maybe the same thing on the near death that we've touched, I mean, drifted around that, but to directly ask that question, and it might be almost too soon on that one. It's only been a year and a little change, right? Yeah. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does. Yeah. I would say that how doing my grandfather's funeral changed me was the sense of, you know, I'm imbued with an inner sense of knowing as to the direction my life needs to go and feeling a call and honoring that, so that the gravita of that landed within me that sense of certainty and knowing and then having the courage to articulate that and, you know, without fear being laughed out of, out of the family for suggesting that a 15-year-old facilitate the funeral of a big deal minister in Kansas City, so I think that was big, but it just stands out to me as if I'm open to God and listening to my soul or my higher self. I will be guided through this life, and I think that was probably the thing that carried the most meaning. Yeah, and I would say that near death has had a different feel in that before I always felt bulletproof, like I always felt nothing could happen to me. I'm athletic and strong and had never been in the hospital, never broken anything, never occurred to me that my body could be vulnerable, so that's left, oh, kind of a weird patina where I feel more vulnerable, like I feel like, ooh, do I really want to do that, could harm happen? I've never been cautious in that way, and now I've got a little bit of that, I don't really like it. I wonder if maybe it's some post-traumatic stress that I might want to heal. Well, I think one of the things about having vulnerability is that it changes your perspective a little bit, and when we have our local chapters a lot of times, people haven't really been vulnerable in a setting like that before, especially men often haven't really confessed of their fears and feelings, and I can say this with some confidence that even though it is hard and it is, you know, you get that shinking your armor now, but it's also empowering to you and everybody else to know that we're all vulnerable, we're all got soft under bellies. Yeah. And I wanted to, I don't know if you've ever listened to this podcast called the Bible Study Project? No, I haven't. Almost certainly, I think you're a prophet, a prophetess. Really? Yeah, and one of the things I was going to observe, because in the Old Testament we think of the prophets as the people that pointed to Jesus, right, Isaiah, and some of the other minor prophets, but the future telling isn't really the core of a prophet's element, I don't know if you're familiar with that, but prophets, they see clearly. That's what prophets do is see clearly the things as they are, and the future telling was really to validate that they were prophets. But most of the prophets also were saying things like, hey, all these idols you're worshiping to right now, God don't like that. He's pissed and you better stop it or Babylon's going to come and kick your ass or whatever, and then Babylon will come and kick their ass and like, oh yeah, he was right. So seeing clearly is the thing that marks a prophet, not the seeing the future. And so anyway, I just wanted to have a little bit of knowledge on him. And clearly, I think that call is on you, and you've seen a lot of things more clearly than most of us. So, well, I hope, again, the book is The Wisdom of Transition by Cheryl Benedict, Navigating Change at Work, and I'm excited to read it. I've got three copies here, so I'm excited to gift it to a couple of folks. Good. Please do. And Cheryl, I'm just really thankful that you took the time to drive up here today and thank you for listening to today's episode of The Loco Experience Podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of The Loco Think Tank, and host of The Loco Experience, and I'm here with Mori Shar, local business developer, and host of The Loco Shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission in all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us for you listening to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about Loco? You can learn more about us at localthinktakes.com, where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources, and events for business owners and teachers. If you're looking for perspective, accountability, and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on The Loco Experience Podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Mori, provide size business lessons in the local shorts.