Welcome to the ‘Ezi Pix Conversations with Professionals’ and today I’m extremely happy to introduce who is a life coach and she is here to speak today about ways to stay balanced and grounded in such a busy society. Welcome Chris.

Hi Julie, thanks for having me here.

You’re welcome, it’s our pleasure. I’d just like to let you know that Chris is based in Holgate. It’s a beautiful rural area on the Central Coast of NSW and her business is Endless Opportunities. Just to tell you a little bit about her…her business is about intuitive life coaching and she loves to support people to achieve their dreams.

Today our discussion is focussed on life/work balance but first I’d like to find out a little bit more about Chris’ background so I’m going to ask you how you got started in life coaching?

It’s actually very interesting how I started. I did the traditional things and in my mid 30^’s I went to Uni to get an accounting degree thinking this would be a perfect way of getting a work life balance happening. It was only after I got my first job and realised how much I hated it that I started without realising it, looking for something else to do.

My life was really busy at the time and to cope with that I actually started eating a lot so put on some weight. So the turning point for me came when I joined Weight Watchers. That was a great way of getting some balance into my life and a healthy life actually helped me to decide what I wanted to do. And before I knew it I was bubbling away and chatting away to everyone and found out “how do I get up there and encourage people to loose weight?” And that’s basically where it started from. I realised how much I loved that and I thought “how else can I do this?”

So I took on some life coaching training. As is always the case, I’d won a course, a one year training course on developing my intuitive coaching skills so if the Universe is not here to be telling me what I’m meant to be doing…

That’s basically how I got started. I thought I’m meant to be doing this and by coincidence I love doing it 

That’s excellent. I think with weight loss, if anyone has ever tried to lose weight, it is so hard and if you’re ever going to feel good about yourself if you can help someone else loose weight that is certainly a way to help people so I can understand how that got you into actually being interested in helping people and realising that’s what you love. So my big question is how do you keep a work life balance and stay grounded? Obviously you are a grounded person so I’ll hand over to you for the answer to that one.

Thanks. Staying grounded is a biggy for me because I often tend to get into airy fairy land and dream on

Not like me!!!

So staying grounded is really something I’ve had to work on. What I’ve found is that if I have something that I’m actually going for it helps me to stay focused and to get where I’m going. I need to be grounded, you know, you need to take action. So being grounded is all about having a focus and following that through to achieve that end.

The other thing I realised is that I needed to get rid of a lot of stuff that was just cluttering my life and everything else, my life, my day, my space. So it was really about, once I was focused, it was then about clearing everything else out of the way to help me as well. To have the clutter gone from your life and from your head allows you then to clearly tune into what you need to do and it becomes obvious when all that clutter has gone out of the way and you know what you’re going for. It’s so much easier to make the steps to achieving what you’re after.

I totally agree and I must say, we’ve discussed it before, that I call my clutter the spaghetti brain. Ha. It’s like a bowl of spaghetti and there’s just things going everywhere and then to really follow and track things is difficult, but when I focus, which is something that you’ve helped me do, I realised that it is about getting rid of the clutter and starting to focus on one thing at a time and going through it in an orderly fashion and getting organised I suppose that’s how you helped me become much more grounded and have a bit more balance so that’s excellent.

And also, if anyone is listening I just want to make sure that if you’re interested in having a look at Chris’ site while we’re talking I’ll give you the details of Chris’ website right now. It’s www.endlessopportunities.com.au . Now how can they contact you from there, is there all that information on the site?

Of course there’s all that information on the site. My website tells you a little bit about me, where I’ve been, what I do, how I operate, how you can have sessions with me. The website has phone number contacts, the old fashioned postal address as well. Of course there’s email contact. So lot’s of ways that I am available to be contacted.

Now, we talk about the brain and being balanced and work/life balance and focusing. How do you do that, and still have fun? Are we still allowed to go out and party?

Most definitely. One of the things that I encourage is fun. So even in your day to day work when it gets really heavy you can make it fun and suddenly everything seems so much easier. When I talked about the clutter being gone, a lot of the clutter also is the physical space. So if your healthy as well, if you have time to be out there enjoying nature, enjoying your friends, now this is all part of how you can do that. So definitely fun is one of my big things. One of the things I encourage. It’s a way to unwind and distress and if you’ve got some fun happening in your life then the rest of it, the perspective changes and even the things you think you have to do then are ok to do, ‘cause you’re putting it in with an attitude of fun, rather than an attitude of chore. So fun definitely.

And the other thing that I want to point out when you’re doing all these other things in your life actually having fun becomes so much easier. If you’re not stressed and worried about all the day to day’s of running your business, looking after your family and all of that stuff it’s so much easier to have fun, so manage the stress in your life and the fun is much easier to do and you’ll be surprised how much more of it you can have time for.

Thanks Chris. Yes, I do like to have fun while I’m at work or running my business and well that’s interesting Chris, because we do trade our life for our income and so if we’re spending 8 hours a day working or sometimes more, if we can do that and have fun at the same time, have fun while we’re working towards our goals life’s definitely going to be a lot better, isn’t it?

I was recently invited to a Friday afternoon drinks which is quite funny. It’s called ‘Relax and Un Wine’ meaning come along and have drinks on a Friday afternoon. I’m wondering, do you relax and un-wine sometimes or what do you do to unwind?

Thanks. I’ve started a bit of a thing with a couple of friends and we call it TGIF, which is Thank God It’s Friday. We do that on Friday after work. Now we might go to generally just one of our places. But it is a way to just download and debrief everything that’s happened during the week, you know, the good stuff as well as the bad. We laugh, we laugh at each other, we can laugh at ourselves. So that is something that I have been doing for a while. I started it a while ago when I was unemployed, had no money, had no clients, had no house to live in and it was like, you know, I can’t just focus all my energy on what’s bad in my life so hanging out with friends and being able to laugh at yourself is a great way to distress.

So a regular TGIF we call it, and it’s a shortcut in my mobile phone TGIF, and it is just getting together with friends, laughing, debriefing, crying, you know whatever. Brainstorming new ideas, so yeah, regular for me, have some fun, unload.

That sounds very FUN. Ha. I like that idea. So another thing I wanted to ask you is about your clients and what you do for them, but firstly who would be the typical client that you might have come to you to distress or become more balanced?

One of the things that encouraged me to coach was that I realised how many people are so busy living their day to day lives that they can’t make the changes that they want to make. So if you’re ready to move onto something new and you’re hearing all the voices around you and in your head going “don’t be ridiculous, you can’t do that”, you know they’re the sort of clients that I know are ready to move on and ready to be helped and who are open to new ideas, new ways of looking at things, new ways of doing things that will often achieve more than they thought when they first come to me as a client.

So I guess, I want to help you if you’re ready to be helped. If you’re ready to jump in warts and all, face your demons and make some changes in your life so that you can really live what you want to live then you’re my ideal client.

That’s great, so any age, any gender, any industry. Really It’s just about people wanting to change and getting your assistance to do it and help sort them out.

So, how do you run your sessions? Basically, how long, how often do people see you, where do you go? All that sort of thing, if you can fill us in on that.

Thanks. I recommend at least 12 sessions. Change doesn’t happen overnight, so a commitment from you is a great place to start that yes, you are willing and ready to change so 12 generally weekly. Sessions may last for about an hour. They may last longer if you need it that day or if we’re over it before than, that’s ok. So it’s dependant on what you need each session. Regular sessions help to keep you focused and grounded. It also keeps you challenged and moving on and taking action, if you’ve got someone to talk to each week and go “I did this really well” or “I don’t like how I did that”. That’s the sort of follow through that can help you make your changes.

So where do we have our sessions? I like to think that we can have it at your favourite coffee shop, I’ve had a game of squash for a session, I’ve had walks with my clients and phone. The thing about coaching is often we are so busy we can’t get together to meet, so let’s do it by phone. You get the same benefit by phone as well.

Ok, I know we had most of our sessions in coffee shops and I love that sort of thing, because it’s so relaxed and you’re not sitting in a stuffy office anywhere. So the good part about that is that you’re relaxed and feel like you’re having a good session but what I got out of it was there was actually things I could go away and do. Do you work that…it didn’t feel like it was a formula that you were giving me and yet I worked it like that. So is that some plan you have? Do you actually have a formula that you work with?

There is a sort of basic formula, but bear in mind that I most sessions of coaching are intuitive not only in that I can help you with what you think you need but also I know that you know yourself what you need to do, so the formula is there but it’s very flexible and moves with what you need each session which is why the sessions are never the same.

Well I thoroughly enjoyed my sessions and still do.

Now here’s the big hard question at the end. We’re coming to a close but I want to ask you you’re top three tips for managing stress so we can help our Ezi Pix members and any other listeners?

Aahh, the pressure, the pressure. Three tips?

Firstly go for what you love. Secondly, declutter everything else that’s not relevant to that, and the third big thing is de-stress and that would be through laughter, through fun and however you see fun, whether it’s through hanging out with friends or going for a walk through the forest or whatever you see as fun. So let’s put them into three points:

v    Go for what you love

v    Get rid of everything else not related to it

v    De-stress through laughter and fun

I love it, that’s fantastic. So I would really like to thank you for today, this concludes our conversation and it’s just been fantastic having you join us. I hope that we get lots of listeners because if not they will be missing out. But it’s just been wonderful and I hope that people get a lot out of it.

Thanks Julie

Well I’d just like to say again thanks for coming Chris and it’s been an absolute pleasure to have you here.

Thanks Julie, for having me here and it has been a fun interview

It has, that’s great.

Alright, bye for now.