What happens after you have achieved your life goals, and don’t know how to move forward? How do you seek your next purpose that gives new meaning to your life? Join Cathleen today as she speaks to Chris Yonker, the Founder and CEO of the Center for Conscious Living and Fulfillment, which offers a Three-Step Compass Process to help people achieve absolute clarity when making critical future decisions about their life.
Episode 41: Chris previously worked for 3M for over twenty-five years, leading sales teams and driving change. On top of that, he has ten years of experience in the consulting arena specializing in Conscious Leadership. He has since leveraged his hands-on business experience, holistic perspective, and extensive coaching training with high-achieving leaders and family businesses to drive self-discovery, resulting in higher levels of consciousness and, ultimately, peace.
Chris studies meditation, religion, philosophy, and martial arts in his free time and became a Certified Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioner and was mentored by Wyatt Woodsmall (Tony Robbins' original trainer). By building a business that worked for him, Chris has been able to create amazing experiences with his family, and has helped others do the same by living in alignment with their values.
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Cathleen : What happens when you succeed at your life goal, when you've grown your business, raised your children and are looking retirement in the face. What are your plans then? Sure, you can go on vacation, play golf, travel. But what about the day to day? If this sounds familiar, spend the next 45 minutes with me, understand how you can think differently about your years ahead and how to shape your future. Stay tuned. Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey, and I track down experts to answer your questions on aging. Let's get smarter about growing older. Thanks to our show sponsor the Riverwoods Group, Northern New England's largest family of nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community purpose and peace of mind, visit riverwoodsgroup.org. Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey. On this podcast, we talk a lot about aging, about finance, insurance, fitness, downsizing, but today we're going to tackle purpose. So many people I know feel as though they've done what they anticipated that they wanted to do yet, they'll be living longer than expected. How do we seek our next purpose that gives meaning to our lives? Today's guest is a friend, a speaker, an entrepreneur and a family man who lives what he preaches, author of the book, Soul Intention: An Executives Guide to Building a Life by Choice, Not by Chance. Chris Yonker left a successful sales leadership role at 3M to coach hundreds of high performing professionals to take a look at how they find meaning and purpose in life. Chris now runs the center for conscious living and fulfillment. I'm so happy to have you on the podcast Chris.
Chris: Thank you. I've been looking forward to this.
Cathleen : Yeah, me too. This is wonderful to have a friend and a podcaster and a super smart guy to share some wisdom with our listeners.
Chris: I'm glad to be here.
Cathleen : Many people probably don't know that you left very successful 20 plus year gig at 3M leading a sales team and breaking quotas. Most people in that role just stay and keep knocking it out of the park. What made you step away from that whole lifestyle?
Chris: Yeah. One of those things where it's like the easiest decision and the hardest decision all at one time in essence, I had clarity in how I wanted to live my life and we'll talk about that this model of what life vision looked like. And quite frankly, I probably wouldn't have left when I did if they hadn't done a reorganization. And at that time my role has shifted and I was in a place where my strengths were being deployed, being utilized at a very high level and I had a lot of autonomy and I really dug 80% plus of what I was doing and when everything shifted around, it was like what just happened and I realized that if I stayed then I was staying for a paycheck and my purpose wasn't, I asked the manager and I said, so the reason that they changed my position is because of the reorganization, I understand that. But the reason I'm in the role that you put me in is because you had someone that was in this role last year and they retired and the position was open and I happen to live in the geography of that position. And I said so it has nothing to do with my strengths, has nothing to do with my gifts, has nothing to do with what I've been doing it that's irrelevant. It was like there's a seat open and you happen to live in the place where that you know that sit in that seat.
Cathleen : You had the right address.
Chris: Yeah, I had the right address and he said yes and I said, well I'm not interested in that job.
Cathleen : That must have been shocking for him.
Chris: I wouldn't, I wouldn't interview, I said I wouldn't interview it for if it was available. And he said, I understand, but at least you have a seat at the table, you still have a seat at the table. Some people get laid off. And I said, what's the table of what I'm like, I'm a little lost. So that was pretty much it. There was one of the position that had opened that I interviewed for because I felt it was really aligned with my after that long of a career and I'm like, well I'm building a pension and there was a lot of upside. I'm like as long as I can be on purpose and I'm good and that didn't work out. So then I had to go, I had to, it didn't matter what happened. It just wasn't going to work.
Cathleen : Wow, and you say that you had clarity in terms of what was next? How did you come about with that clarity?
Chris: Well, it really started with clarity and vision of what we wanted to life look like, 360. And so that was like, okay, this is how I want my life to look. And I want to talk about that basically created a process that I've been using with my clients that I followed for myself. And in essence that process allows you to build a compass. And so you have a compass and so like, okay, well I'm following where I feel pulled to go based upon, you know, my life purpose and then there's a bit of faith that's involved with that too because you don't really know exactly what's going to happen. Like with doors that can open or not open up or it's easier just to show up and do a job and deal with what do what you're told and having a level of predictability and
Cathleen : You left a very predictable job for something that was unknown.
Chris: Exactly. Yeah. And in some cases it's still unknown. I mean, I have great clients, we've got great business, but there's still who the next ones are gonna be. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know who will show up and doesn't mean I sit and wait for them to knock on my door. That's not how it works. But there's a bit of a life's that way too though I believe there's a bit of a dance that we get to do.
Cathleen : Yeah. How much of this process, this compass had you been working on while you were at 3M and how much of it did this change inspire you to craft something?
Chris: Yeah, good question. So I would say the answer that it was probably periods of time. We got to pay attention to what occurs when we don't have to, but I suggest we pay attention to what happens in our lives as we are participating in it. And when things show up. And so I, someone would reach out and ask me for something that was constantly someone. If I look back now you can connect the dots right? And we can't, sometimes we can't see where the dots connect until later down and then we're looking back on time.
Cathleen : Right.
Chris: Well, that's interesting. That's interesting. And one thing is that I had realized was that, well, this is about a man by 10 years ago at least. It was that I was the person that seemed to be the one that friends, family and colleagues would go to when they were coming to or in a crossroads and it was, it was like, hmm, that's interesting. I didn't sign
Cathleen : But you became a sounding board for a lot of desperate people.
Chris: Yeah, it's like I have a flashlight will be able to find the blind spots in the shadows and as I am a personal development nut and self-development nut. And so I've done all sorts of different strengths, profiles, personality assessment
Cathleen : All the tools.
Chris: And I've done some that are outliers like using numerology or astrology or just the interesting thing, Cathleen is, the more I did, the more I realized how they're in the same universe. Like the information that came back was like, whoa, I can't ignore this. Like the common message was is I was a guide period and I'm like, okay, so like, all right now, I know my purpose is to be a guide for people who are navigating and that I'm able to see things they can't see, I can hear things people can't on a much deeper level. And I have a high capacity for building trust very quickly with people. And so that it is what it is and I'm like, well I can either own that or not own it, it's my choice. And as folks sort of coming to me and I'm like, well 12 years ago we'll talk once a month, twice a month, whatever paid me 100 bucks. And then it turned into some consulting work and then it turned into executive coaching work and it turned into and I was starting to get pulled into family succession scenarios and just from like people that knew me were pulling me into, like I was activating the vision that I wanted. I had clarity and what that was. I had resolution and how I wanted to live. And then I just was in a place where I just created the space to pay attention to what showed up. And so we were like, well, how did you find family business? And like, I didn't I didn't go looking for it. Someone said, hey, I got a challenge, I want to bring you into it. And I literally was in this meeting with this family and I could see all the dynamics and all the challenges and each person's own dysfunction and the family dysfunction and the scenarios and worried people wanted to go and how their egos were involved. And they said, you know, can you help us? And I go into the white board, I started drafting out like it just started coming to me and I'm like, all right, you know, okay, how would this work? I said, we'll work together over the next three months, we're going to do A B and C. And they said, what's it gonna cost? Cathleen, I didn't know I'm like, well I’m like $30,000 and they're like, okay, I'm like, all right. And then I was like, then I gotta get someone to help me with a contract and I knew the value to them much more than that.
Cathleen : It was you were listening to, what you were paying attention to what you knew about yourself, you took the opportunity that was presented to you when you were offered an easy path that you knew was an alignment and you kind of opened yourself to the universe and said this is what I want to manifest.
Chris: Yeah, I believe there's a spirituality component to it. And as a faith-based person, I just believe that our desires, not egomaniacal things that we want to get to like prove ourselves, but our true desire. Heart desires come from somewhere and so do our gifts. So then how do we leverage those gifts to help other people and at the same time pursue our desires right? And then have faith and then that there's a way to co create that. That's why actually in our compass process, there is a base level in the hierarchy fulfillment is spirituality and that's really just the definition of who do you believe you are and what do you believe about life? And no one ever denies that we're mortal, nobody. No one, no one can argue that point.
Cathleen : They may live like that. They don't deny it.
Chris: No one would deny it. So then this is like, well, what do you believe about that situation and why you're here and what this is about those constructs, but they're all constructs. They're all illusions are all paradigm. So if you really step out of it all the things that we think and believe are essentially the programmed into us, we're programming to ourselves. But those, how we look at that frame, it's the foundation for everything else, really, quite frankly, everything else is built on top of that.
Cathleen : Now, your focus is to help more people live in alignment with their core values. How do you start that conversation or process and especially how do you, how do you encourage people to think about that? People who are not 20 years old, maybe they're 70 maybe they're 65 maybe they're 75 how do you encourage them to think about this new way of looking?
Chris: Core values are always there. So I'm doing a workshop tomorrow with a founder of a business and he goes to the core values of business, we did some discovery, they're doing succession and people don't know, and I'm like, well, they're here, they're here, we don't have to make them, we just got to find them. So there were unconscious to what they are and we all have them, we may not live in integrity to them, but we all have core values. And so the work really is getting clarity on what is it specifically, and we have exercises that we use exercises with cards or just a list or whatever it is to help narrow down the ideas and the premise behind that, but for example, if we say this word, one of my wife's core values, we did this exercise where we narrowed them down to three each and then it was really hard. But Cathleen, what made it easy is that you start creating subcategories of the core values and then it makes it a little bit easier because you don't have to like buy into a word, you can buy into a concept that encapsulates potentially multiple words, but there's, it's not like you're kidding yourself, but there you really have a semblance of clarity what it's about. So for health and wellness is one of ours, that's an easy one. We live, I would say pretty strongly to that, but like something like, okay, well one of the ones that Julia picked what was interesting was balance and but what that meant to her was is that everything has to work together and if it's not working together it doesn't fit. And so when they say, okay, well how do you do that? Well, you know, she said, I think it's a pretty smart way to put it was I use this as a screen so it has to pass through the screen in order to get into the calendar or to check in and say okay, for example, for us, like if we say okay, we're gonna go on a trip alright, we're going to trip and then we're gonna come back for a week, two weeks and then go back on another trip that doesn't feel very balanced because there's a lot of going into getting ready for a trip, right? And then you can organize all that stuff and pack and, and, and, and then then unpacked like there's an on ramp and off ramp to a trip depending the type of trip going on. And so you have this on ramp and off ramp and then you put the off ramp close to another on ramp there, it's not going to go so good. Right? And so that would be a check in. And also I can check in with my gut and say, hmm, I could talk about that. We have time, but I'll do it now. So sometimes we make decisions and we make decisions out of our head and that's nice. But that's where logic is and that's, that's all where our fear is our as well, but we're making decisions from our gut, like our sacred feeling that's not in our head. So if we want to get out of our head, get into our body and really check in and say, how do I feel about it? And sometimes it's like, I don't know, I don't know how I feel about it right now. I'm going to wait, wait on this, but no one ever says, oh gee, I listened to my gut and it was wrong. I mean it does happen and it's usually I didn't listen and I knew I should have is usually what it is for most people, but in essence, so that's the litmus test on values. And one thing that I learned when I studied neuro linguistic programming, which is NLP or the science behavior change is basically the science that Anthony Robbins uses. In fact the guy originally mentored Tony has worked with me. Yeah, which is kind of pretty cool. I worked with Wyatt for, I've got my own, but about two years. And anyway, one things he taught me was, is that when someone defines core values, what you can do is you do an audit. And he said, the way you audit core values is you look at their calendar and you look at their finances,
Cathleen : Oh boy.
Chris: you see, are they investing the resources of time and money? Things that might have within limitation into the things they say they value. And that's a pretty good way to audit someone. And I thought that was pretty interesting.
Cathleen : That is very cool.
Chris: I value my family. My family's number one awesome. Great. Let's look at the calendar and the finances I've had, executives are like, I've had people that we're not spending hardly in the vacation time. And so you know, there was no boundaries on their schedule and then they wonder why they're having challenges at home.
Cathleen : That is really, really a good suggestion is to take a look at how you invest your time and money. That's all we have this time and money. I bet that brings a lot of people up short when they can.
Chris: It can, it can, which really driving us what in essence is, is pulling us along and I think that's the challenge when people and I think my grandfather, so he's someone I emulated and so he retired and then he started another business and that business was just basically buying and selling real estate and just property in the woods and they with him and his buddy would tool around and they're just a great time doing it. And anyway my grandmother got Alzheimer's and then she ended up having to go into assisted living. That was a tough scenario. And then my grandfather lived independently until he was 98. Yeah, he was driving into his mid-nineties, arguably maybe shouldn't have been, but he was and he in fact he came out here to New Hampshire for like I have pictures of like it was 95th or 96th birthday, I mean crazy.
Cathleen : He drove out here?
Chris: He flew out here.
Cathleen : Alright good, that’s a long drive.
Chris: God forbid he didn't drive, he flew out here and we celebrated birthday when he was, it was like it was really cool, it was really cool and so he had a great social circle, he played tennis, you know at least till 90 and break off close to them and and and things that he would do and the challenge that he ran into, his friends were all starting to pass away and then it was you know family is passing away and people his age and it started wailing on him. And he was just like, he didn't have any health issues. But he's like, why am I even around here? And I remember, and then he moved into, he decided at that time was like, okay, that's the best. He moved into assisted living and kind of independent but still. And I remember sitting with him and we were talking about some of this and he was reflecting and then talking about well what am I going to do from here? And it was really interesting. But the thing I got to was like, well the core values didn't change. His gifts and talents didn't change. The only piece that might have changed is is that his vision for what he wanted to do with his life. A lot of that has been accomplished. So the only thing really left in that regard was what other additional memories could he create and where else could he serve and contribute beyond. And that then goes the two key elements that we kind of landed on.
Cathleen : That’s really, really cool. What a remarkable guy and an inspiration. If you're getting smarter, help us reach more minds. Leave us a review on apple podcasts so others know we're legit. Tell your friends to follow us on social or subscribe to our newsletter at seniorityauthority.org.
Chris: Yeah. And the compass that those are the three elements. It's what are my core values. What's my 360 visions of my life, which is everything from health and wellbeing to love and relationships to the family, social experiences. We want to create environments we want to be in. And then business financial and you know, all these elements can be built on top of one another. But like what's that look like? What are the elements to that? Why do you have those elements? Why is it important to you? And then what are your strengths when your gifts and your talents? Where are you contributing and how you developing, deploying those on a regular basis? So that in essence we're making the world a better place somehow.
Cathleen : When people come to you, when your clients seek you out typically, what are they trying to resolve? What is the other than the family, businesses and succession planning? Because that's understandable. Why do people come to you? What do they feel they're out of alignment with?
Chris: Yeah, Well there's something typically they're looking for peace. They're not saying that, but like they want more peace and in their life and they're not sure why they can't have. And in fact what happened, I mean, most people, I've worked with are achievers, are there people that have created success, whatever, however you define success. And actually one of the exercises I give folks is to define quality of life. What's that mean? Like what are the elements of quality of life? Like what are the attributes to that? But in essence, I'm not going to have some bestselling authors I've worked with that are younger than myself and some of them were, but they're not happy. They're like, well they're making seven figures have the things that most people would want to have and this is not happy, like just can't find peace, can't find inspiration, can't find joy. Like what happens is like a lot of folks that they pursue something that they say, okay, this is what's gonna make me happy, I'm gonna win at, this will be number one, I'm gonna give you a bestseller or I'm gonna be recording artists or whatever, I'm gonna make this list or I'm going to build something and I'm going to run it and I'm going to be the person with authority and power or I'm going to get into the social circle and I'm gonna be known and then people are gonna know me here and then all of these attributes there are these drivers, I just call them all these drivers, they're extremely quickly built and they're all ego centers, all of them. As so, and for the folks, a lot of times folks don't realize that they could create conditions in their life that those conditions that drive happiness joy peace fulfillment, these conditions that they've driven built and they're all based upon rules that are driven by them having to obtain something against something else. And it's like, okay, I've got a bucket and I've got holes in the bottom of the bucket and I'm trying to fill the water and I'm kind of bring it over here and I can't keep it full. I don't understand what's going on. So then the answer is, well I've just got to do more and I've got to work harder, get more money and I've got to grind it out more and that, that's a big part of, I think a lot of our society when it comes to like, you know, hey, if you're not grinding it out, you're not doing it and you're not on point.
Cathleen : I completely agree with you. We worship work, we worship external achievement and titles and money and cars and all of these things that are created by society, not by our internal desires of what is fulfilling us. And we think that acquiring these things will lead to fulfillment and that doesn't happen. But you don't realize that many times until you've spent a long time pursuing these things that are supposed to make you happy.
Chris: And you get them and then you get them and then you're still like what's going on. And so that's a lot of folks just like, well they can't figure that out. So it's like, how do you get someone there? And it's like, well you gotta redirect while because like I said, tell people, I'm not going to take away your drive because we got to do where you are, but we want to redirect it and in a different way to give you another example and just working with someone who wants a mid-age and we're working through some transitions so that they basically wanted more autonomy in their life. So we kind of work through what they needed to do that with their business. Built the vision out, got clarity, started mapping out the strategy is not usually the issue as you'll see in a second here. So, so everything started moving forward less involved with the business, certain capacities, more freedom, more autonomy. And then I heard back from some folks on the leadership team that this person kept going back into these meetings and I'm like, oh, that's interesting, we changed everything around, why are they doing this? And not only being involved in getting involved in making things complicated and messy. And so I got some conversation with the business owner and I said, what was happening and they told me, and I think this is important for people to understand is oftentimes when we answer the question why we're doing something, we typically have to or why we can't do something. We typically construct a story. Now the story is our illusion that we have to present to ourselves that we have to buy first, and then secondly, we get to sell the story to other people. So it's got to be pretty good, it's got to be a good story and so we got to believe it and we got to sell. And so anyway I know from my training that I don't want to spend a whole lot of time at the level of the story because the story is just a bunch of B. S. It's not real, it's well constructed but it's B. S. It's not the real reason.
Cathleen : Right. Right.
Chris: It's not the real reason. And the conversation at some point I said I said something's off and I said let me ask a different question, I'm going to hire you to come in and do a talk to a high school group that's graduating and I'd love to have you give a commemorative speech on how to build seven figure income and a business and all these other things that you've done and I'd love to have you tell them what to do and how to do it. And so what we did with the coral just give me some real high level with the top big bullet points. You have to share. And he said well basically it's you have to work hard and I said okay and you have to pay the price. I said okay. And he said I have to struggle. And I said okay you have to struggle. He said yeah and then you get the reward. And I said okay, I said what if you didn't have to struggle and he said I wouldn't even know if that's even possible. I said no, no. I said, but what if it works? Like what if you could have the success and not have to struggle with? I'm not saying you don't work, I'm just saying you don't have to struggle. He said then I wouldn't deserve it. And I'm like, well that's interesting. So now we're getting into the heart of the matter, we've created more ease in your life. But you have a paradigm that says, if you don't struggle, you don't deserve the success. And so now you have to go in and create more problems so you can solve them so you can feel like you deserve. Yeah.
Cathleen : That’s revealing.
Chris: Several coaches, several consult like this was not their first time to try to get to where they wanted to go and the emergency brakes on. But it's happened one time my grandmother and I were driving around, she used to talk, talk, talk, talk, we shop and talk, talk talk and we got back to the garage and pulled in their house in Muskegon Michigan and I'm like something stinks, and we looked down and the emergency brake was just clicked a couple of times, you know, she's like, oh, so she clicks, it pushes it down so that disengages. She's like, don't tell your grandfather, said I won't tell him, I never did. And needless to say that that's what happened to the emergency brakes on. They don't even realize it and then the answer though is work harder, work strong. You know faster, more, more, more and just trying to override what's really happening underneath the surface.
Cathleen : That makes so much sense that it's part of our kind of calvinistic culture that you have to work hard, you have to work hard and you can't stop. And oftentimes you don't get more unless you let go of what you have and then you're open to what the universe is ready to give you. But it's also because it's familiar, right? Your client did this for years and years and it helped him get to where he is. So he needs to learn a whole new way of thinking now that he has earned success. It's a different way. So your strengths in your early part of your career, when you've gotten that pinnacle, you have to learn different ways to reap the rewards perhaps.
Chris: Yeah, it's a matter of like what outcomes are you really after and what you believe about having to obtain those outcomes. And I'm really ideally looking to do is just help people create a higher sense of peace and ease. Like that's what I said earlier, they, that's what they want. They're looking for. It initially the path it really is about transformation and personal discovery. It's not, I want to figure out how to sell my company. I need to figure out, you know, I remember a gentleman who was well in the 70s and that he didn't want to let the business go because the business defined who he was and didn't know what to do next.
Cathleen : Sure.
Chris: That was a tough one. And he's like, well I'm not just going down to Florida and just get an RV and just sit there and do nothing. And I'm like, okay, like that's one of 1000 options. So what I mean, I've had some folks also say like, I don't want to spend that much time with my spouse is okay, that's fine. I’m not here to judge anyone on anything. It's a matter of how you want this to look. It's interesting with the work that you're doing, Cathleen if you looked at like other cultures and other parts of the world, in relationship to how they defined later in life or because there's a lot of differences in the Western society and different versus others.
Cathleen : There is, and one of my favorite writers on this topic is Arthur brooks who's coming out with a new book this week called From Strength to Strength. He spent 5 to 7 years going through different cultures, Eastern, Western and talking about how people find purpose in deep purpose and meaning in the second half of life. And I think for so many people in the U.S. today, they are living longer than ever before. So it's almost this Social Security started in 1933 the life expectancy was 65 that's why I started 65 now, life expectancy is mid-eighties on average. So what do we do with that? 20 additional years? I think that's what people are struggling with now, that we've got much healthier 65-year-olds and 70 year olds and people running marathons and doing yoga and all kinds of things. They have new needs, new hips, they're physically better than prior generations, with the exception of your grandfather. And what do they do now? And I think part of what I'm thinking for our listeners is if our listeners are at this point where they are approaching retirement or in retirement and they want deeper meaning and purpose in their life, what advice would you give them in terms of how do they think differently about their life? And you talk about living consciously. Can you give our listeners some ideas as to how they could think about this exploration and how they would dare do something different? I love the idea of renewing ourselves at different points in time. How would they start that process?
Chris: I think the first pieces to realize that you can and bring up the idea of different societies because you studied other parts of the world and how people look at aging in our world here is like something you don't want to do. It's awful like don't don't do that. You got to recreate yourself? Like, I'm not here to judge Madonna, but she looks definitely different than she did before, right? Like, so, in some people's mind, that's how we recreate ourselves, right? And that's that's not what we're talking about here necessarily when what you believe about doing something new. And I think that oftentimes it can be hard to change our thinking. The longer we hold the same frame, the longer we hold the same beliefs, it can be difficult. The change beliefs that we've held onto for so long. But no one said you couldn't, and just because you're determined to think differently, doesn't mean you're wrong before when you held that belief. And I think sometimes our ego doesn't allow us to make that shift or as a business is being okay with making some level of change, knowing that you don't have to make yourself wrong up to that moment for any particular reason point or time that weekend. The idea of consciousness, if anyone studied David Hawkins who wrote a book called Power versus Force, and he talks about these different layers of consciousness, and the idea is that you want to operate at a higher level. Things like guilt, shame, anger there at the bottom continuum. Things like peace, love enlightenment are at the top of the continuum. And so the idea is is that I want to operate at a place of not having this negativity if you will, and that's one piece, right? So it's an attitude and but more than an attitude. It's a state of being, it's just how we're showing up. And so that's one order of business. The other thing is just to look at, I like to get people to think about some practice and mindfulness. Now, mindfulness really is just a practice of like paying attention to where you are in the context of now, right in the moment and we use time continuum of time in our mind often. And in fact emotions are time contextualized. If I want to feel guilt, I got to go back to the past and think about something I did, I should have done and why it was wrong if I want to feel lost or sorrow for someone passed, I think about them in the past and then I go to the future and think about how they're not going to be here. So these are all things that if I want to feel worry or anxiety, then I go to the future and I think about what can go wrong. And I lived there.
Cathleen : I never thought of this, I never thought of emotions being time conceptualized. That's fascinating.
Chris: It is pretty interesting. So here we're going to get somewhere good now.
Cathleen : Ok, good.
Chris: Not that we haven’t been but think about this, think about this. So I go to the past and I feel guilt or shame past doesn't exist. I go to the future. I grew up in an environment that had a lot of volatility to it. So I constantly I can be a worrier bottom line, I can be one worrier okay, and worry lives in the future that God was going to happen. And I'm like, that's it, right. If I don't go to the future, I can't worry, interesting. So happiness and peace and then now you wanna experience happiness, you've got to be in the present moment.
Cathleen : Wow.
Chris: Isn't that great?
Cathleen : That is fascinating. Well, when you were talking about the past, I was immediately going to, well, I am a worrier and I always think about the future and what could go wrong. So you are right, Oh my God, I've never heard it explained that way. That is really.
Chris: So then you say, what's the answer? Well, we spend more time and then out is the answer. And you say, well, how the hell do I do that? Well, we have to train ourselves to do that because we haven't been taught to do it.
Cathleen :Absolutely.
Chris: There’s some great books on emotional intelligence, but they don't even talk about how to construct emotions like I'm going into right now and how to create state in the body, and also how to use visualization, auditory cues, like how we see things in our mind, like all of us unpack it and to create it, we do it unconsciously. So that's part of the process of raising level of consciousness when I'm working with people and coaching them. I'm raising the level of consciousness and creating more ability to own these things because I'm helping them unpack what they don't know how to unpack. That makes sense.
Cathleen :Absolutely. Because this is all baked into us at a very early age.
Chris: So it’s not why would they teach us at school? Doesn't even make sense seriously.
Cathleen : Oh, I have Wilhelmina. 2nd grade teacher teaches yoga in class. If only I had a yoga teacher in my second grade, I would be a totally different person now.
Chris: Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. She teaches, look over here in franklin. So exactly, these are part of the challenges. And I asked my kids in my karate class, you know, can someone make you mad? And they're like, oh yeah, that's societally, that's sure someone makes you mad, like that's not even possible. But well, I guess they do because we're unconsciously navigating that way. So we want to recreate ourselves as to say later in life. I just don't see a good way to do without creating a higher level of consciousness first. And so I would suggest I haven't found you already know this, but I haven't found a better because you and I have talked a better path than something like meditation and you say, well, meditation, what's that? Well, you can start with guided meditation. There's headspace. There's calm. There's all sorts of insight timer is another one. There's places you can go and there's a lot of resources out there that are available. Transcendental Meditation. Hey, this is no joke. I got my grandfather to take at 98 to take a meditation class.
Cathleen : Wow, that's impressive.
Chris: I did, I did. I swear to God it's true.
Cathleen : Oh my gosh.
Chris: Yeah, I did. And because he was going out in the future a lot and worrying about my parents and all sorts of crazy business.
Cathleen : So and I couldn't, I couldn't help. It couldn't be easier today for our listeners and we'll be putting these in the show notes along with Chris’s book, couldn't be easier to download a meditation app. It is just as you say in yoga, the practice, it is just returning to it.
Chris: And quite frankly, if you lived in an Eastern society, we wouldn't even have to talk about this because you probably would potentially be anywhere you lived, you maybe even doing it. The foundation of yoga. The idea is to yoke right to yoga to yoke the mind. And the idea was to find still the mind to get to that space in between. It's not just about exercise. I go on a rant. I start talking about the yoga that's built on exercising. That's not why we're here. But regardless the foundation
Cathleen : should be there with you.
Chris: Yeah, the foundation of it is really truly for that is paramount. It's paramount because no one teaches us how to run this. So once we can find some stillness, I say like, okay, we got a compass and it's built on these three principles. Well then we want to keep it away from magnets and say okay, you know our ego can be a magnet to throw it off. And also
Cathleen : good analogy,
Chris: lower level of consciousness can throw it off. So part of the process I go through is helping people find that stillness and that space creating that space. I mean it's funny because like you said earlier about our work culture, one things that used to drive me crazy is people that I hadn't seen in a while and see how how are you doing? What are you doing busy? I'm like, why I want to say, why why why do you lead with busy? Like what is that? Like what's that all about?
Cathleen : Busy is such a badge. It is such a everybody walks around with a busy, busy busy.
Chris: Yeah. I'm like it's nutty. It's nutty. Like what's that? Why? You know that goes back to that Emerson quote, It's not so much to be busy. So too are the ants. The question is, what are you busy about? Yeah. And just doesn't mean you always have to be doing. I gave one of my clients homework assignment and he's a great guy, high level achiever. We've been working together for a couple of years in that context. He sold his business. He's living a really amazing life, but he's having a hard time still sitting still. So I gave him a homework assignment that I want him to just take 90 minutes and do nothing. Oh,
Cathleen : That’s hard.
Chris: I know.
Cathleen : That's really hard.
Chris: We’ve been working together long enough. He's ready for it. Yeah. So anyway, it's interesting right? Like, oh, but I'm wasting time. So I'm going to fill it doing like, come on seriously. It'll be interesting to see what he comes back with when we chat next. I coach people that have some same challenges I've wrestled and or sometimes are still wrestling with. So I'm not saying, hey, look at me, I'm up in the mountain and I'm perfect because I'm not, I'm still, I said I'm a recovering worrier and then say, I don't worry anymore. But I'm working on if I can just do a little less every day, that's a win. Right over time.
Cathleen : It’s about that you're just said doing less, not doing more and you are living in real life. You're a parent to a young daughter, you own your own business.
Chris: I have a mom, I have a mom who's in Michigan and I'm in New Hampshire and she's managing herself, but I'm managing her world. She's living in a retirement community that has an assisted living benefit to it. But there's other decisions will have to make in the near future. And so I've got that too on my plate and I'm an only child. So I'm it and it's a lot of pieces and parts even deciding like when she moved out here, we decide that and why do we decide that she'd stay where all the rest of her family is and what's that? The fact that we still go back there and navigating these decisions, which is that goes back to the compass. Like how do we navigate these decisions? It's not the same for everybody. And he was like, well, you know what's the best way to do this or that? It's like, well we got to orientate for you, not for someone else. It's what's best for you.
Cathleen : And if you are married, your compass it would have to align, right?
Chris: That's exactly it. So that when I worked with the family is exactly yet I tell them, I said if it's a it's a family business and a lot of people listening aren't just hear me out if you had a multiple people in your family and they all had a compass and then you have something called a business. It's got his own compass. And then we're looking at where are we going in parallel and where are we not? And I was like a couple just like, well, you know what you want to do is create interdependent so that you're both independent and then but there's a relationship and then the goal is that the other person in your life, you're that much better for your trajectory of your own life purpose at the way I look at this the element right? Like how do I make your life purpose stronger and more evident and you mind and we work together and without having to take away.
Cathleen : That's a beautiful image for a Valentine's Day. I like that where you can help each other with your purpose and be more present in the world.
Chris: Yeah, exactly.
Cathleen : If you had one suggestion for our listeners as to how they could start this journey of being more conscious and aligned, what would that recommendation be? Which specifically would you suggest they do?
Chris: That's a really good question. And there's a few places you can start and typically the place to start is not where you're trying to get away from. And I say that is because oftentimes we get orientation is to move away from something we don't want, you can't get to where you want to go or try and avoid being somewhere else. And then, so like I wanna get away from this, have a job, I want to go from my job, gonna go jump over here to another job. I don't, whatever it is. You know, I don't want to do this. I'm gonna go do something else I don't want to do. I would really deeply check it. The first step is create space to ask questions and walk with the questions. That's the first step, what do I want more of what do I want less of? Sometimes it's as easy as doing an energy audit. Energy audit. Have people do, it gives me energy and energy neutral sucks my energy and I basically go through a week of my life and I do an audit.
Cathleen : Oh, I like that. I've used that with people. There are some people that suck energy from you.
Chris: Oh yeah. The energy vampires.
Cathleen : Exactly.
Chris: That's right. Assigned to your energy and vampires. When you make everything about yourself and your drama, that's a sign.
Chris: You’re listening. Yeah. An energy audit. One exercise. I would give someone another exercises. It's fun when I start with people is to find your ideal day. Not like I want $100 million and I'm going on the National Geographic $100,000 around the world tour. Like okay, that'd be great. But I like the ideal everyday day for me it's okay. I get to bring my daughter to school every morning. Like that was, that's part of the picture right to like when I go to bed too, you know what happens during an ideal week, ideal month. So you can just kind of build out like what's the frame of that, right? What are the components to have that and then what needs to occur to make that a reality. That's a good exercise because then at least you're in a place where you're acknowledging and living in the other thing. I ask people to do that kind of checking on this. These three key areas and one last question I'll share is we took Love Security and self-esteem. These three core needs that we have. Where are you at? And the scale wouldn't attend on each of these. How much do you love yourself on a scale of 1 to 10? How much self-esteem do you feel you have in yourself in 1 to 10? And how much sense of security do you have? And if your numbers are lower than seven, which a lot of people, they are a lot that I've come across. And even folks that are really like people who like what? Four and then find some help to change that number because you came in with a level 10 love and a level 10 self-esteem. Security. Our parents had to fill that void when we’re babies. But the other two were full expression of love, full expression of self-esteem. It's our programming. And what happened over time that lower those numbers. And I believe if we were going to self-actualize and live a full life because otherwise anyone out there listening, but they don't love yourself at a high level, they're automatically not going to believe that they deserve anything we're talking about Cathleen, so that I had to bring that up because that needs to be addressed.
Cathleen : You're absolutely right. I love those recommendations. I think those exercises and the compass exercise that you mentioned earlier and starting with creating space for stillness. That's a very good amount of work for our listeners.
Chris: Start with one. Start with one of those things.
Cathleen : Yes. Yeah. But I think you've just outlined a number of things that people can do to see if they are in alignment and to imagine like their ideal day and their ideal week in their ideal month, what their ideal future could look like if they lived more consciously.
Cathleen : This has been a fabulous and very illuminating conversation. Thank you so much Chris for sharing all your wisdom with us. Especially that emotion connected to time. I'm going to think a lot about that. So that is Chris Yonker. We are going to have his website book and several of his notes in our show notes. If you'd like to reach out to Chris, his website will be available in the show notes. That's our show for today. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends about us so we can reach more minds. Give us a rating and a review on apple podcast and send me your questions on aging. Until then enjoy the opportunity to get smarter about growing older. Thank you. Thanks to our show sponsor the Riverwoods Group, Northern New England's largest family of nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community purpose and peace of mind, visit riverwoodsgroup.org. That's our show for today. Did it spark a question? If so, send us your questions at seniorityauthority.org and we’ll track down the answer. Meanwhile, don't forget to subscribe, like us on Facebook, follow us on YouTube, and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time. Let's get smarter about growing older.