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Living an Aligned Life - a conversation with Cindy Koehler
11 Plays4 days ago
Exploring what we mean by work life balance and considering if there might be a better way.
Cindy Koehler is a transformational business and life coach, and founder of Mind Garage.
In this episode of the Abeceder work life balance podcast Rest and Recreation Cindy explains to host Michael Millward that we are wrong to view success in life as the achievement of a good work life balance.
Instead, Cindy proposes that we should aim to live a life in which our work activities and our non-work activities are aligned.
Cindy and Michael discuss how
- Many people work to pay their bills with a hope of eventually living a long and happy retirement.
- Work should instead think about how work enables people to live their best lives in the present.
- Forced unemployment is when people explore what they want out of life
- We define and find happiness in work and life
- We define the value we derive from work
- Asking better questionscan improve how we enjoy life
This conversation will made you reconsider your own relationship between work and life.
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Transcript
Introduction & Zencastr
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:16
Speaker
Use the link to zencastr.com in the description. It has a built-in discount.
Guest Introduction: Cindy Kohler
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abbasida.
00:00:29
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida. Today I am talking to Cindy Kohler, the founder of mindgarage.com.au about living an aligned life.
00:00:44
Speaker
Cindy is based in Adelaide in Australia. I have been to Australia but not Adelaide.
Membership Perks: Ultimate Travel Club
00:00:50
Speaker
I must make a point of visiting. When I do go, i will use the Ultimate Travel Club to make my travel arrangements.
00:00:57
Speaker
That is because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I can access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays and all sorts of other travel related purchases. Use the link in the description to join the Ultimate Travel Club.
00:01:10
Speaker
It has an automatic discount and you can access those same trade prices.
Podcast Mission: Sparking Thought
00:01:16
Speaker
Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:26
Speaker
As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Hello, Cindy Kohler. Hello, Michael. Thank you so much for having me.
00:01:39
Speaker
It's a pleasure.
Cindy's Career Journey
00:01:40
Speaker
Please, could we start by you telling us a little bit about your career history and how you ended up as a business and personal coach? and Currently, i I spend my days in mindset, transformational mindset coaching, having over the last 15 years delivered around 10,000 hours of mindset coaching to elite professionals, business owners and working people and to around 200 companies around Australia and that coaching sort of role came about as a culmination of sort of three key bodies of work that I've delivered. One of them would be 20 years in education.
Rethinking 'Busy' & Life Richness
00:02:20
Speaker
So as a secondary and tertiary educator, 25 years in business, having created and sold four award-winning businesses. And then I think the key piece that brings me to this point about mindset coaching is 40 years of meditation, mindfulness, teaching and personal growth in that space and I think that's probably the key piece that is the commenting piece between the mindset coaching, kind of those those three those three bodies of knowledge that I have and and wisdom that I like to share now with one-on-one clients as well as working with different professional groups and as well as through podcasts and currently wide writing books, so a number
Redefining 'Work' & 'Retirement'
00:03:05
Speaker
of different areas. A busy lady. Yeah, but you know that that's interesting, isn't it? You you use that word busy.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yes. I'm very aware of that. As soon as I used it, an expression came to mind because people say to me, Michael, you're very busy. And I say, actually, I don't see myself as busy. I'm having too much fun to be busy.
00:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, and I think there's, you know, that's one of the things that we commonly hear, isn't it? Whenever I go and see someone, you you know, how are you? How have have you been? the The majority of people would say, well, I've been busy.
00:03:37
Speaker
And it comes with that negative connotation, doesn't it? I'm very aware of that. I like to say that I lead a very rich and full life. Yes. Because that changes the meaning of what I'm doing in my life. When I say busy, it has this negative connotation. It's a bit like the word work.
00:03:53
Speaker
You know, when you hear the word work, it has a negative connotation to it because, you know, we're working to get to the holiday.
Language, Beliefs, & Mindset
00:04:00
Speaker
And that in itself has some separateness from self and separateness from enjoyment, I think. Yes. You made me remember working with a colleague when I was working in Canada who had daughter who was about four. She and her husband decided that they were not going to use the word, let's go out and play, when they said, let's go into the garden or or whatever, or let's go to the park and play. um It wasn't. They were going to use the word work instead. So we'll go into the garden and we'll work. We'll go to the park and we'll work.
00:04:34
Speaker
because of that difference between the way in which people use those words like work and holiday. Work is something that is unpleasant and holidays are supposed to be something that are fantastic.
00:04:47
Speaker
And they wanted to change the mindset of their daughters so that when they thought about work, they would think that the thing that was important was that it's got to be fun.
Career Changes: Joy & Growth
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:57
Speaker
It's that's really interesting is that because You know, language, for me, the words are just reflective of what our beliefs and our mindset are. So language is very powerful, either either with our internal conversations that we have with ourselves and or how we express it externally.
00:05:13
Speaker
the The word work is really, really interesting. And the other word that I'm fascinated with at the moment, because people keep throwing at me having just turned 60 is the retirement word. It's a word that I don't fully understand. i still like I'm still struggling to conceptualise it for myself with my life because it means that there is this part of my life, my working life, that is something that I'm trying to escape or I'm looking forward to finishing or ending.
00:05:38
Speaker
And that to me is incomprehensible. I don't want to switch off and and do whatever it is you do in retirement. That word doesn't sit well like busy or work. I know what you mean. For many people nowadays, the idea of retirement in the way in which they saw their grandparents experience retirement isn't as appealing as it may have been to their grandparents.
Redundancy: Growth Opportunity
00:06:02
Speaker
That idea that you give up work, you stop working and you become someone of leisure is not necessarily something that many people, people approaching retirement or of the conventional retirement age actually really buy into anymore. Yeah, I think it's a very different space. It is for me. yeah I've been very blessed in that I've been courageous enough to transition into different careers through my life. So when I stopped finding joy in certain areas that I work, I'm actually one of those people that loves change. When I found less enjoyment from teaching in a certain area, then I retrained myself to to study allied therapies and then to study business. And then when I was finding less joy in the running of the businesses, I had the courage to step out of those. So I think to me, it's been a a very conscious decision to have a look at my life and reflect and reset and go, well, you know, is this really bringing me the life experience that I'm looking for? Is this really ticking the boxes of my, you know, my values and those things that are challenging me and providing growth in the areas? And Is it really tapping into my skill set, really giving me a chance to access a part of myself that I can provide the best version thereof with the work that I'm currently doing.
00:07:22
Speaker
So, yeah, I love the concept of change and redirection and re-identification. And I think these. know, the generations coming through, they'll they'll change a lot quicker. After the world around them is changing, the problem is keeping up.
00:07:35
Speaker
As an HR professional, one of the things that i often have to do, unfortunately, is tell people that the world has changed and that the job that they were doing and quite happily doing through no fault of their own is going to be disappearing.
00:07:51
Speaker
It's happened in all sorts of strange places, the supermarket, the airport lounges, on trains, where people who i have said, actually, your job has been made redundant, so here's a payment, thank you very much, goodbye, have come up to me and said, you know, you're making me redundant. I didn't make you redundant, I made the job redundant. You, all this sort of stuff, i could argue that one. But you making me redundant was the best thing that ever happened to me.
00:08:18
Speaker
And i say, why?
Aligning Work with Life Goals
00:08:20
Speaker
say, because if you hadn't made me redundant, I wouldn't have been forced to do exactly what you've just described, review my life and make a decision about what I was going to do next. I would have stayed in that job because it became a habit. It became the thing that I did, part of my identity, and i was never going to change until you placed me in the position where where I had to.
00:08:45
Speaker
I love the individuals that have, you know, the short refractory period of that emotional space because my own wife has been made redundant having done an amazing job and done amazing figures. The business just got sold and the people decided that they didn't want her in and that management position and so she was left in that space and I watched the discomfort that she went through of going, but I've done everything right and Yes, of course, you get a payout, but that doesn't heal like, you know, the self-reflective piece of saying, well, you know, the person who feels all the feelings of it, you know, the anger and the sadness and the frustration and the self-doubt and whatever, the full range, fully entitled to do it. And some people like the person that you're speaking about sort of goes, okay, well, you know, I'm going to feel all those things, but now what do I do now?
00:09:40
Speaker
Am I going to stay in the victim mode? Am I going to stay in that space? Am I going to really wallow in it and hang on to that for the next, you know six months, one year, two years, three years, five years, some people 10 years. Some people never leave that space. And so they stay in that space and they hurt for many, many years, whereas other people go, you know what, what is the opportunity that lies here for me?
00:10:03
Speaker
That's one of the questions I love working with clients when I work with. people is, you know, something happened to me today where I didn't get the result, you know, the gig that I was going for. And I had that moment of real discomfort and went, oh, wow, that hurt. I didn't expect that.
00:10:19
Speaker
But the question I asked myself is, you know, what is the opportunity here for me? And I sat down and wrote down a list of things that came from it. And my emotional state changed completely.
00:10:31
Speaker
You know, I'm super excited for not doing that gig now because of what's on the other side of it and how it can how I can enhance my life and better my life for not having that peace in my life. And, yeah, I love that people do make the changes and they do find the opportunities in the spaces that they're given. And, the you know, with the external world changes around us, doesn't it? We don't have any control over that.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes. It's like, okay, well, what are we going to do in that space? What am I going to do internally? the things that we can't control when they change. How can I find joy in this peace with it? How can I find my next challenge and my next version of myself?
00:11:08
Speaker
i think that That's but it's fascinating. For many people, people are leaving education, because there aren't many jobs around, they will take the first job that they get. And it might not be the career that they wanted, but it means that they can pay the bills and pay off their student debts, etc. And it gets them that foot on the ladder.
00:11:28
Speaker
But it might not actually be the career that they really wanted. And at some point or another, people have to go through that process, I think, that you're describing, where it's like, Asking, what do I want from my life?
00:11:40
Speaker
If I want to have this particular type of lifestyle aspirations, I have to have this particular type of work in order to fulfill those lifestyle aspirations. If you want to live in a very big house or with big gardens, you're going to need a job that is going to enable you to earn the money.
00:11:57
Speaker
to be able to finance that type
Finding Passion in Work
00:11:59
Speaker
of lifestyle. But if you aren't bothered about the type of house that you live in, but you want to have a happy family, you've just got to make sure that whatever you do is about having a happy, healthy family. Or you may have a particular hobby that you need to do.
00:12:12
Speaker
The challenge comes that Very often the job requires x type of activity, whether that is working long hours, traveling a lot, being available on call. People have to decide whether those things are important enough to make sacrifices in the other parts of their life. When you talk about retirement and people looking forward to retirement, it's about being able to reinvent themselves in a way that is more authentic to who they are than the job title that they've had or the career that they've had for the last 40 years. I love you talking about that fact that people have to sort of have a think about what's important, you know, the big high, more time with family. or Yes, I think whatever we choose to do in our working in career, in in any area, it doesn't matter what it is.
00:13:03
Speaker
just whether you believe that is adding to your life and you actually fully immerse yourself in that space. So it it feels less like ah compromise and more like you actually living life. There's great joy in that. Satisfaction in helping people. there is There is saying hello to someone in a cafe is perhaps the only human interaction that some people are getting.
00:13:29
Speaker
It's not just making a coffee. It's actually... providing someone with the human connection and that you know maybe that one really good solid piece in their life so it's it's having a look at the jobs that we're doing and going look is this is this really tapping into my heart am I immersing myself fully into this role and if I'm not am I prepared like you say to make those sacrifices you know life is tremendously short. And so the discomfort that we go through with change, and don't get me wrong, I i said before that I love change, but change always causes discomfort.
00:14:07
Speaker
you know To me, to have a good look at your life and maybe you leave work or you go to a new job. And I've had it in my life when I sold my businesses, I sat in a space going, well, i don't know what I'm going to do next. And it was really uncomfortable. And it wasn't until I spent 12 months and did something else and went, well, that didn't work. I didn't love that.
00:14:25
Speaker
I actually found that the coaching that I've been doing for a while was something that i deeply love. And at heart, I'm an educator. So it provided the space in order for me to do that. but it But it wasn't without, you know, me having a good look at myself and me, you know, sacrificing some financial income for a period of time to put that aside and go, what is important to me? What legacy do I want to leave? How can I add to people's lives? Express this best version of myself to the world around me.
00:14:54
Speaker
And then it doesn't feel like balance. It feels more like harmony. It doesn't feel like I'm sacrificing time for my children. I'm being the best version of themselves and being the best version of myself and demonstrating to them that our careers are deeply fulfilling, that we can love them, that we can really enjoy them. We can come back from work and say, that was a great day. i really enjoyed it. You know, this thing didn't go quite right and that thing didn't go quite right. But I love doing that work. What do you mean when you say you love that work? I find passionate people. I love spending time with passionate people.
00:15:31
Speaker
And it doesn't matter what you're passionate about. You know, whether you love studying cockroaches or your roses are things that you can talk about for hours. Or, know, I love cars.
00:15:42
Speaker
Like, just get me started talking about any car. What sort of car do you drive? Oh, I have a very, a very ordinary suburban Subaru, Alpac. now. Great car, terrific car.
00:15:53
Speaker
But yeah, i love I love talking about any sorts of cars and I used to navigate and drive rally cars as well. so Nice. But I find when we connect with something that we're passionate about, that's when you find love. When you when you can emotionally connect with your work. When when I find you know an electrician that's Super excited to put in, you know, the down lights in an office that I'm building.
00:16:22
Speaker
And, they you know, they get all geeked out and they have a lot of fun with, you know, this light or that switch. And they talk to me and they bore me to tears with it. But you can see that they're getting right into it. And they finish the job and stand back and say, oh, it looks great. So one of the things which i decided on when I was recruiting my team was that I wanted people who could talk to me all day about the thing that they were passionate about. But I put on the thing that talked to me all day about what it is that they were passionate about without me ever feeling bored.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah. Because at the point of boredom, it's like, yeah, you've lost You're just talking about it now. But if you've got that energy and that enthusiasm for the thing that you're doing, it's not work.
00:17:09
Speaker
It's you're exercising a skill, you're exercising knowledge, you're doing something that no one else can quite do in the way that you do it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:20
Speaker
There's going to be someone listening to this who's going, well, how can I feel passionate about my job? It's all great for you talking about people that are passionate about the law so that they become a police officer or or they're passionate about helping people be healthy so they become a doctor. Or a nurse, that's that's great, but this guy is spending his life on a production line or is a gravedigger or just cleans the road. Why should I feel passionate about this? How would I feel passionate about jobs that society doesn't really value very much?
Life Design vs. Job Choice
00:17:54
Speaker
and Yeah, that's a great question, Michael. I think it's the meaning that we give to anything that we do in our life that is really key That's kind of one piece for me, and I'll explain that in a bit more detail. But the other one is that life really is like a series of these little golden moments.
00:18:13
Speaker
And we get these little, you know, three to five seconds of being fully present in what the moment is. and And when we stay conscious to that and who are aware and we give our focus to something completely, If I'm sweeping the streets, like there is so much opportunity for me to find moments of gold on my day. If that's what I'm looking for, if my mindset is focused on this is going to be a day that's never going to pass by this way again, how can I grab a little bit out of that day that really build my day into something magnificent?
00:18:50
Speaker
And that might be as simple as going past someone's garden and going, you know, wow, that is spectacular. like I haven't seen that flower or that tree. or you know It might be waving to that person that you go past on a regular basis. It might be the simple pleasure of looking in the rear vision mirror and going, well, once that was you know incredibly messy and I looked behind me, and now it's really clear and beautiful and it's going to enable people to find a safer space or greater joy. So the the internal story and the meaning we give things
00:19:24
Speaker
can have an incredible impact on how we find enjoyment from the things we do in our daily basis. yeah mean You have a choice. you have a You have a conscious choice. You have an internal mental choice to say, okay, this is the situation. What is a a healthy and helpful thought and story that I can give to this that is going to make me feel in a better emotional space? And perhaps that's the first question that people should have ask themselves or something that I do in the morning is to actually ask myself, how do I emotionally want to feel today?
00:19:58
Speaker
Well, you know, seriously, I want joy. i want excitement. I want challenge. I want i want to have some fun. And and i think in that space, I ask myself, well, what are the things and what's the meaning I can put in my life to bring that about?
00:20:12
Speaker
When you talk about meaning and value, society as a whole places value on jobs that cost a lot of money. So if you're highly paid, your job is perceived to be of higher value than a lower paid job.
00:20:28
Speaker
Whereas when you're thinking about hospitals, you have very highly paid doctors, consultants, but they find it would find it very difficult to do their job without the cleaner.
00:20:41
Speaker
And yet the hospital cleaner is not paid as much as the doctor. It's not the price of the work that is done. It's the value and the meaning of the work for the person doing the work and the value and meaning of the fact that that job that work has been done to the people who will benefit from the work having been done and what life would be like if that work hadn't been done and it's internally with alignment of work and life it's like
00:21:17
Speaker
Going through school, you will have lots of people going through school who will believe that value comes from having a highly paid job.
Balancing Life & Work Decisions
00:21:26
Speaker
Those are the people who will miss their children's birthdays. I've spoken to solicitors who've woken up on December the 25th and gone off to work and their families said, what are you doing?
00:21:37
Speaker
And it's going to work. Well, today is Christmas day. All the preparations for Christmas had bypassed them because they were so focused on their work. and They left that job and and took a ah worked in much smaller organisation as a result. Deciding how you want to live seems to be more important than deciding how you want to work. Yes.
00:22:00
Speaker
And once you've decided how you want to live, then what I'm understanding from what you're saying is that then you can decide how you want to work because it will facilitate how you want to live.
00:22:12
Speaker
When we say to children as they're growing up, what you want to be when you grow up? If you ask a parent, what do you want your child to be when they grow up? They will say happy and healthy. but the child gets all sorts of messages from other sources and from parents and grandparents and aunts, uncles, school teachers, the education system in in in general is you have to decide what work you want to do before you decide how you want to live.
Courage in Life Realignment
00:22:38
Speaker
And what you seem to be advocating for is the doing the doing that the other way around.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, I don't think it's helpful. to say to our children, you know, what is it that you want to do with your working life? It's more important to say, what is it you want to be? Yeah. And like, um who is the person that you want to be?
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah. Asking them more about that. Like, you know, what skillset that you have that you would like to use in your working life? I love solving problems. I love trying to work out solutions from complex maths problems. And there you go, okay.
00:23:15
Speaker
That's interesting. you Like you really enjoy doing that. You know, I love working with people. I love spending time with people. Okay. but Well, then then that just opens up a really broad area. Then we're working with some baseline passions of, you know, the young adult in that space.
00:23:35
Speaker
I think we need to, can't remember who it was. It might have been Tony Robbins that says the quality of our life is directly correlated with the questions that we ask ourselves. I think we need to ask ourselves some better questions and particularly our children when they're selecting it. Like like I said, a 60th birthday on the weekend and I sat down today and just asked myself my question so a question simple question of, am I loving everything I'm doing during my day?
00:24:02
Speaker
The second question was, What are the things in my day that I'm doing or am I exposing myself to that are compromising my emotional state? And then I can go, okay, well, you know, maybe there's something to do with my diet, but I don't feel that great after I eat that. Or maybe it's a person that's a little bit toxic that I need to take out of my life. Or, gee, I really loved reading that book today. Oh, I'm going to spend a bit more time on that. Or, you know, I've got this podcast that I'm doing, which,
00:24:32
Speaker
you know There's some discomfort about doing it in the middle of dinner time, but like I'm sharing education. i love sharing education. Yes. So, yeah, it's an opportunity for more for me to be in that space. And has being on this podcast been a pleasure?
00:24:49
Speaker
ah I'm having a great time. I hope you are. I am, yes, I have had a great time. Thank you very much, Cindy. It's been really interesting. And i think in the exploration of the topic, it's one of those things that sounds very simple to do.
00:25:07
Speaker
But at the same time, if you're going to decide how you're going to align your life and what you want to do in life with your activities, whether that's work or leisure, but to to enable you to create the best version of you, it's it is a lot easier to say than it is to do. you really do need to spend some time sorting it out rather than just, yep, I'll do that.
00:25:34
Speaker
It's worth the investment in time and thought processes, I think is what what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I think courage is... Really underrated.
Episode Conclusion & Reflections
00:25:46
Speaker
think it takes courage for you to step back from your life and have a look at it and say, that relationship's not working for me.
00:25:54
Speaker
Let's say it's working. You know, a business like the solicitor working on at Christmas. It takes courage to step back from a large income and say, you know what, I'm going to be an artist. Very true. Well, real courage to review life. So I think, yeah you know, grab yourself by the bovaries and step back and have a look and go, let's have look at this and just ask some questions and maybe just some take a small, tiny little bit of action, just a tiny, scary little step to move towards what it is that you want. That might be the first steps.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. The most difficult step on any journey is the first one. But but today, Cindy, I've really enjoyed our conversation and do say thank you very much for making the time available to join me today. I hope it has been a pleasure.
00:26:42
Speaker
Absolute pleasure, Michael. Thank you so much. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abucida. In this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Cindy Kohler from mindgarage.com.au.
00:26:58
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abucida.co.uk. There's a link in the description. At rest and recreation, we believe in living healthy lives. An important part of staying healthy is knowing the risks early. That is why we recommend the health tests from York Test, especially the annual health test.
00:27:19
Speaker
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Speaker
The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in UKAS accredited and CQC compliant laboratories.
00:27:47
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and as you would expect a discount code in the description.
00:28:02
Speaker
I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Rest and Recreation as much as Cindy and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:28:14
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:28:27
Speaker
Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening. and goodbye.