Changing Lives as a Coach – Anne Roche

Anne Roche

Miriam: [00:00:00] Hey folks, today it is just my pleasure to have a new friend. Anne Roach she used to be a defense attorney for the poor, and at some point she made the decision to become a coach and . You know, you and I are both coaches.

I love coaches, they make for great interviews. But also I wanted you to know that in general, I’m not interviewing a ton of coaches anymore and I chose you specifically because there’s something about you that is really unique. I’m so excited for this interview. So welcome Anne.

Anne: Thank you so much, Miriam.

I’m so honored and I was thrilled to say yes cuz I really enjoy being in conversation with you as. Good. Good deal.

[00:00:43] Attorney to Coach

Miriam: Okay. Well, I think the obvious question is why does someone go from being an attorney to a coach? You know, and I think before I let you answer this, coaching is such a strange beast because.

anybody in their dog can call [00:01:00] themselves a coach. It’s not regulated in the United States. I don’t know if it’s regulated anywhere in the world. And I find that coaches a good coach can transform your life and a mediocre coach can take your money and do nothing with your life. So you already had a prestigious job. and you made this decision. So tell us a little bit why ?

Anne: Well I don’t think anyone’s more surprised that I left law and became a coach than I am frankly, . I loved, loved being a lawyer and I mean, I didn’t even know what a coach was., I mean, I grew up on the East coast and. I mean, very judgmental,  very judgmental.

I mean, life coach, like, that’s not even a real thing, you know? That would’ve been one that would’ve been what was in my head. And law, you know, law is a real thing. That’s a real thing. So I, I mean, I was all [00:02:00] kinds of, Things in my own head, and I never ever imagined leaving law for anything. But I kind of hit a wall.

I hit a wall in my late forties. I was far away from family and friends and I loved my work, but everything in my life started feeling hard.

My parents were aging and, and their health was declining, and I knew something had to change and I didn’t know what it was. And I, so I started looking around for different positions.

Getting to Be a Coach

I was a private attorney, but I took public defense cases, and so what that meant in Massachusetts was that I spent a lot more time on the administrative part of my work than I did with my clients.

And I, I really loved being with my clients. And so that started that balance, started feeling out of whack, and I started looking around. and then I had this conversation with my sister. I talked to my sisters every day and I was, we were talking [00:03:00] through some problem and she’s like, you should get paid for that.

This, you’re so good at giving advice, you should become a coach. And I was like, I, I don’t, you know what you’re talking about. But anyway, fast forward, I, I went. To a weekend of a very intense, a, a year long intensive coaching program through ipec. I went and it just changed my life. I, I thought, I have to do this full-time because everything in my life changed internally.

Nothing on the outside changed my, I still had teenage PA kids. My parents were still declining. I still lived in the same place, but everything about my life felt different. I was deeply connected to the people in it, to the work I was doing to every part of my life. I felt more connected, more joy, more present in my life than I had in years, and I thought, I didn’t know that it was possible to change my life without [00:04:00] blowing it up.

And when I discovered that that was possible, I thought I have to help other people do this too. Wow.

[00:04:08] Changing Lives as a Coach

Miriam: So in general, you help other people how they can change their life without blowing it up? . That’s a nice tagline.

Anne: Yeah. I mean, not, you know, when I was in my coaching program, the people who I really resonated with.

Were the other men in my program who had, who were leaving big jobs or positions of leadership or And, and which is not to say that only the men in my program were doing that, but they were going through an identity crisis. The men in particular were going through an identity crisis that involved their work.

If I am not this person who I have so deeply invested in professionally and, and this persona that I have, that I put out there publicly, who am I? If I’m not a lawyer? If I’m not this intellectual, [00:05:00] you know, whip, smart, hard, edged attorney, , who am I? Who have you and I that I really, that was the struggle I was having.

And that first weekend in Ipec, I felt like my, I, I’ve said this often, but I felt like. I was unzipped and my heartfelt fell out and I thought, what is this? What? I don’t know what this is, . I didn’t know that this was part of me, that it was something I had permission to use and that it in fact held most of my power, and that was the changing point for me, that I am so much more than this identity.

and in fact, there’s so much more power in me than I, than I ever imagined.

Miriam: I love that you’re one of the only one of the few women coaches that I know that specifically, I wouldn’t say target men, but you’re not afraid to work with men.

Return on Investment

Many women coaches [00:06:00] only work with women and I think something that I felt a kinship with is, I would say probably 80% of my clients are men something that I think you have conquered better than I have is that I noticed on your website you talked a lot about joy and the increasing of this and different things, and I have found myself hesitant to.

Talk about some of the softer spaces because I’m afraid that I will be I don’t know, dismissed, I guess is the sort of word. And so I talk about ROI and your business will do X. And it’s true. Any of the business owners who care about return on an investment.

At least doubled, if not tripled their revenue. Now, I’m not gonna take credit for that. They did the work, but I was walking along on the path. So I talk about ROI and all this stuff, but what I would like to talk about is that when you get your life in [00:07:00] order, you experience more joy. And when you experience this joy and this freedom, you start doing good for other people.

That’s where my heart really lies, and I know that you have some of that same thing, so I’d kinda like to hear where you got the courage to just be you and let the chips fall where they may.

Anne: Yeah, it’s such a great point, Miriam, because I felt the same way. I mean joy. The only thing less real than a life coach is joy.

Feeling Joy

I had never used any of that language . You know, total bs both of those things. It, it was my mindset. And yet it was true. I had this moment of clarity for myself that what I needed in my life, what was missing in my life was joy.

And when I had that moment, Miriam, I was like, what, is that? I’ve never used that word in my life. But I, I [00:08:00] also had a, a moment of clarity that what brought me most joy, where I felt most alive in life was when I felt connection when I felt deeply connected to the work, to the person, to the conversation, to the whatever it was I was involved in.

And yeah, it took me a little while to To call BS on myself and really say those things out loud. It took me, I really fought, I mean, I was in that program for a full year and I never ever thought I’d call myself a life coach. You know?

I was like, well, I’ll be an executive coach or a career coach, I’m a life coach. It because whatever the external issues are, it’s about how you show up. In your life, how do you show up? How do you lead yourself? And you get that figured out. All external obstacles will shift.

That was a turning point in my early career as a coach when I started sharing my own story, because that’s what people [00:09:00] resonated with, men and women. All of my clients resonated with that moment of, there is something missing in my life.

It’s making all the other stuff around me hard, and I know there’s a shift in me that needs to happen.

[00:09:20] Phases in Anne’s Life

Miriam: Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. So well said. I was thinking earlier about the phases in our life and how each phase maybe has a tagline, and I wondered if you would walk me through some of the phases in your life and how your mentality shifted.

Anne: It’s an interesting question. I don’t know that my brain works that way. Mm-hmm.

I don’t know that I think about things in terms of, you know, when I was in my twenties, I, I will say I, my. I have three children and my first two are in their [00:10:00] twenties.

And so I remember the angst of my twenties. There was a lot of angst in my twenties. Stress. I remember that.

Miriam: Yeah, just I, I remember that in my twenties too. And I also have children in their twenties and I’ll, we’ll have a conversation and they’ll bring up some sort of something, an issue and I’ll.

Unfortunately be a little too coachy or momish with them and say, well, you could do X or you could. And unfortunately, sometimes I say, well, you should just do X. You should just say X. And then I have to catch myself. Well, my daughter is savvy enough to say, well mom, when you are my age, could you have done or said that?

Right? And I’ll say, no. Right? No, I couldn’t have. And but then I say, but you. You were raised by me, so I’m pretty sure you can do it now. . Yeah.

Being Ready to Change

Anne: You, so that bring, that brings up an interesting point and I think [00:11:00] it, it goes to both the, maybe the blocks you have around using those, the words of the soft skills and also of those moments of transformation that we’ve all experienced or have yet to experience, which is, until somebody’s really ready for it, until they’ve reached that moment where the cost of not doing it, of not stepping forward totally is too high.

They won’t do it. You can, you can say it until you’re blue in the face to somebody, but they have to be ready for it. And so part of what I do as a coach is

It’s not my plan. It ha it’s not my process. It has to come from you. And so if you are not understanding that, the answer lies within you. And if you’re not ready to really face that, you’re not ready for coaching. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that happens, you know, I get people who. [00:12:00] They want me to tell them how to do X or just give me the process.

And you know what? As a former attorney, I love to tell people what to do. , one of the reasons I thought I would never give it up. I love to tell people what to do, what I have discovered by becoming a coach when I, when I became, became a coach, and again, something I never thought I would, I would believe in is it, is there is so much more joy and so much more power in watching somebody else come to their own solution.

Mindsets

and then it’s more sustainable for them. It’s something that they have ownership over that they can do themselves, and it takes such practice for me to be quiet and really create the space for someone to do that, to ask them questions that help them to pull out the answers [00:13:00] from deep within, but that’s so much more fun than just telling somebody what to do.

Yeah.

Miriam: Well, and when you tell someone what to do, they tell you all the reasons why it won’t work. , which is no fun at all. . So I hear and agree for sure. Yeah,, one of the things I like to talk about on the podcast are mindsets because I believe that. Your actions come from your thoughts or sometimes your feelings.

And I, it’s a debated, do your feelings create your mindsets, which create your actions or vice versa. I’m sure over the course of your lifetime, you’ve had some mindset changes that you have said, I used to think this and this kind of self sabotaged myself. Now I’m thinking this, and it’s opened this space in a way that I hadn’t anticipated, and I wondered if you would share a story or two about that.

Anne: I used [00:14:00] to be and still am very, very hard on myself. That was, I would say an overarching predominant trait, very hard on myself. The biggest mind shift I have had in the last.

10 years is that it isn’t about me. It isn’t about me. Hmm. And that makes so much more room for so many other things to come forward.

Miriam: Yeah. Define it a little bit because I think we could take that a variety of different ways. What isn’t about you?

[00:14:44] Getting and Giving Answers as a Coach

Anne: Sure. Well, the difference between giving somebody an answer and letting them figure out an answer that works for them is my ego.

It’s either you’re listening to me, give you the answer, and then I’m the expert , and it’s about, aren’t I so [00:15:00] smart? Aren’t I so clever? Yeah, I have the right answer, versus. Creating a space for you to find your own answer is not about me at all. It’s about you. So I, I think about that in terms of, you know, coaching.

I think about that in terms of parenting. I didn’t have children for me, I had children. For them. So their lives are not about me. Their lives are about them, and it gives me the ability to give them some space to grow and make mistakes and not be worried that it’s a reflection of me or about my parenting or what I did or didn’t do.

I think about that too in the work I am doing. In the advocacy work that I’m doing, I don’t know if I’ve shared this with you, but I’m working with a [00:16:00] group of coaches who are also former law enforcement and we’re working on, working on evolving the culture of law enforcement.

If I made it about me, That this is something I was doing or responsible for, I would be limiting what’s possible in the outcome because it’s all about stepping away from ego and opening up a space of humility.

Making it Smaller

What is there to learn here? What opportunities are here? How am I showing up to this? What am I learning about how I’m showing up to this? It’s expansive. It goes from, you know, like needing an outcome, expecting an outcome, being disappointed if that outcome doesn’t come. I mean, even as I’m talking about it, I’m getting smaller and smaller.

Right. Narrower and narrower. Into this expansiveness this. What else [00:17:00] is happening? What else is possible? If it’s not about me, what else is happening here? Yeah. And what am I not seeing or what can I see now that I didn’t see before? Cuz I was so focused on self.

Miriam: Sure. Let me, let me zoom out just a teeny bit because you had mentioned one time that you were working on these projects and I have been fascinated by it, so I’m so glad you brought it up.

I think my initial curiosity goes back quite a bit to say, how did you get involved in this to begin with? Like I, I agree with you entirely. In this expansive space, you’re trying to not only create but nurture and help other people in and help people in law enforcement see things differently, but let, can you get like super concrete mm-hmm.

Getting Involved

and say, this is what was happening. This is the need I saw. This is how I got involved. [00:18:00] Because I think that there are a lot of people. Who have these skill sets and they want to do good and they don’t know how or where to get involved, and it seems so messy, and I only have so much time and they end up writing a check.

Well, nobody writes checks anymore, but they end up sending a credit card payment to someone. Out there. I’m gonna even put that in air quotes. Someone out there who’s doing something and you know, I support these projects that are out there somewhere, but I’m also always asking the question, how can I do something locally?

And I do not have an answer for that because it’s, yeah. It’s overwhelming. It’s weird. It, it’s not weird, but it’s, there’s weirdness to it.

[00:18:42] A Messy Process

Anne: When you used the word messy, which is a thousand percent. Yeah. I will absolutely be concrete about this. When Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, I was on fire. On fire because Yeah.

COVID had hit and the world came to a complete halt. [00:19:00] Yeah. Everybody in the world, it turns out the world can stop for a moment. It turns out we all can stop what we’re doing and pay attention to something. Mm-hmm. . So that was that was a moment of major clarity for me and I. Everybody we talk about it’s too late.

It’s too late to turn the ship around, or it’s too late. It turns out we can all stop literally and pay attention to one thing. Mm-hmm. as a world. And then Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd and I went on fire because I used to be a defense attorney for the poor, and that was a moment. It’s not that we can’t stop racism.

It’s not that we can’t address. Racism. It’s that we don’t want to . And it turns out that the world can look at this and is looking at this and here’s a moment.

And I, I was [00:20:00] at that time a coach and I had found this light in me that was lit up. And I, you know, I had gone from this fire of law into this light of coaching and the fire.

Sprang right back and I thought, tag me in. I gotta get back in the trenches there. I, I gotta, I’m gonna leave coaching, I gotta reinstate my law license, I gotta, I gotta get back in. Coach put me in,

Coach Training and What If’s

and then somebody in my IPEC Facebook group asked the question, what if law enforcement had gone through the coach training that we went through, what would be different? Oh my gosh, yes. In that, in that outcome and what would be different for George Floyd? And that moment just blew my brain open and I thought,

I don’t know the answer to that, but I am really curious about it

there is so much that is hard in this culture in in that is That is really hard in law enforcement and we, you know, having this training has [00:21:00] changed my life completely. And it, it showed me the humanity of law enforcement. Mm-hmm. and I mm-hmm. . That’s, that’s the, that’s the current, I stand in the love of humanity and I thought, what, what is possible here?

And I was a coach for men and I was really drawn to ask these questions and to listen. And again, here I am on fire, here I am in advocacy mode, and that there was ego in this. Like, I’m gonna come in here with my coaching skills. I’m gonna turn this ship around , I’m gonna, I’m gonna teach everybody how to do this.

Well, of course, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Curiosity

I was so curious about this experience of law enforcement and what made me most curious were people of color in law enforcement and the pain that, that they were experiencing. [00:22:00] Yeah. On so many ends, and I.

I, I can be in this space. I don’t wanna be in this space, but I can be in this space. Mm-hmm. There is clearly a need here for. Coaching in law enforcement.

Miriam: Can I pause you for a second and ask? Yeah, please. How did you even start the conversations? Did you go down to your local precinct and say,

Anne: no, no, no, no. It was, this was all online. This was all in first it was in this IPEC Facebook group.

Okay. So that’s where it was happening.

[00:22:31] Having a Conversation

Anne: So I start, I kept, I just kept, you know, let’s ha let’s jump on a call and let’s have this conversation. And I started Just saying, you know, we’ll have a meeting. Let’s just have a, let’s have a conversation. And so I start, because we were all in lockdown. Sure. And were some of those people in, in law enforcement?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so, And then other people got very interested and started coming into these meetings. There were a lot of people talking about it and so there was a lot of presence on clubhouse [00:23:00] by law enforcement wanting to talk about the culture of law enforcement and where it needed, I don’t even wanna say the word help, cuz that was the word I was using originally. Yeah.

Where it needed attention and where were opportunities for change and where they were hungry for change. And I think that’s what was so astonishing to me was that, that the people kept, who kept saying, you’re onto something. Keep asking these questions, keep holding these forums, keep reaching out, keep making this space.

Were all people in law enforcement.

And so it just snowballed. I mean incrementally, I should say incrementally. I spent, I wanna say a year and a half in constant conversation with a small group of us two people who. Retired law enforcement. One person whose father had been in law enforcement was a person of color and me having very messy, very challenging, very [00:24:00] love-filled conversations about their experiences and what we saw as problems.

Blind Spots

And really leaning into our own blind spots, what we didn’t know and how we were showing up in ways we didn’t realize. We did a lot of work and it was messy and it was hard, and It wasn’t easy, but we kept showing up to it because it was so grounded in love.

I had thought I was, you know, wide awake to racism and to my own biases and I thought I was an advocate and I realized that a lot of that was Words and not actions.

I did not at all understand the difference between not being a racist and being an anti-racist. I did not understand that at all, . I couldn’t see where I had kind of turned a blind eye [00:25:00] or where I had been unwilling to be uncomfortable.

And it, it’s hard to even, it’s hard to even. I mean, it’s still present. It’s still present. It’s an ever, it’s sort of like, you know, any practice, you never master it. It’s,

Miriam: no, you just continually become more of this other thing that you’re focusing on.

Help Again, I’m gonna ask you to get a little more concrete.

The difference between being.

You’re gonna have to even say the words not racist versus anti-racist. What did that mean in terms of your actual behaviors? Because again, ideas and mindsets turn into actions at some point.

Anne: Yeah, I mean there are, so, there are so many. Ways in which I, I recognized I recognized that difference, you know, both in conversation, both, you know, when somebody [00:26:00] says something, That’s a little like, Hmm.

Recognition

What are they, what were they saying there? Or, I’m not sure. I, I’m, I’m not really sure what that was, but I don’t really wanna go there instead of just saying, tell me what you meant when you said that, or, tell me, tell me what you’re thinking there and really going towards it as opposed to away from it.

Mm-hmm. . I think one of the things that you were, you were just touching on is, For me, it was the recognition that it isn’t about me and that that’s what I meant more concretely that, that the. That the conversations that the learning I was having, the more I recognized this wasn’t about me and my ego, am I wrong?

Am I right? What if I say the wrong thing? What if I, you know, how do I do the right thing? That’s all ego. That’s all about self.[00:27:00] What was more what I was able to show up to more joyfully.

connected to was curiosity. Tell me what you’re thinking and, and where did that come from and where does that show up for you and how does that feel for you and what else might be happening? It’s not about me being right, it’s about me being curious and it just, curiosity creates.

Miriam: So when you’re curious and you create space for the other person, what what do you see that doing for them?

[00:27:38] Creating Connection

Anne: Creating connection? Yeah. One of the things I just wrote down last night.

I care less about what you believe in. I care more about how you feel. Mm-hmm. , because I have felt the same things. Mm-hmm. . And as soon as I see [00:28:00] you in your, as soon as I can hear you and see you and feel you in your feelings, I connect to you and then you can connect to me. And that’s the bridge between us.

Right, right. That’s, that’s where the magic happens, I think, in that space where, You create enough space that that person feels seen, now they’re able to do some big things things that they might not have been able to do before.

Anybody who wants to do something big, and I assume, I hope the people who are listening to this want to do something big and meaningful with their life. I wanna do something big and meaningful. Well, that starts. Little concrete actions of seeing and listening and being curious and understanding, and out of that space something new happens, [00:29:00] a response is different, or an action is different, and the machinery of better living moves forward. You know, I think so much of the bad living that’s happening is out of thoughtlessness and rote habit where people aren’t actually thinking about, what does this mean that I am doing X? There’s no thought about that.

I, I, I disagree. I think there is a lot of fear. I think there is a lot of fear.

Big and Meaningful

When you say something big and meaningful, when I was an attorney, I wanted to do something big and meaningful because that was about me. Mm-hmm. . Now I just wanna show up in love and connect. And it changes what happens. And so this work I’m doing with law enforcement, it doesn’t [00:30:00] have to be big and it doesn’t have to be meaningful.

I just have to be present to it and show up in love and connect. And the outcome is I may never see it, and that’s okay. I may never know it, and that’s okay. It’s made a big difference in my life.

Miriam: Sure. So I love that you would push back and disagree, . We’re gonna, we’re gonna circle around to that later, but I’m gonna push back on your pushback. If we were playing, you know, a game of cards and you trumped something, I would trump over it and say Yes. But in, in my opinion, That is doing really big things to see people, to get people talking where they formerly weren’t talking.

I think it’s Mother Teresa who said something about remember the little things are the big things, and to, to get to a space where people will be [00:31:00] vulnerable enough to actually talk and see each other is huge.

To get people from different races and different walks of life. And different genders to have these kinds of conversations where the paradigm can be shifted to get ego out of the way enough to have some sort of forward movement. I think that is a big thing, you know?

Empathy

So I wanna take a little bit of a pivot here and something that I have respected about you is your ability to have high empathy. I think you said something about on your website, I have enormous empathy but no tolerance for BS , and that is a really unique.

Gap to span because I find, I mean, if, if we wanted to jump into the spiritual language, speaking the truth and love, there are many people who can speak the truth and they don’t do it in a loving way [00:32:00] whatsoever, . And there are many people who are incredibly loving and they don’t have the ability to just call a spade a spade.

Where, where’s this skillset coming from? If someone wanted to grow in their ability to do that, how would you coach them to grow?

Anne: I think kindness is clear. I think clarity is kind. Yeah. So it, that is a work in progress for me.

But you know what’s interesting? Empathy is not about holding somebody else’s stuff. It’s about seeing it. Mm-hmm.

allowing them to put it down, but seeing it. BS is picking it up. I, I don’t have time, patience, or interest in picking up anybody else’s stuff. . Yeah. I got enough of my own . Yeah. Yeah. And I think that I see clearly.

No Drama

Why? What is this thing? You’re, what’s all, you’re coming to me with all this noise or this [00:33:00] drama? Why? I don’t, I don’t want this. This isn’t mine. This doesn’t belong to me. Have at it, but you know, I’m not, I’m not here for that . Yeah, no, I, you know, that I, that has, that has not served me in some ways. I think, you know I didn’t have a lot of friends girl friends when I was a kid.

I think that was I, I wasn’t, I didn’t understand drama. I didn’t understand like the, the noise. I was like, I don’t, this is not interesting to me. I don’t, I don’t care about it. And so definitely there is you know, being very empathetic doesn’t always mean you’re cuddly, right? So, there’s definitely been moments in my life where I’m like, Ooh, I don’t think that landed well, because, you know, I think somebody really wanted me to be cuddly there, and I was like, yeah, I see you and you’re full of it.

Like you like, you know, you’re, this is like, this is stuff you’re buying into because it allows you to avoid the stuff you don’t wanna do. That [00:34:00] doesn’t always go well with people. .

Miriam: No, but wow, that’s powerful because very, very few people are willing to say, I see you, but also this thing, this thing that you’re doing, it’s not serving you.

[00:34:15] People’s Needs

Anne: It’s such a mean thing to say to somebody , like, not everybody needs that. I, I have had to learn to ask and I’m not, not always good about that. How do you want me to show up here? Do you want me to show up? You know, sympathetic sympathetically, are you asking for comfort?

Cuz I don’t always know it. . Yeah. Are you asking for coaching? Are you asking for Sometimes people don’t need to hear. That’s not serving you. They know it’s not serving them. Mm-hmm. , but they’re not ready for change, you know?

I have definitely lost friendships over it. People who want are very happy in their misery and would like company there and. I don’t, I just don’t do it. Sorry.

Miriam: Well, you offer many things, but that’s not one of [00:35:00] them. You know, I, I do think it’s a superpower because many people, you know, are so far one direction or the other, and you’ve managed you’ve managed to live in that space.

That’s powerful. I see you, but this is yours and I I don’t wanna take it on, so I’m not gonna give you even a seconds of letting you feel like maybe you should be something else cuz No, that’s, that’s, and and do you even know that it’s yours? You know, are you even aware that this is yours? Right, right. I do think over time Some of my clients whom I have coached have learned how to say, I know this isn’t serving me, but I’m just wanting to say it for a second.

Creating Space

Yeah. And I’m like, no problem. Yeah, totally. No problem. Totally. Yeah. As long as you’re aware, you’re welcome to. I mean, I had somebody say the other day to me, I know this is what’s going on and I have no intention of changing it at present. And I said, good to [00:36:00] know. Yeah, that’s good. I won’t bug you about it.

Anne: Yeah, . And I have to say, you know, as a coach and, and as a person, I, I think it’s really valuable to, to a, to create a space for somebody to come in and put all their stuff down. . That was something that when I was, when my kids were becoming teenagers and before I became a coach, I realized they were not actually asking me to pick it up for them.

Yeah, yeah. They were just asking for a safe place to put it down. Yes. So that was, you know, before I was be becoming a coach, and I recognize that in order to be that person, in order to create that space for my kids, I had to be quiet. I had. , I had to manage my own stuff so that I wasn’t putting that on them when they came home either.

Being Messy

Mm-hmm. . And so I shifted how I was working so that when they came home from school, I was quiet and calm. Yeah. And they could come in and be messy. And [00:37:00] I don’t just mean physically, but like emotionally just, or quiet, and then put it all down. And then they could decide what parts they wanted to pick up or not put up, pick up.

And I, I do that for my clients as, as well. And I, it’s, it’s such a simple thing. It’s just not easy to do, but it is so simple and so useful. Yeah. Oh, what a good skill.

Miriam: Oh my goodness. Anne, this has been such a great conversation. I feel sad that I’m gonna need to draw it to a close. Given your schedule and my schedule, I wanna ask one other quick question before I have you tell how people can reach out to you.

[00:37:41] Finding Anne

Miriam: What is a book that you feel like has shaped your thinking of late or you just feel like has been a value?

Anne: The Art of Possibility by rosemond Xander and Ben Xander is a really, really great book about. [00:38:00] Changing your mindset. Not necessarily even changing your mindset, but just seeing things a little differently and opening up possibility as a result.

Miriam: Wonderful. That’s great. I love these book recommendations.

I generally read every single one, and that’s one I haven’t read yet, so thank you. How can people find you?

Anne: Well They can visit my website, which is anne roach coaching.com. I also have a space where I have some podcasts and stories@fireandlight.org. But I. I am less interested in people finding me and more interested in people finding themselves.

So , . Spend the time asking yourself those questions to to everyone in your audience. Yes. What is it? What is it? If it weren’t about you, what else might be happening? What else might be [00:39:00] possible?

Miriam: I love that. Oh my goodness. Well, before we started this conversation, I mentioned that we like to do a donation in your name to one of three charities and you chose Mercy Ships.

Such a great charity. They give free surgeries to people in need. And the more I hear about kind of your background, that makes sense to me why you chose them. So we’ll do that as soon as we get off there, here, and This has been great. Thank you, Anne. So generous of you, Miriam. Thank you. And it’s such an honor to be here.

Thank you so much.

 

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

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