Welcome to one of the newest SunLeaders podcasts called Conscious Connections. I’m Carol Hasbrouck and I followed my inner voice and ended up traveling 10,000 miles of miracles. I wrote a book about it.

You can find it on Amazon.com it’s called 10,000 Miles of Miracles. It came about because I listened to and followed what my still small voice, what I call my inner guidance system, told me to do. At SunLeaders, we are all about the various forms of leadership, including servant leadership, and this was an example of that.

This podcast is going to teach you how to find your inner guidance system, how to know and differentiate it from your ego voice and what you can do with it. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and we never quite know what’s going to happen when we follow our inner guidance. It’s my great honor and I’m excited that my first guest today is Eric Nutting of the Growth Coach.

And it is a global business coaching company that works with small business owners everywhere to transform their businesses and reclaim their lives. Instead of being owned by your business, they help you slow down, take a step back, and then move forward with confidence and clarity about what needs to be done. He and his wife Diane use a holistic science based approach combining training, consulting, coaching and diagnostics to help you get the results you want.

Now here’s the fun part. Eric has been an actor, a voiceover artist and an appraiser and he’s an entrepreneur to his core. He and Diane have been married for over 35 years and have five kids.

Their holistic approach to health and life led them to start the Growth Coach business and help others find balance and success in their business and everyday life. I met Eric a couple of weeks, maybe a month ago, and we became fast friends. I joined SunLeaders because he invited me to attend and it’s just a dynamic group of people.

They are actually going to be reading my book next quarter for the Sun Readers episodes for the Sun Readers sessions and I’m excited about that. So Eric and I was a guest on his podcast last month and I asked him to be my first guest. So say hi Eric, hello, thanks for having me.

And we were talking just before the mics went live and we. I just listened back to our interview and it’s a fantastic interview. So if you want to get to know either one of us after you listen to this, pop onto that one because you get to share, you, Carol, share a whole bunch about this journey specifically and what the what you wrote about in this book.

So we’re awesomely excited to dig into this book in July, when we’re starting. In July. July.

And then hopefully encourage people and get them kind of excited to start their own journey, wherever that may take them. I think that’s the, that’s the thought process, right? Yes. Through this, what do you do next? That’s, that’s the call to action, I think, on this.

Yes. And so just briefly, what inspired me to write the, to take the journey and then ultimately write the book was I got laid off from work and I pretty much thought my life was over. I had been in the mortgage industry for 23 years and it was during the Great Recession, so it wasn’t anything I had done.

However, it was devastating. And I stopped. And after I cried a lot, I stopped and said, okay, I can’t figure this out.

And for me, when I have a problem greater than myself, I turn it over to who I call God. And the question that was immediately given to me was, well, if you could do anything and time and money didn’t matter, what would you do? And. And I decided I would help people and travel.

That’s what I love doing. So the book tells you about that. And what I’d like to know, Eric, is when was the last time you had a catastrophe or a challenge that was really big in your life and you had to turn it over to something and ask yourself, where do I go from here? And through that process, were you able to tap into your inner guidance system and follow direction? Wow, that’s really, really interesting as I think about that, because I always talk about control.

What can we control? What should we control? And I find that most of us are defined by these big moments that you’re speaking about. It’s usually connected to some form of loss and I pray against it because nobody likes to go through those challenges. But they’re inevitable.

They come up. I think once we hit a few of those big challenges, the ones that come after it don’t necessarily feel familiar, but they’re given perspective. So for me, specifically, the last major.

I wouldn’t even say the last. I would say a life changing, altering moment for myself and Diane was losing a child. Two sets of twins.

I don’t know how old I was in my 30s maybe somewhere, but I can tell you life changed in that moment. A set of twins, one was stillborn. I just immediately looked at life differently from that point forward.

So this is now almost 25 years ago. Roughly from that moment forward, I have looked at the world through a different lens. I now don’t look at these things in my life as major events or challenges.

So since then I’ve had a lot of loss. My mother has died, my father has died, There’s a house fire that took the home that I lived in to the ground. People come and go.

I’m getting older, I watch people move on, but I don’t look at these. And I certainly have been through multiple businesses and careers, but I don’t look at them as life altering. I look at them as part of the flow of life, if that makes sense.

And it helps me get through the day to day. And I do that interestingly, because this is what you talk about in the book and what you and I spoke about in our last conversation. A huge part of who you are and a huge part of what I coach on, which is purpose.

If we can connect into that. These so called things that seem life altering maybe aren’t so life altering as we once thought they were. It’s simply life in its day to day process.

So I would be hard pressed to find one significant event since that loss that has really moved me in the same sort of way. I do know that I felt numb and helpless when I lost my dad in a house fire. But that’s because all of a sudden I had so much responsibility and I was just kind of being pushed and pulled with by the different forces of what I had to participate in.

And then, you know, there have been various relationship challenges that just kind of come and go with a long life. But beyond that, it’s a really great journey. It’s a really great journey.

I. I tell people that through this all, I love the darkest moments. Maybe not while we’re living it. Sure.

But on the other side of it, they’re great. I can’t think of a better thing to do than to breathe air and see what’s next. I mean, that’s pretty exciting.

And that kind of speaks a little bit to the adventure you went on. Right. You cried a little bit.

I get it. There’s a loss. There’s also.

And I want to talk to you about this a little bit, kind of an identity shift, isn’t there? It’s like, okay, this is who I am, this is what I was, and you’re taking this away from me and I don’t do this anymore. What do I do? And you said, let’s go on, on an adventure. Yes.

And that’s really how we look at this whole life thing. This whole life thing is just an adventure. Sometimes I think we take it too seriously, you know, we do.

Can we play a game? Can we have fun with this a little bit? Well, I think we are playing a game, actually. Do you? Yes, I do. What do you mean by that? Well, I think life is about playing a game and not taking it so seriously.

I have very often taken it too seriously. And then life events like you had. I had a son who was holding onto a car.

Yeah. Holding onto a car and a skateboard, and the skateboard fell apart. And he’s fine, by the way.

I always like to start the story with that. But he went into a coma. Full life support.

In a coma for a while. Took a couple years to rehabilitate. Couldn’t.

He hit his left side of his brain so he couldn’t do math, and he left. We got him tutors, but let me tell you what, he recovered. But I don’t look at things like I used to.

And that happened in 2000, you know, 24 years ago. 24 years ago. And he was 15 years old, and the doctors didn’t think he was going to recover.

And he did. In fact, they call him a medical miracle. And so I said to the doc, I said, well, you know, Doc, there’s a power greater than you and I, and I have people all over the world praying for him.

And the doctor just rolled his eyes at me, and I looked at him and I said, you’re the one that called him a medical miracle. Right. So where’s the miracle? Right.

But the point is just like. And I want to acknowledge and tell you that I’ve never experienced that. My mother did experience it.

So I got a little bit of the taste of what that must have felt like. But I just want to tell you and Diane that blessings to you, because that’s got to be probably the hardest thing you’ll ever go through. Well, you know, that’s interesting.

First of all, thank you for that. I speak with people now. I get to hear a lot of problems.

It’s one of the things I like about my job, my life, my purpose. I like to absorb these sort of challenges people have. That dear friend of mine lost his adult, and I’m a motorcycle rider, so I put it in perspective.

But he lost his adult son on the motorcycle. So I don’t know how we measure loss. Measuring loss is like measuring a life.

There’s no way to do it. It’s all important. So my loss is no greater than your loss.

It’s no greater than. It’s all equal in that standpoint. So that’s what troubles me when I and I just had a conversation before you and I and you and I had a chance to sit down about inclusivity, about, you know, making sure everybody has a chance to be part of the conversation, a chance to be heard and participate.

Every life is of value, and I. I think every life is of equal value. Exactly. I really, you know, my loss is very personal to me, but I’d never want to talk about, you know, when people always try to connect with each other.

Oh, I know. You mean I had this happen is to me, like, okay, well, it kind of negates the other person’s experience to a certain extent. Can I just be there for you? Absorb and be present and maybe we’ll talk about mine some, but I don’t know.

It’s just in context of the conversation, right? Yes, it is. So it was life. It was a defining moment.

Absolutely. For sure. And you say now you look at life differently.

And whenever I have something that’s painful, physically painful, I gave birth to two children, and the first one, I didn’t. I wouldn’t take any drugs or any epidural or anything. And so whenever.

Whenever I have. They stick a needle or they cut me or whatever, it’s not as painful as that was. So I know I’ll live through.

Just gives context to it, you know. So you mentioned purpose. I’d like to talk about purpose because my purpose here on earth is to share, and I do that through teaching and writing.

And my sharing is my life experience. That’s what we all can share. Right.

And what I’ve learned and how I can help others. Part of this journey that we took with the Dames Gone Wild, which, by the way, is what we named ourselves for this journey because we were two women in our 50s and 60s sleeping on couches and vagabonds, basically. But the purpose for this.

One of the purposes for this journey was to repurpose women who feel like they’ve had some kind of a loss in maybe later on in life. And because we can’t. You mentioned image and identity.

And we kind of have identified as women, as caregivers and mothers and daughters, taking care of parents and wives and taking care of husbands. And not that we didn’t have a career and all of that, but that wasn’t. The identity tends to be nurturing and taking care of others, for sure.

And so there’s a lot of women that have had many different kinds of losses. And we were out spreading the love and helping women, they’d say, man, you’re so courageous. I can’t believe you two are doing this.

And we’d say, well, you can do this too. And through sharing our story, we had a couple of women say, you know, I’ve been wanting to write this book and I’m worried about what my church will say about it or I don’t think my husband will like that. I’m going to blah, blah, blah.

And we’d say, go for it. And so tell me about your purpose, Eric. My purpose has changed since that life defining moment for me.

I thought the world revolved around me. I thought I was supposed to go climb mountains and conquer cities. Right.

Much the way men of my generation absorbed the world and even were raised. And then I realized through conflict and challenges that my partner purpose had to be to support those beings. And I don’t mean just financially, that’s a component of it, but to support those beings that Diane and I brought into the world.

They’re not able to take care of themselves. They’re not supposed to take care of themselves. This is a big part of my coaching as well.

The thought process is I deliberately chose to get married and deliberately said to Diane, I love you, I’m there no matter what. We lose a child, her pain, even though I just said we can’t measure pain, if I knew what I was feeling, I could only imagine what she must be feeling. So my whole world shifted to how do I support these kids and how do I make her whole? And I spent as long as it took, a year, two years, three years, till we found our way again, found our footing.

So then that’s where I really started to define my purpose. And every conflict I have, I run through this idea of my purpose and my purpose statement and that is to be of support to those I love while helping people on the human journey. It’s that simple.

But it’s not simple. Helping people on the human journey, it, it’s powerful. I guess it can be simple and powerful at the same time.

Tell me how it’s simple for you. Well, you know, you mentioned that I had a background as an actor that’s a very sort of egocentric career and it wasn’t necessarily for me, but there’s still this weird out of body component to it where I go in an audition and there’s four people and I want to impress them so they give me a job so I can go impress hundreds or thousands. That was part of my world and my life.

And I always thought I had to be something for somebody else. Was I playing the role they expected me to play both in life and on the stage or in something. Once I realized that I no longer had to be a people pleaser, I could now be of service to people.

That’s a significant difference. So now to be of service, it’s no longer about me. Now I just get to find out what you need, what do you need and how do I help you forward.

I see. So now I don’t have to put on the tap shoes and sing the song and do whatever. I can be the quiet one in this.

In this exchange and in this coaching process. If I ask you the right questions collaboratively, we come to a good solution. So it’s never about any silly wisdom I have or anything else.

So, you know, I think. I think that’s my thought process on it. So I do think it’s simple to be present.

I do think it’s simple to. And it’s part of its ego management to a certain extent. Exactly.

Because you’re taking yourself out of it as much as possible. Right. And becoming an active listener.

Exactly. And then a problem solver. And that’s really interesting.

You say problem solver. I can talk about that specifically in my relationship with Diane because 35 years of marriage, 35 plus years. The.

There came a point, I want to say maybe like 20 years in or something where she would tell me her challenges and I went into fix it mode. Roll up my sleeves. Yeah, right.

I’m a man. I’m going to fix it. I’m going to man fix it.

And she finally just looked at me one day. She goes, look, I don’t need a solution to this. I just need you to listen to me.

And that immediately changed my perspective. I can’t say it changed my habits immediately, but it’s freeing to not have to have a solution. That’s why, you know, I’m not a consultant.

I’m not any of these sort of things. I just get to help you through whatever challenge you might be having in the moment. And that’s true to my family, that’s true to people I come in contact with.

Being of service in this human journey, I think is. Is what we are all designed to be. Absolutely.

We are here to serve one another. Right. That is our ultimate purpose in my mind.

And that’s how we get to community. Right. Yes.

We don’t live on an island by ourself, even if we’re all hermody. And I have these moments because I’m an introvert, but most people think I’m an extrovert. I’m so not.

I, you know, if I. And I love people, I mean, I just absolutely, positively love people, which is why I connect that to my purpose. But then I need to go by, be by myself, get on my motorcycle, go out to the ocean, rock myself back and forth in a corner, whatever it may be. I need those moments so I can go back out and do what I consider something that feeds my soul.

So. And feeding our soul is taking care of ourselves. Self care is so important and tricky.

Now that you just said the other part, I think self care is tricky sometimes. Okay, tell me about that. Well, I am a holistic coach, both a holistic life coach and a holistic business coach.

And just in case they don’t understand, tell us what that means. It’s in its entirety. So as we look at a human being, we talk about mind, body and spirit.

And I look at the mind, body and spirit of a business too. So it’s not just one thing or the other. So I believe that each human being deserves to thrive.

I don’t see why we would be here on this planet if that wasn’t something we were allowed to do. I don’t think we’re put here to suffer. I really don’t.

So through that thought process, it takes everything we’ve got to thrive. And I think balance, we coach a lot on balance. I think it’s an illusion.

Balance is temporary. But I think alignment and alignment with purpose is what makes us whole. So you talk about self care.

Am I healthy in my mind? Am I thinking, do I have good self talk? Am I looking at the world through a lens that creates good energy, vibrational energy? Am I contributing something positive in my thought process? Then we think about the body. Am I keeping myself? Am I fueling it the right way so I can get through a long day, so I can be of service to you and to others? And, and then spirit, do I connect with something greater than myself? That really gives us a deeper purpose and meaning to all of
this. That’s the thought process.

So that’s holistic. And we just take that concept and transfer it onto any business or organization. There is a mind, a brain trust to any business.

There is a body that performs that labor or provides that service. And then there’s a spirit that we connect to, purpose and mission to all of that. So if we can move all of that in the same direction, we’re thriving.

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Infoamaymondcreative.com that’s interesting. I have never looked at a business as having a mind, body and spirit, so I’m looking forward to learning more about that from you. I think at their best, they should.

Well, it makes sense. Yeah, of course. Right? It’s just another entity.

It’s just we’re all entities. And I liked what you said about that. We’re not.

You don’t believe we’re here to suffer. And one of my, one of the quotes I like is that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Oh, yeah, that’s good.

You know, we’re all going to experience pain and tragedy and things aren’t always going to go the way we rarely do. Things go exactly the way I want them to go. And I finally, after all my years here on Earth, realized that’s okay.

Right? That’s okay. Carol, what can you learn from this? Because everything in my life and everything I believe in, everybody’s life is either a lesson or a blessing. And the lesson is simply an unrealized blessing.

So I don’t see the blessing because I’m going through the muck or whatever that might be, and it seems like it’s hard or it should be different than what it is. Instead of saying, you know, everything happens exactly the way it’s supposed to happen. Life is not happening to me.

Life is simply happening. Right. And I get to observe how I react.

I don’t get to tell you how you should react, how you should look, what kind of clothes you pierce, Nothing. How you wear your hair. That’s not my business.

Right. My business is how I react, how I show up. I love what you just said because so many times we say, you said, life happens the way it’s supposed to happen.

Isn’t that what you said? What do most people say that I always struggle with? There’s a reason for it. There’s a reason for everything. Everything happens for a reason.

I’m not so sure I believe that. I like the way you look at that a lot better. Life happens the way it’s supposed to happen.

As opposed to say there’s a reason to always have to reason something that we would perceive as negative or hurtful or harmful. I’m not so sure. There’s always an easy way to do that.

Yeah. Well, it’s always our definition of what the reason is. So then it puts our perspective.

And yeah, my reason for everything is it’s either a lesson or a blessing. So I get to look at it and say, okay, so obviously I didn’t graduate that class the last time I dated that kind of man. And now I have that same kind of man with a different face face.

What’s my lesson? And if I can stop and really get that? Because the universe is so kind, the universe always gives us exactly what we need. I love that too. To graduate from the class we’re in, to think that the universe is so kind is a beautiful thing.

Oh, it is. Yes. It is.

Absolutely. So kind. And so when I talk about belief systems with people, I always say, has God ever let you down? And the answer? I’ve not heard anybody say yes yet.

Because when I work with people, we say there’s good and there’s bad and there’s right and there’s wrong. Fine, they exist. Super.

But if I can get you to throw those out the window. And as we work on things, if we can just say, listen, is this healthy or unhealthy? Those are the lenses I want us to look through when we work together. So to think that the world and God and the universe have this just endless amount of kindness for us.

I think that’s a beautiful space to be in. I do. I totally believe that.

I also believe everybody’s doing the best they can with what they know they do better. Yes. You know, so maybe some people aren’t behaving the way I want them to behave, but they’re.

If I was in their shoes, I would probably behave the same exact way. I only got to that place in my life about five years ago. And when I finally got there, it was so freeing to say, oh, they’re doing the best they can with what they know, with where they’ve been, with what they’ve walked through on this journey.

We helped the homeless people a few times, and in the beginning, I was quite nervous about it. I couldn’t look them in the eye. Now, I’d been giving them money on the street corners my whole life.

But when I had to be one on one and a person to person, it made me very nervous. Well, my fellow dame, Joyce, had no problem looking them right in the eye, patting them on the back, giving them a hug. And afterwards I said, how do you do that? And she said, what you talked about earlier, everyone deserves to be acknowledged.

Everyone wants to be acknowledged and loved. And so the second homeless shelter we went to, it was a little bit easier. And by the third one, I was hugging and bringing them to get their next plate of food and directly looking in their eyes.

So it’s just everybody’s if something, just one choice. Jordan and I were talking about this before we got here. If I had made one different choice in life, I could be that person on the street.

Yes, I think about that sometimes, too, for sure. So I am that. We said that many times, Joyce and I. I am that.

And that went for dogs that were unruly and people that looked different and acted different. But I want to get to the inner guidance part. So what do you call your inner guidance system? My training, a lot of my certifications are through the Church of Humanism.

I am not a humanist. I do believe that humans are God’s greatest creation. I connect to what I believe God to be.

And at my best, I stay connected, and at my worst, I run away. I think like all human beings do when they connect with whatever they believe in. So I’m very much at peace with my faith and my relationship with how I define God.

But I wasn’t. For the longest time, I thought I was supposed to worship and believe the way I was taught. I didn’t find it on my own, which is really interesting in context of parenting.

I thought that was a great gift for me to be able to find it on my own. So that’s what I wanted for my kids, too. So I have five remarkably diverse belief systems within my family, and I think as long as it’s serving them individually, it’s perfect.

I don’t think I should be the one defining belief systems for another human being. Exactly. And that’s a lot of what I do, too.

In fact, rarely would I even answer this question. But since I’m a guest on your. On your show, I feel inclined and honored to be able to answer it.

But when I sit with people, I say, listen, my belief system doesn’t matter. What matters is your belief system, and is it serving you, and are you serving it? If it’s not, there’s a separation. We got to figure this out.

Because if we’re thinking holistically, mind, body, spirit, the spirit is not in alignment. We got to figure out why it’s not. So that’s heaven when it’s all in alignment, and it’s hell when it’s not.

Yes, exactly. And it’s the most beautiful feeling to recognize that there is something that’s participating in our life beyond us. That’s probably the closest I feel to heaven in those moments.

I mean, my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my kids are as precious as a relationship can be. But nothing replaces that relationship you have with God. And I had this hardest time thinking, you know, love the Lord your God above all others, love the Lord your Father, above all others.

And I thought, why? Why, why? Why would I possibly love God above my wife or my family? And the reason is that I finally figured out is because it is, in context, the purest possible love. And if we can love in its purest form, then we can grant others that same love. That’s remarkably difficult to get to because of our ego.

But that’s how I ended up interpreting all that. That’s that unconditional love that we strive for. And I, frankly, only have it for my two children.

I can’t say I’ve ever unconditionally loved anyone except for my two boys. They could commit murder or whatever, the most heinous crime, and I still love them. I might not be real happy with them, but I would still love them.

And that’s what God does for us. And it starts with God, because God is love. But I want to get back to the inner guidance system.

So here’s a funny question. Don’t know if you’ve ever been asked. Do you hear voices in your head, Eric? No, I wouldn’t say I hear words.

So voices to that context. No words. Okay.

But I certainly have a feeling like I know when I am connected. And it’s always when I choose to be. There might be voices or entities trying to communicate with me, and I’m too stubborn to pay attention in those moments.

Or you just hear through your feelings. That’s all right. Yeah.

Yeah, so. But for me it has to be deliberate. Or maybe something has to shake me to be cognizant of it.

Perhaps. And do you, can you differentiate between that feeling and an ego feeling? I can and absolutely. What’s the criteria there? What’s the benchmark? Or.

Well, for me, it’s deliberate. I have to, I have to turn off the noise of the world. I mean, you know, how do you do that? I literally turn off anything that’s making noise.

That’s the first thing. And then I’ve got to get out by myself. I have to create my own space, you know, And I always tell people I don’t need control of anything but a six foot radius, which isn’t big.

Six foot radius around me, that’s all I want control of your hula hoop. I just want my hula hoop. Right.

And I can’t even make a hula hoop. Hula hoop. I’ve tried many times.

I can’t make it hoop. I’ve tried it before, but I just want that hula hoop. If I can create that space for myself, then I can connect and I can listen.

Listening is key to this. Oh, yes. We do lots of talking in our head, but not necessarily much listening, for sure.

And I don’t even know if necessarily I find answers as much as I find peace. And maybe peace is the answer. Everything’s fine in this moment.

It doesn’t have to be more than what this moment is. But what if, but, but, oh my gosh, how about if that doesn’t matter? In this moment, I’m safe and everything is fine. I think the challenge would be if maybe our safety was challenged in that moment.

And then where does our trust go in that moment? Most people turn back to that which they believe. Well, if we’re in alignment, I think we’re gonna feel safe in that peace. It’s that we jump out of that alignment and then we go, oh, wait a minute, gotta get back into that alignment.

Right. Because of that ego thing. Right.

And I do it frequently. There’s nothing wrong with our ego. We have to have an ego, but we can’t have it direct the show.

I do think my ego, certainly in my past, has directed the show a lot. And I always go, oh, I got this one, I got this. And then I always hit, inevitably I hit a dead end.

I’m not enough to make anything happen. And then it’s like, oh, well, we gotta take this journey again, this humble journey. Okay, well, I’m not enough.

I need help. Yeah, yeah. And that’s the important thing is to recognize that it’s bigger than me.

Right. You know, so do you have an intentional practice that you do a routine, perhaps that you do to get into that space? It’s a feeling more than a routine. And I always say people reach their capacity, but it would be even healthier if I did.

If I had a routine before I reached capacity. I tend to run really hard, reach capacity and reset. But.

And that’s not even how I coach. So I am a walking contradiction, of course. Well, we all are.

We teach what we need to learn the most, so. Absolutely. So if we could get in front of that and put good, healthy practices in place, then in theory, we would have that always elusive balance.

We would always be in balance. We just aren’t. Well, the balance.

I’m a new student of Tai chi, and, you know, it’s the yin and the Yang, and then there’s that line. It’s not about getting into the yin or the yang, it’s about staying on the line between. And that’s always moving.

It’s a fluid thing. And because balance was my greatest, I have a rock on my dresser that says balance that I look at every single day. And the other one next to it says trust.

But the balance is definitely one of my biggest challenges because I can get out of balance and not want to work, and I can get out of balance and work too much. And so finding that fine line. What’s the connection between balance and trust for you? They’re words.

So the church I go to, we do a white stone ritual at the beginning of each year, and we find which word we want to focus on for that year. So last year, my word was balance. Gotcha.

And this year, my word is trust. The thought came to me. So I do hear voices in my head and have for years and years and more clear now on which ones are me or are the higher power the inner voice.

So my word for this year was trust. And one time I was listening to God talk to me and he said, do you believe in me? And I said, well, of course I believe in you. And he said, great, do you believe me? And I never thought about the difference of believing in God and believing what God tells me through the various sources.

I love the Bible, and so do I believe that God is going to take care of me, that everything is going to work out for my good, and he has a future and a purpose for my life. And so I’m working on that now. And that trust is part of that.

It’s been huge for me. That’s a really interesting way to look at this. Do you believe in me? Do you believe me? And you would think that both would have to be absolutely true.

Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes.

But the second one, the second question I had to stop and think and like, well, apparently not. So help me out here. Right.

So that’s what I’m working on now. And that’s great. It’s just part of being human.

Like, I believe we’re fully human and fully divine. And so my humanness is the one that needs all the lessons. The divine part is already perfect, whole and complete.

Nothing missing, nothing broken, nothing out of place. And the human part? Yeah, not so much. But that’s okay.

That’s okay. So a couple of questions I’d like to end with. Okay.

What is your favorite book? My favorite book for pleasure because it affected my life. In that hero complex I had as a young kid was the once and future King. I love any sort of Arthurian sort of story.

And the funny thing is I’m not really apt to fantasize the way some people do or fantasy yet. That is a full out, sort of, you know, fantastical journey. And I say this, I differentiate on this because Diane writes fantasy books.

She writes young adult fantasy books. And sometimes when she introduces an idea, I go, what do you. I don’t even.

I can’t even relate. I don’t even know what you’re talking about because I tend to be more, you know, I. Grounded would not seem like the right word. I just don’t tend to go out practical.

Yeah, practical would be a nice way to look at it. So she literally writes about fairies and spells and those sort of things. And I. And I just don’t get it.

But the once in future king is really what? Because might is right or, you know, Midas not right. And, you know, talking about how do we lead in communities? And that’s what really resonated with me. Perfect.

I read a lot of, like, business books now and they’re so not interesting. I don’t read for pleasure that much like I used to. Yes, it’s good to throw a few of those in every now and then.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. But I mean, as far as genre, I love any sort of like mystery or.

And I guess that’s a mystery is a fantasy different, sort of more fantasy oriented than you realize. But right now I’m reading like a book on war leaders and, you know, combat leaders and how they lead hundreds and thousands of people because I find it applicable and practical in the work I do. Great.

All right, last question. Who’s your favorite teacher of all time? The one that comes to mind so he must have had the greatest impact is Mr. Groom. But if I and he was my sixth grade teacher, so I was 1212 years old, I thought he was.

He was just a remarkably solid, sound human. He wasn’t particularly warm, he wasn’t particularly creative and I wouldn’t even say he necessarily inspired me. But this is what I admired about him.

I knew his yes was yes and his no was no. He had a really to my perspective as a 12 year old human, he had a strong compass on who he was and what he was doing and for all. And I was a good kid.

But as a horrible student and for as horrible as a student as I was, I found that he continued to invest in me and I appreciated that very much. But actually any teacher who actually invests in the process of education is gold to me as opposed to somebody who just didn’t know what else to do. And just like anybody who, you know, you like the experts, the people who truly invested in what they do.

So I’ve had tons of those. I’ve been in the public school system. I’ve been blessed with great teachers.

Wonderful. It makes such a difference. Yeah, for sure.

So tell us how to get in touch with you, Eric. It’s been such a pleasure talking with you and I want to make sure that people know how to reach you that are listening for having this went fast. Yes, it did.

So the Growth Coach, that’s our company enutting the growth coach.com so that’s E n u t T I n g@thegrowthcoach.com Shoot me an email and we’ll have a conversation. Thanks, Eric. Thank you.

So again, Eric and I are part of the Sun Leaders which is just a very dynamic group. Networking is part of what we do, helping each other grow our business. But the main thing is connection and just learning from one another.

So we’re really happy to be part of the Sun Leaders again. I’m Carol Hasbrouck and the book I wrote is called 10,000 Miles of Miracles. You can find it on Amazon.com and this isn’t an afterthought because actually how I make a living is I’m a memory maker.

I help people buy and sell real estate and I love what I do. So you can reach me@carol sellssaintpetmail.com that’s C A R O L S E L L S S T P e t e mail.com and when I came up with that email, I didn’t realize how many of those letters could blend in with a different letter. So please reach out to us both.

We’d love to hear from you. And I look forward to furthering my education and connection with Eric. Thank you, Eric.

Thank you, Sam.