Finding Your Purpose Jane Gardner

Welcome, everybody. This is Jane Gardner at Finding your Purpose TV. And today on our show, we have Andy McDowell. Andy is an engineer, so I have something in common with him. We know all about the same challenges of being engineers and being a technician, but he's also creative. So this is surprising because I know many engineers and they're not creative, so I'm going to be looking into that, really and he spent 22 years with the Boeing Company, where he always felt more like a life coach than an engineer and a boss. In 2002, he began his journey into entrepreneurship within a corporation when he was asked to develop an Aerospace design consulting business from scratch, wow, that would be hard, that would serve the global government market. Andy has a bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech in electrical engineering and a Master's degree in computer information systems from Georgia State. Naturally, his aviation work took him around the world and enabled him to work on many high profile projects like the Beijing and Sochi airports for their respective Olympic Games. So we're really excited to talk to Andy about basically his purpose and his journey from getting from where he was to where he is now. So, first of all, I better welcome you. Hi. Hi, Jane. Hi. Great to be with you today. Andy, maybe you could tell us. I'm really excited to find out how an engineer can become into the business that you're in. It sounds like your business actually did help you with Finding Your Other purpose. So my husband, he's never really a true engineer, but right now he has to work in engineering. So it's really exciting to see how you manage the journey. Just maybe I can help him get into his retirement. So Andy, please. How did you manage that? So I always had a love for airplanes, built the plastic models as a kid, was fascinated with the fact that such a heavy piece of metal could stay up in the air from that perspective. So I had the opportunity to coming out of grad school and got into a couple of companies that were aviation based, and the last one being that the United States largest exporter, dollar wise company called Boeing. True joy and passion in my life came to be, to be able to work for a company so involved in the aviation community however, it had little to do with electrical engineering. So everything that I learned how to do with airspace design, simulation, modeling, the work that we did was all on the job training, using my technical computer skills at first to help the smaller entrepreneurial company that I work for become digitized and help reduce their expenses by 75% in their delivery time to customers from about two weeks to a couple of days from that perspective. But it was along the journey, 22 years for the Boeing Company, come to find out about the part of the work that I did as I moved up the leadership chain that I enjoyed the most was the engagement with my team members and helping them to grow as individuals as well as growing their position in their careers giving me the most satisfaction and what got me out of the bed every morning regardless of where I was in the world. Because I was spending close to half of the year outside the office and somewhere in the world helping the government bring GPS technology into their flight and ground operations was what we were basically doing, trying to help them be more efficient in their operations using the GPS technology. Wow. Yeah. That's really important. Yeah. That's very exciting that you work for the Beijing and Olympics and everything like that. It must have been high pressure, but you like working with your team members instead of the high pressure. I'm sure. Yeah. So how did you evolve into another business? Obviously, there were certain changes in your position, but maybe you could tell us that. How did you get into coaching? Well, my goal, a career with the Boeing Company was to work for them for about 30 years, I made it to 22 when I, along with thousands of

Hello, everybody. This is Jane Gardner of Finding Your Purpose TV. And today we're talking to Michelle Castelli. Would you like the M Michelle or for official. You can put the M in . That's great. Yeah, we're talking to Michelle Castelli So let's talk to her. She's a wife and mother of three adult children and one adorable Beagle. Don't get me started. I love dogs. Oh, sorry. She is an author, speaker, and relationship coach. She helps men and women grow stronger, healthier relationships in these keys areas of their life journey, dating, marriage, and self and spiritual. Her professional background includes relationship work, counseling individuals, couples and families in both mental health and Ministry. She is a licensed social worker and a certified relationship coach and spiritual director. You'll have to tell me about that, Michelle, because I'm not sure what that is. And she loves helping others grow stronger, healthier relationships because an unhealthy relationship with self or partner affects all of your other relationships. You are so right, Michelle. So Michelle. And we've already got a couple of questions now. So let's say hello to you, Michelle, and thank you for coming by. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it. And welcome to everyone watching. Yeah, Michelle. So tell me, just because you got me curious, a spiritual director, is that a pastor or what is this? No, I worked in Ministry settings at one point and received my certification in spiritual direction to work with people who were struggling with some spiritual issues. Okay, great. So, Michelle, I'd like to find out how you found yourself here with this business. Actually, it's growing your relationships. Is that in the name of your business? You haven't got that in your bio? Actually, my business is actually my name, but the growing your relationship is the tagline. Yeah, but I like the growing your relationships. So how did you get to where you are now, Michelle? Yes, I spent over 20 years as a therapist working with people, individuals, couples, families. I then went back to school for a theology degree so that I could also do it in Ministry settings. So I've got a long history of working with various kinds of relationship issues. My whole background has been about relationships, what people are getting stuck on in their relationships, what blocks they're experiencing and I'm now doing relationship coaching online. This gives me an opportunity to reach more people and also works with my schedule as well. Oh, wow. So tell me, Michelle, before we start getting any deeper into this, how does doing relationship coaching on the Internet work for you in terms of do you have the couple to come together or on your broadcast? Yeah, I start off with phone calls so people have maximum privacy because some people aren't very comfortable with a Zoom call for something as private as a relationship. So I start up with phone calls first and an opportunity to see if it's a fit, because that's why I do discovery calls opportunity for people to talk and make sure it's a good fit between them and I for moving forward and where they are in their relationships. So that's very important because people start at different places with different issues. Yeah. We'll be talking about the various relationships that you can help with. But what we wanted to first talk about is what do we bring of ourselves to our relationships and maybe how that affects our relationships. That would be great, Michelle. Exactly. I take a very holistic approach to relationships because if you're experiencing stress in one particular relationship, say it's a friendship or it's a marriage, if that's causing you a sense of unbalance or you're not feeling like you're being understood or you're losing that sense of connection in the relationship, or you're experiencing anxiety around the conflicts that are taking place, you then carry those emotional pains into your other relationships. So t

Welcome, everybody. This is Jane Gardner, and welcome to Finding Your Purpose TV. I’m Jane Gardner. And welcome. We’re so excited today because we have another Purposeful Entrepreneur today and we’re going to be chatting with her about how she found her purpose. Her name is Dorothy Anne O’Dell, and she was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. So we have a lot in common because we’re both Canadians. We talk a lot about that right now. And she’s turned her love of books into her next career writing them and she loves to help people succeed in life. And when she’s not writing or reading, she’s helping her community. And actually remind me, Dorothy, we have to talk about your charity concept at the end. So I’ll write a note for that because it’s a really exciting one. And she’s also a life coach and speaker. And her life’s purpose is to make sure that people feel that they feel worthy and that they don’t feel unworthy. She believes every life matters and has dedicated herself to helping others overcome their own obstacles and learn to feel empowered to move forward in their life. And, Dorothy, we’re going to be talking a lot.
Let’s get ready. So, Dorothy, tell me, how did your purpose in life make you become the entrepreneur you are now? Welcome.
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Jane. It’s been an absolute pleasure getting to know you. I guess my purpose all started at the beginning of The Pandemic, and I’ve always loved helping people growing up and things like that. But I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to do that. And I wrote my first book, The Overcomer, facing challenges with faith and courage because I knew that I had a lot of challenges that I had overcome in my life, like bullying, low self esteem, abusive relationships, and family trauma. And I knew that I wasn’t the only one out there. And I also knew that in those moments when you’re going through those times that it is very challenging and that you feel very alone and sometimes you feel like you don’t matter. So I decided that my purpose was to make sure that people knew that they were heard that they mattered and that they never had to feel alone. So that’s when I came up with my purpose at the beginning of The Pandemic, wrote the book in no time at all and had it out for the world to see January of this year. And it’s been an exciting adventure. And I thought, why stop there? Help people overcome their obstacles, coach them on how to have fun, how to have some what’s the word? I’m looking for time to themselves and just really selfcare. Selfcare was key. It’s something that I never had growing up or I never took the time. Didn’t think about it. We weren’t educated in school, and I had a grandmother that said, you need to take care of your man. And it’s basically selfish to take care of you. And she’s old school and love her to death, but I didn’t know any better. So I was always giving, giving until I hit a wall. And my dad was diagnosed with cancer for the first time two and a half years ago, I met a counselor at the cancer clinic in here at Windsor. And the first question she asked me was, what about yourself? Care? And I said, there is none. I don’t have time for that. I’m planning a wedding. My dad just got cancer. Just that got diagnosed and work was insane at the time. So there was no time for me. And that’s when she said, well, you better make a time because if not, you’re going to crash and you’re going to burn hard and she was right. And I decided to put some tools into place to bring the fun back into my life because growing up there was fun and things like that. But there was also a lot of times where it was like I would call it adult times, I guess, where a lot of the time that was taken up was worried about parents that were sick, things like that. And it was a serious time. I took life way too serious, I guess, is the proper word I should use. And so growing up way too serious an

Welcome, everybody. This is Jane Gardner of finding your purpose and today on Spotlight, we are talking to Adrian Starks of Connect Now Business Network. And today he is going to be talking to us about his business. And Adrian is a keynote speaker, best selling author and chief communications officer of Connect Now Business Network. His mission is to help entrepreneurs, students and organizations and teens who are feeling stuck, uninspired or unfulfilled to become their own Change makers. And he gives them tools, some tips and strategies to get out of the rut they are in and will empower them and these individuals to find opportunities within the challenges, no matter how stressful their environment maybe. Adrian lives by his supportive Changemaker philosophy that began with the desire to help others see that they can courageously make their own changes and become their own champion. Thank you, Adrian, for coming on today. And I would like to ask you before you say hello, because you can say it at the same time, how you got into your business that you're in, how you found your purpose. Oh, well, thank you so much, Jane, and thank you for the wonderful introduction, I was like is she talking about me? That's wonderful. So, yes, let's talk about how I got into my business. Oh, for a long time, even I was a little kid, I got the name Motormouth because I had the ability to speak and to capture everyone's attention. So I did quite well with that later on in the years, as we can see now. I started out speaking as a professional in public in Seattle, Washington, where I used to live, and I started doing some spoken word poetry because I was fascinated with the idea of words and wordplay and how do I inspire audiences. And that just led me into finding more things out about special orators like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Winston Churchill. And I started thinking to myself, wow, I really want to start speaking more in front of people. How do I do that? Well, life caught up with me and I found myself working in a call center for eight years, a medical call center. But here's the interesting thing, Jane. That call center was a calling to the center of my life, which was speaking those eight years that I was there, I wasn't very happy because it wasn't the place I wanted to be. I didn't find myself purposeful there in my own way. But what I learned was the power of communication. And I took those skills and I started going to workshops here in British Columbia on psychology and personal development. I started watching other speakers and I said to myself, I'm going to leave this call center job and I'm going to go out here in the world and I'm going to inspire people through my poetry, through my self development, through my inspiration. And what I did was I created my own purpose and that put me onto the path that I'm on now, where I work strategically with entrepreneurs and business owners and helping them create their own opportunities within their challenges. Wow. Wow. I didn't realize, who knew, that being in a call center is actually good for speaking, that it's just amazing. I mean, I can see how it would. You'd be willing to want to change your life quickly, but did you find calling people and everything really helped you understand people more and your business and at least you learn something from being there? I certainly did, Jane. What it taught me was, the best communicators are the ones who say the fewest words and they listen. So in the center, I learned very fast about I learned very fast about empathy, listening to the other person, getting the information down and then finding a way to provide assistance and to do it in a strategic way that allows me to to be on their side. So there is an interesting thing here, jane. I worked for a children's medical call center, so imagine getting parents calling in about their children. No parent really wants to bring their child to the hospital at all. So I'm getting

Hello, this is Jane Gardner of finding your purpose, and today we're on a mission to create awareness that being self-aware of your personality and your purpose in life, can you make you more intentional in your actions and bring you more success in your business, your relationships and your life? So let's go. Welcome, everybody, to find your purpose. This is Jane Gardner and welcome. Today on our show, we have Michelle Burke of bossibly, and she aids young professionals and business leaders to become influential, influential leaders, to maintain the strength and core values, to help them create a culture of engagement which fosters predictable results and accountability. And awesome. I love this idea. So welcome, Michelle. I'm just blown away by you have coming by. So thank you for coming. And thank you, Michelle. Thank you for having me. Jane, I really appreciate it. It's great to have a chat with you today. That's great. Michelle, one of my little things that I love to do is to ask how you got to where you are and what your purpose you feel is what you're doing now and what your purpose is. So if you could give us an idea on that, Michelle, that would be great. That's my little payment back for coming on to my interview. Yeah, I would be happy to. So I have been coaching for years, even in corporate America. I love I have people coming to me for a problem, a problem. B, this is going on. Can you help me? And I think it was a couple of years ago, a former mentor of mine came to me and said, my daughter just graduated college, her master's degree. She was working with a team. She's now a leader in her own right. And he said, so she's having trouble with this team. I know. I know I can help her, but I'm her dad. That's probably going to end badly. I don't think I should be mentoring my daughter as a leader. So would you be willing to help her? And I'm like, oh, I would be honored to do that, Mike. I would love to give back in that way. And then the same. And two days later, I had a friend of mine who's a CEO of a business. She hires individuals and she said, I can attract them. I can hire them, but I can't engage them and retain them. Do you have anything in your bag of tricks that you can give me to help me? And I'm like, this is a thing within two days, three days of one another, these things are happening like there's something here. So that's how it possibly was born. Wow. Wow. Yeah. I love the idea that you're a mentor for for your friend, because I think a lot of people are just not aware of the need for having leadership training when you're hired as as a manager or a leader. And, you know, it's great that people are actually asking you. So this is amazing. Michelle, do you have an idea on maybe a story that you could tell us about one of your how you've been able to have the success that you've had with leadership training? Yeah, so it's a combination of training and coaching. And we were working with an organization right now who is scaling. And part of that scaling means that they're looking at increasing the revenue going from a two million dollar business to a ten million dollar business. And that that in of itself is tricky. When you have people that do they understand the vision, the purpose for the organization. And so this woman owned business has wonderful people on her team. However, they're not all. So let's use the boat analogy. They're all in the boat, but they're not rowing in unison. There's there's challenges, there's conflict. They're not working together. They don't understand their roles and responsibilities. And so while these they have great team members and teammates as part of this business. They're not positioned to scale. They don't have the processes in place, they don't have the roles and responsibilities delineated for the different individuals, they don't know how to handle conflict. And then they, the leaders of the business, are not showing up in a way to navigate where they should go

Hello, this is Jane Gardner of finding your purpose, and today we're on a mission to create awareness that being self-aware of your personality and your purpose in life, can you make you more intentional in your actions and bring you more success in your business, your relationships and your life? So let's go. Welcome, everybody. This is Jane Gardner of Finding Your Purpose TV, and today I'm so excited to have another purpose driven business person on Spotlight for finding your purpose TV. And today it is Patrick Reilly. Welcome, Patrick. Patrick is an executive coach and consultant with more than twenty five years of experience supporting leaders. And I'm really excited because I love talking about leadership and he's looking to develop their executive presence so people listen and learn when they speak. So welcome. Patrick, I just want to say hello. Hello, Patrick. Nice to see you. How are you? Yes, it's a great day. It looks wonderful there. That's for sure. Patrick, I'd like to know how you got to the journey where you are now talking about leadership. That would be great. Sure, you know, it's very interesting, I sort of fell into it to a certain extent, I had a business opportunity that that showed up many years ago and I was invited to work on what at the time was an extremely large organizational change and consulting project. And it was it was really the biggest thing at the time. And it was a lot, quite frankly, I would say I was in way over my head, but they needed resources and apparently I was a quick learner. So that's how literally how I got started. And the other thing I would say that I think pertains to our conversation is that even though at the time what we did was called organizational consulting, it had a lot of the elements of what we call executive coaching today. So it was kind of a blended situation. And what I would say then and what I would say now and certainly you can see it today in many ways in our current world, is how much impact quality leadership has and that when you have a quality leader or leaders, things get done, things get done. Well, the world moves ahead. People have a better, better lives in front of them. And when you have ineffective leadership, things don't go so well. The problems become worse. They multiply. And so to me, when you have someone who is leading an organization or leading pieces of an organization and when they set a good direction that people can follow, want to follow, are excited about following, you can really get a lot of good stuff done, whether it's in the government, whether it's in industry, whether it's in business, whether it's in the nonprofit arena and anything, any place in our societies where it requires more than an individual to get things done. Good leadership makes a very, very big difference. And so I'm about making a difference and helping others to make a difference. And I really find myself ideally suited as being a catalyst, if you would, to helping leaders move themselves ahead and become better at what they do. So then does that answer your question, yeah, that's that's great, that's so exciting because I love talking about leadership. I'll just tell you a quick story in that you would probably be able to know the answer to. When I was working as a drafter, I worked in an engineering firm and it was a pretty crippled environment. And I was wondering if you have any stories on how you helped leaders to do help. I mean, it's not just a leader. It's it's the whole environment and the team and the landscape there would be wonderful if you could give us a story or two or. OK, well, you know, interestingly enough, a subset of what it is that I do is I actually have a niche specialty that I practice sometimes where I work with leaders who are very good at what they do, but are not very good into relating to other people. And so there's a there's a number of occasions where I've worked with people and I have one story at the top of my head. I wa