Just Between Coaches – Episode 138
Living Into the Question and the Art of Bragging (Lindsay McKinnon)
Lindsay McKinnon: The difference between bragging and boasting. It’s not about having power over someone. That is boasting. It is having power with someone. And as you brag, they get to see their own reflection in your brag and vice versa. So, as you brag, you are helping other people raise the vibration in the room and also flexing that muscle for themselves.
Melinda Cohan: Hey, there, fantastic coaches. Get ready for a fascinating conversation today. It is going to be a fun ride of insights and inspiration. And my special guest brings a unique coaching perspective with the tools she calls living into the question. We’re also going to be discussing the art of bragging. Two very fun topics.
I’m Melinda Cohan, and you’re listening to Just Between Coaches. I run a business called the Coaches Console, and we’re proud to have helped tens of thousands of coaches create profitable and thriving businesses. This is a podcast where we answer burning questions that newer coaches would love to ask a more experienced coach. So our focus today is twofold; living into the question and the art of bragging. These aren’t just buzzwords. They reshape client outcomes and provide personal empowerment, especially for female coaches.
So keep listening. I’ve invited a good friend and colleague, really, a soul sister. Colleague is like, that doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg for this guest. But we really are soul sisters, and our lives intertwine in so many different ways that could probably be a show in and of itself.
And today, I’ve invited Lindsay McKinnon to the conversation. She’s the founder of Soul Body Connect and a seasoned trauma informed, integrative, somatic healing and resiliency coach. She’s often referred to as a midwife of souls. With over 20 years of massage therapy and doula work, her transformative approach extends globally, emphasizing the power of compassion and authenticity. Welcome to the show, Lindsay.
Lindsay: Oh, my goodness. I’m so excited to be here. Thank you, Mel.
Melinda: Oh, my gosh. I’m so excited to have you on the show. Now, before we dive in, just share a little bit of your background with our listeners.
Lindsay: I have a background in youth ministry and in massage therapy and bodywork, energy work, facilitating retreats and workshops. And I’m a Qoya teacher and a childbirth doula.
Melinda: So with all of those elements intertwining together to bring you here where we are today, one of the things that I have learned from you is this practice, this art called living into the question. And I remember years ago, you shared an image with me. That metaphor, I guess it technically, is about the trapeze. And as soon as you shared that image with me, it really impacted how I live in the moment of uncertainty and how I embrace it instead of run from it. So share with our listeners what that trapeze story is. And then let’s get into the topic of living into the question.
Lindsay: Oh, my goodness. So that trapeze story comes from a song by a beautiful musician songwriter named Fran McKendree. And the name of that song is called Transformation. So throughout this song, he talks about this image and this metaphor as a trapeze bar. So, in the context of being an acrobat and being up high on a ladder, going from one trapeze bar that you are already securely holding, that is carrying you from point a to point b, that trapeze bar can only take you so far. Right?
And so what happens is that the acrobat sees another trapeze bar that’s already coming towards her, and she has to negotiate how and when in perfect timing, she is going to let go and launch herself through time and through space, which is the most exhilarating and scary space that we can be in. And knowing that that trapeze bar is already coming for us, our name is already on it, and it is carrying us forward into the future to the next best thing.
And to be able to navigate that space in between is the living into the question mark. It is the space of feeling the sensation and going for it anyway, because you don’t really know where it’s going to take you. You just know that it is the thing that you have to do. Unless you want to swing back and stay stuck in that space that you’ve already explored.
Melinda: I love, I mean, I cannot hear that story enough. I’ve been hearing you tell that story for years and years, and it always has deeper and deeper meaning for me. And so there’s that moment. I remember when you first told me this story, and I was visualizing because you were, you know, we were together in person, and you were acting it out, and you were like, there’s that moment in time where somebody has to let go, they have to turn their body, and then they’re grabbing onto the next.
But that moment, you talked about how it was scary and exhilarating, and when it’s done well or done right, and you don’t just fall from the trapeze into the net below you. It’s this effortless floating that happens. And now I’ve never done that. I still have that on my bucket list to experience going from one trapeze to another. Haven’t done that yet.
Lindsay: We should do it together sometime.
Melinda: Yes, we should do that together. But talk more about that moment, because that is living into the question, right? You don’t know. All I know is there is a trapeze and it’s coming my way. There’s a thing that’s coming my way, and I want to grab onto it, but I’m not exactly sure of when or how that’s going to happen, and I have to let go first before I can get ready to grab on.
Lindsay: Living into the question mark, if you want to boil it down to its most raw, basic form, is two things, embodied faith and ultimate trust. And not just trust in others, but it’s trust in yourself that you can let go, that you can reach, no matter how uncomfortable and awkward and scary it might be, were greater than the sum of our fears.
Melinda: I remember what it taught me the more that I did this. And really, whenever there was something going on in my life, a transition or a desire that hadn’t yet come to reality, and I would use this metaphor, you talk about trusting yourself. It helped me learn that I may not be able to determine or control the thing that’s coming to me or the thing that I want, whatever that situation item experience is. But it taught me that I am resourceful, and I don’t know what’s going to happen or I may not be able to affect that.
But I am resourceful, and I can figure it out, whether I grab onto that or whether I fall into the net. And that was the biggest thing is, oh, yeah, there’s always a net. I always have a net. So talk about that. Talk about always having the net.
Lindsay: I think that net is our greatest resource and our greatest strength. And quite often when we’re hit with experiences, whether it’s our own personal lives or our clients, we have a physical sensation that we’re afraid of feeling, and we stop right there in our tracks instead of allowing the process to move through us, allowing the emotion to emote through us and create a different result.
Melinda: Do you have to have the net in place before you can live into the question?
Lindsay: I don’t think so.
Melinda: I was just going back to my own journey and some of the big things I wanted in life or the big transitions. Did I have a net in place first? And I think in every situation, I did. And I was like, well, what was my net? So for me, my net was a specific kind of community, a specific types of people in my community. There were my confidants, like, if I fell flat on my face, I knew they would be there to pick me up. I wasn’t going to be alone and isolated, left to die because my fears would take me to that place.
There was the way showers. It’s like, no, no, no, let’s do it this way this time. There were the messengers about how to navigate something. There were the true believers cheering me on. You can do this, right? So there was those specific kinds of people in the community, and they were a big part of the fabric of the net. What are some elements that make up somebody’s net?
Lindsay: Well, in addition to the ones that you just brought up, teachers, mentors, and also, not everybody has their net fully articulated before they have to leap and launch themselves. A lot of people are tending and creating that net as they go.
Melinda: Yeah. And that’s an interesting spot to navigate in. And I know that as I built my net over the years, the community, other modalities, like, I mean, you were my Qoya teacher trainer, right? When I went through Qoya certification, I love movement, yoga, breathwork, dancing, whatever it is. So those modalities were my net because I knew if something happened, I had the resources, the tools to go to, to help me navigate the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows, whatever I faced. And so I knew I could navigate it.
That net, it’s like the self-care weaves the fabric of our net so that we know, or that I know, no matter what I go for or what I’m thrown into unexpectedly, I’m resourceful, and I’ve got resources to help me navigate that, however dark or light it might be. And I think as a coach, that’s one of the things that we can help our clients if they don’t have a net, making sure they know how to create that. Do you bring that to your clients?
Lindsay: Absolutely. Yeah. For my clients, I become a part of that net. Right? Like I’m the safety.
Melinda: Yeah, we’re the coach.
Lindsay: Exactly.
Melinda: Yeah, we’re the net.
Lindsay: Exactly.
Melinda: Duh.
Lindsay: Yeah. And then it’s also breaking things down into smaller, attainable steps. Right? A seasoned acrobat doesn’t just, on the first day, launch herself through time and space. It’s a practice. Right? We exercise so that we create strength, flexibility, and endurance. And so these things, these practices of learning how to let go, of navigating emotions and creating new mindsets and practices that align with those things, they also have to be practiced. And so as a coach, we get to bear witness to that unfolding into that transformational process for our clients. As they’re practicing, we become their dojo.
Melinda: That’s beautiful. Can you share an example where encouraging somebody to live into the question, maybe one of your clients or somebody you know that led to a significant breakthrough or a transformation for their life?
Lindsay: Yes. Several just came into mind. One of my recent clients, her sister died and in a traumatic way. And she was struggling with how to show up in certain social circles knowing that people were going to ask the typical questions that people usually ask. She didn’t know how to answer in a way that helped her feel confident in the choices that she was making and how she was navigating her grief and learning how to integrate back into living life and thriving again.
And so guiding her through, again, creating a safe dojo where she could practice conversations and drilling it over and over and over again. And it became a playground for her. That dojo, that place, that container that we created, became a playground so that she could learn how to navigate conversations in a way that felt good to her, where she was in control of the conversation and not coming from an aspect of like, being victimized by the conversation.
And another client of mine came to me with her young daughter. So the client was the mother because she was the one paying for me, but the daughter was the person that I was working with. And I love every single one of my clients. But she was another favorite just because of the practices that we created in the container of safe coaching relationship, that trust factor where we practiced all kinds of coping mechanisms, all kinds of skills.
And she was really into performance arts. And so we created all kinds of ways that she could perform what she was processing in a safe place. And then once she felt that sensation, she could own it in a confident way, in a whole new way. And she just created magic.
Melinda: I love what you said. You talked about practice, giving them a safe place for them to practice the different modalities. And I think that’s a big thing. I know a lot of times we teach, you know, in our business program, we teach enrollment. So many coaches only practice enrollment with real clients when the stakes are high. And then they freak out and they freeze up and they stumble all over themselves because I don’t think we value enough practicing in those safe places.
Practicing, going through it, what is it going to feel like? How is our brain going to work? What’s our emotions going to do, what’s our body going to do? And becoming familiar with that in a new way, in a safe place before you go out and have the conversations, when the stakes are high. We are the place where they can come and practice and try on and have do overs and freeze up and be like, okay, that’s enough for today. Let’s take a break. We’ll pick it up next time so that they can build the strength, the flexibility and the endurance for whatever situations that they need to get into.
Now, living into the question, I think it should be one of the coaching skills that people are taught, the art of living into the question. And so how does that intersect with the idea of clients embracing vulnerability during the coaching process?
Lindsay: Oh, goodness. It is absolute vulnerability because you’re navigating new space that you have yet to practice. Another metaphor that I love to use is roller coasters. So if you have two people sitting side by side going up a roller coaster, and they’re going up and it’s going click, click, click, click, click, click, click, they are going to have similar physical sensations. So their palms might be sweating, their stomachs might be turning upside down, they might have a lump in their throat, their chest area might be cinching down.
One person is going to be leaning into that physical sensation with enthusiasm. They’re going to be lifting up their hands going, yeah. The other person that could be sitting next to them having those same physical sensations could be white knuckling the safety belt or the seat itself going, oh, my God, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.
Same physical sensation, but two different stories, which is our history, right? We have those stories about our physical sensations because they were validated at some point, but that story might not be true for that moment anymore. That moment back when has already passed. So if we don’t lean into the question mark, we will never have the opportunity to recreate those stories and then to have a new experience that could lead to the next most awesome thing.
Melinda: So how do you create space for clients to explore this vulnerable sensation, thoughts, experiences?
Lindsay: Well, I’ve had a lot of practice creating that space. Typically, especially in our northern American culture, we don’t like feeling vulnerable. Okay. We’re not well practiced. When we begin to feel vulnerable, one of the first things that we do is shut down and isolate ourselves. We are not used to being seen in those very vulnerable states, which is a huge game changer. Being witnessed in vulnerable states as you are transforming that state of consciousness and that in real time, experience further validates and creates the confidence.
Melinda: I love that because, you know, a lot of times with coaches, especially newer ones, they’ll often get into this place of, okay, set the goals, what’s the plan. Let’s go check in accountability. Let’s make things happen. And they get into that let’s make things happen mode, which is a big part of coaching and what we do. And then there’s the how do we help our clients get out of their own way? How do we help them reframe past patterns or thoughts that they’ve had over and over and over again?
And how do we help them undo that? And that’s where that vulnerability comes in and reminding them that just being witnessed in this, just allowing somebody in a safe place to witness you while you’re tender and feeling exposed, the more we can do that, the more comfortable you’ll get in this kind of vulnerable space.
Lindsay: And knowing that you have that support right there.
Melinda: Yeah, there’s the net. Right? That goes back to that net, the net that we were talking about. When you’re enrolling a client and somebody’s considering hiring you, do you tell them how vulnerable it’s going to get and how living into the question you just like, here we go. And then you bring them into the experience as you go?
Lindsay: Yes, because I don’t want to project that for them. Right? I need to meet them where they are in the moment that they’re in it. I don’t need to tell them what I think their experience is going to be because I don’t know. I really don’t know.
Melinda: And so when you’re holding that space, if I’m your client and we’re in a session, how do you create that space so I know it’s safe, so I know I can live into the question?
Lindsay: There’s so many things that go into creating safe space. It happens this second you are meeting and introducing yourself to the person. It’s how you listen. It’s how you hold your body, it’s how you enroll. It’s having written agreements that you talk about in advance before you even have your first coaching session. You’re creating the structure so that they can fall in and relax into it, right?
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah.
Lindsay: And also when it does start getting into vulnerable spaces, then it’s allowing space, creating margins for that to be. And it’s not railroading through that because it’s uncomfortable, but it’s a process of modeling. And then they co regulate. I love that word, you model. They co regulate and lean into your support. And sometimes it’s as easy or as difficult as learning how to breathe in that space and learning how to relax into that space.
Melinda: I love what you just said about creating the structure for them to feel comfortable, to fall into it. It’s one of the reasons why I spend so much time working on the back end. Right? Helping coaches create. What’s your client experience? What’s the client journey that you’re creating? So many coaches, they still think if I just show up, be present, and have a great coaching conversation, I’m an awesome coach. Yes, you are. That’s a piece of it.
But I find that if we don’t, as coaches, if we don’t provide some sort of client experience structure, that’s simple, that’s easy, that is known that our clients, it’s like they’ve let go of one trapeze and they’re just floating into the ethers with no tether. And it becomes very scary for them because they’re not sure, am I okay? But when we can give them a client experience, maybe it’s as simple as emails that says, here’s the first thing that’s happening. Here’s the next thing to expect. Okay, here’s our session. Okay. Complete this thing. Okay. Do that.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it has to be known. And then that is like, oh, they’ve got me. They’re organized, they’re providing stuff, and clients feel got and held. So they’re like, okay, I’m not floating off randomly into the ethers. It might feel a little bit uncomfortable, but they’ve got me. And so I really appreciate that you brought that into the conversation as well.
Lindsay: Yes. Melinda, you are queen at creating that structure. And I love how you teach other coaches and entrepreneurs how to break that piece down into small, attainable parts, because when you’re in those vulnerable spaces, everything can be overwhelming and too big. So when, like, you just brought up, it could be an email, it could be a series of emails. Take it one digestible step at a time. And as you have success with each of those steps, then guess what? Cortisol in the brain lowers. You’re feeling better, you’re feeling more confident, you know, oh, I just did that. I can do this. All right, so maybe I can do this, too.
Melinda: Yeah.
Lindsay: And then once you have success on that step, okay, now I can go a little further. And so you’re building that trust as you go along, and you’re creating that net, and it gets stronger and wider and until she can launch.
Melinda: Yeah. Once we create that space, the holding of space for our clients, I think it’s for me. I have to remember living into the question is not just a head trip. It’s not just something that my brain has to be okay. It’s my emotions, my energy, my physical being and body. It’s the whole of me. And so as a coach, I have to remember to check in with my clients. Where are you feeling this? Where is this showing up in your body? What emotions are you experiencing right now? And the more I explore that with them, the better they learn about themselves. All of themselves.
Lindsay: Whole. Their whole selves. Yeah, their whole and holy selves. It’s way more than mindset.
Melinda: Yeah, way more than mindset. Now, what’s a mistake that one should really be mindful of while holding space for a client as they’re living into that question? Living that uncertainty.
Lindsay: A mistake is not trusting their own process.
Melinda: The coach not trusting their own process.
Lindsay: The coach not trusting their own process. Another mistake is trying to hurry the process along too fast. You can’t do that.
Melinda: Trying to hurry or make it about your timeline, not their timeline.
Lindsay: Exactly.
Melinda: That just brought up a really interesting phrase. Mantra, quote. One of the things that I do with my clients, I learned this with my sister when she was on her recovery journey, and I got this very wise counsel that said, see her as whole and complete and give her the opportunity to live into that because nobody else is right now. And she would not mind me sharing that with you. She has shared with me that I can share her story freely.
And I take that to my clients, see them as whole and complete because they don’t see it for themselves and the rest of the world around them are not seeing them that way. And when I can see them as whole and complete and give them the opportunity to live into that, whether they do or they don’t, that’s their choice. But that is also part of that container and that net where at least there’s the opportunity to live into the question. Any comments on that?
Lindsay: I think that comes back to embodied faith. And sometimes as a coach, we have to have more of that faith in our clients than they have for themselves.
Melinda: Yeah.
Lindsay: Yeah.
Melinda: Now I want to kind of switch the conversation because there’s another element that I find, when I was learning to let go of that trapeze and then grab onto the next one, there was another skill that I learned that I had no idea that they were related, but helped me strengthen my ability to live into the question. And it’s the art of bragging. So I want to dive into this topic.
So first of all, just so everybody is on the same page listening in, don’t shut off your podcast player, because I’m not talking about boasting or being arrogant or you making yourself better so others feel like that is not. I think you all know me by now. That’s not what we’re talking about. But when I talk about bragging, it’s truly telling the truth about yourself. We are so good at giving gratitude and acknowledgments to others, but we never give gratitude and acknowledgement to ourself.
And so the art of bragging is celebrating something, and you’re the center of it. I brag. I’m one of the most amazing business owners in this industry. I brag. I have cultivated a phenomenal team that rocks software support like nobody else in the software industry. Right? So, like, bragging like that. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that’s been about 15 years’ worth of practicing the art of bragging, because it was not always like that.
Lindsay: There’s the dojo, though.
Melinda: Yeah, there’s the dojo. And the practicing. Like you said earlier, learning in small steps, building and strengthening that skill. But when I learned the art of bragging and I could acknowledge what was true about me, little piece by little, piece by little, piece by little, piece by bigger piece by bigger piece, it cultivated my confidence, it cultivated in my self-awareness, and it cultivated in trusting myself. So let’s talk about the art of bragging.
Lindsay: I love this topic.
Melinda: Tell me why you love this topic so much.
Lindsay: Oh, my gosh. As you were already talking about the difference between bragging and boasting, it’s not about having power over someone. That is boasting. It is having power with someone. And as you brag, they get to see their own reflection in your brag and vice versa. So as you brag, you are helping other people raise the vibration in the room and also flexing that muscle for themselves.
Melinda: Yeah, that right there, the modeling. When I started my coaching business, 22, almost 23 years ago, I brag. It was Marianne Williamson’s quote that was my inspiration for starting. As we allow our light shine, we give others permission to do the same. That’s what bragging is. It’s the modeling. And as we model that, others are like, hey, what’s that all about? Talk more about how we model it.
Lindsay: We model it by doing it. We model it by bragging in conversations, whether it’s within your family, within your friends, within your colleagues, within your business networks, and using the word I brag or using the word I celebrate. I think some people, they are uncomfortable with the word bragging. I should probably use the word brag.
Melinda: I am for that. If you’re like, oh, I’m uncomfortable with that.
Lindsay: Great.
Melinda: We’re going to use that word. I also find that some people, they are so uncomfortable, they just completely shut down and disconnect. So that’s when I use, like, actually, you said the word celebrate, but I remind them, when you celebrate, it can’t be a gratitude or acknowledgement about somebody else. It has to be a celebration about you. You’re the topic of that celebration. So use the word celebrate. I celebrate that I. I brag that I is always how that phrase goes. And so, as coaches, what are some of the things that we can do with our clients to help them with the art of bragging?
Lindsay: We help them by placing the attention on them. I think a lot of times, especially females, have more challenges with the idea of bragging and celebrating because we are not.
Melinda: Men don’t.
Lindsay: No, not at all. We’re not used to having the attention and the spotlight on ourselves. In fact, we’re taught not to have the attention on ourselves, which can be self-sacrificing, self-deprecating. So by creating that safe container with our coaching clients once again and creating the dojo where they can practice bragging, sometimes it’s, you know, just writing three sentences on a piece of paper. I brag, I brag, I brag. But then to be able to read those sentences out loud to someone that can witness, that’s the game changing piece. You have to be witnessed in the braggest so that others can celebrate, so that energy can expand, and so the next brag can become bigger and more expansive.
Melinda: Now, witnessing in front of others and it, you know, done within the circle of confidants, that’s why that particular element of community is so important, because the world around us, people, they don’t know this skill either. And so when we brag, they see it through their lenses of, oh, you’re just being boastful. You’re being egotistical. Why are you, you know? And I’m like, no, no, no. Not how this is.
And so doing it in a circle of confidence with your coach, as a coach, offering this as a skill set to learn with your clients, helps them exercise that muscle. And being witnessed is where the game changer is. Because it’s one thing if you just in your journal at home, I brag that I, I brag that I, I brag, I brag. But it lives inside your head. But when you can live it out loud in the world, you show up differently in the world.
So one just popped up for me but I want to ask you first, can you share a personal experience where the art of bragging played a pivotal role in your confidence, your situation, the experience, something that was going on for you. Do you mind sharing a vulnerable since we’re talking about the vulnerable topic of living into the question and bragging and all of that kind of goes together?
Lindsay: Well, yeah. Coming through traumatic experiences and being able to brag how I navigate with transparency and being in those raw, vulnerable places, leaning into my confidants, my sisterhood, my family and friends, and how that has equipped me to take my messaging into public arenas and then to leverage those experiences in order to also help my clients have their own breakthroughs.
Melinda: Beautiful. Now, you talked about how you use bragging to help you navigate the traumatic experiences. Were you able to do that right out of the gate, or was it something that you grew into? Because when I think about bragging, you said it earlier, it helps raise the vibration. Right? So that has a higher vibration energy. The traumatic experiences, whether it’s big t trauma, little t trauma, those usually have heavier vibration that goes with it. So they’re in different parts of that spectrum. So are you able to brag as you’re going through traumatic experiences or it happens once you kind of get through that.
Lindsay: Yeah. And when you’re bragging through those traumatic experiences, you’re bringing those energies and frequencies back in balance.
Melinda: Beautiful.
Lindsay: So you’re bringing the dense energy up higher and higher and higher with each small little brag. Sometimes the brag sounded like I brag. I just survived that. Sometimes the brag is, I went to an appointment I didn’t want to go. I had to do a thing, and I showed up in all of my fears. I relaxed into the chaos, and I did the thing. I held onto my mother’s hand. I held onto my friend’s hand. They were the support structures that allowed me to relax into it, to do the thing that I had to do that I did not want to do, and I did it.
Melinda: Yeah.
Lindsay: And I survived that, too. And so it just keeps building. It keeps building, and then it helps to reshape the trauma and rewire your brain. So you no longer go to those same places that you used to go to.
Melinda: Yeah. You’re not getting stuck in those ruts. You’re creating a new pathway for yourself. The brag that came up for me, since I asked you to share one, I’ll share one as well. Many know, over the last several years, Coaches Console was acquired by Mirasee and brought into their portfolio of companies. And at the time, I had had Coach’s console for 16, 17 years, and, you know, that was not an easy thing to face. It was exciting and thrilling, and the opportunity was exhilarating, but it also meant there was a lot of, you know, negative self-talk that would come up.
Did I fail my business? I started this 16 years ago. Did I fulfill what I was here to fulfill? Did I let my team down? Have I let my clients down? And just all of this self-doubt flood its way in. And through bragging was one of the tools that reminded me the truth of the situation. And as you and many others in my network around me reminded me of this and other tools, I was like, oh, yeah, I brag. And I would remember the truth of the situation, that I had created a business for 16 years that was so successful that it was attractive to somebody else that they wanted to help take it to the next level.
And the bragging helped to minimize the doubts so that I could take advantage of an opportunity, because it could have been easy for me to say, no way, this is my baby. You are not touching that. Step back. And the bragging helped me realize the truth and shut down my doubts or fears or insecurities to really realize and embrace the opportunity as, I mean, talk about letting go of one trapeze and grabbing onto another. But we’ve been able to do things in the recent years that I could have never dreamed of doing because of what the opportunity affords us. So bragging is not just a feel-good thing, like, it is an inner transformational tool that we can bring into our coaching practice. What else do we need to say about bragging?
Lindsay: That we should all do it more often.
Melinda: Yes, I highly recommend everybody doing daily brag. And it starts like this. I have the most amazing brag. I brag that I. And then you fill in the blank, and there is no degree of brag. That’s the other thing I’ll bring into the conversation. I share this with our clients all the time. There’s no degree of bragging. It can be microscopic miniscule. It can be gigantic. A brag raises that vibration, like you said earlier, and helps us ground in the truth of ourselves, remember who we really are, and so brag. All of it. Brag the entire spectrum of everything. Anything else you want to add in?
Lindsay: Oh, my goodness. Can I share a brag?
Melinda: Please do. Show us how it goes, sister.
Lindsay: I have the most amazing brag, Melinda. I brag that I hosted Christmas for nine people in my house, and leading up to that day, I was really nervous and partly angry about some relationships that were coming to my house. And I was just like, do I want this? Do I not want this? I definitely want a host. I was all up in my head and then I had a conversation with myself in the mirror. I was like, well, Lindsay, you can either come at this from anger and fear or you can be the creative’s influence.
And so I raised my own vibration. And that day went seamlessly. There was so much potential for drama. Everyone had so much fun. Everyone felt the love, everyone felt the magic and co-created the magic. And it was a beautiful preaching day filled with gifts. And not just the gifts that you find under the tree, the kind of gifts that say, we just did that. We just did that. We experienced it, now we can earn it and live into the question mark from sourcing from a different place because we just did that together. And that’s my brag. But it came from changing my attitude and my relationship.
Melinda: Well bragged. And by the way, that is the only appropriate response when somebody offers a brag. So if you’re introducing this with clients and they offer up a brag, the only thing you say is well bragged. That’s it. There is no coaching about that brag. That’s a different part of the conversation. The only other appropriate response is what’s called an upride. So an upride means you’re acknowledging something about what they just said to shine the light on it even more.
Right. And so, Lindsay, in your brag, I might say something like, well bragged. I just want to upride you and how fierce you are about being committed to being the creative source for your family, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. I’ve seen you do it time and time and time again. So kudos to you and very well bragged.
Lindsay: Thank you. It’s so true.
Melinda: And that’s the only other response when somebody does that, when somebody says, well bragged. Thank you. But right now, I just want to summarize everything that we’ve talked about so far today. We started out with that beautiful metaphor of the trapeze and how it can be both scary and exhilarating to let go of something known as you move towards something new and the art of living into the core question. We had talked about the importance of building a net, whether you already have it or you need to build it as you go. Because as we do this, we learn how resourceful we are and it builds up our confidence.
We talked about living into the question as the practice of I love when you said this, Lindsay, it’s the practice of learning small steps that build strength, flexibility, and endurance. It’s the practice, consistently small. You build into it. We talked about how do we create space. We talked about a mistake is not trusting your own process and trying to hurry it. We talked about how it’s not just a head trip, it’s a full body trip. We talked about the game changer is in holding this safe space so they can practice when the risks are not high.
And we got into the tool of bragging and how it helps us to build trust and confidence in ourselves. We talked about what it is and what it is nothing. And my favorite part of what you talked about in this conversation, Lindsay, is about how it helps raise our vibration. And then the second favorite thing was when you said, you know, we’re going through heavy stuff, yucky stuff, crazy stuff, uncertain stuff, whatever it is. And those are two different spectrums of vibration. But the brag balances out that vibration so we don’t stay stuck in ruts. And how it’s important to be witnessed in our brags to do it out loud. We talked about how to respond and not respond and how to receive.
So first, Lindsay, do you have any parting words for living into the question.
Lindsay: Trusting yourself in ways that you never have before, and taking a deep breath in that moment and learning how to enjoy the process.
Melinda: Beautiful.
Lindsay: That space in between can be a beautiful adventure and 95% of the time is.
Melinda: Now, do you have any parting words, Lindsay, for our listeners about the art of bragging?
Lindsay: Yes. Help the world raise the vibration. Bring peace to yourself, to all of your relationships through bragging because it’s not a power over, it is power with. And when we brag, we’re cultivating that energy for our entire communities.
Melinda: Awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of Just Between Coaches and also a giant thank you to Lindsay McKinnon for this incredible conversation. You can find out more about her at soulbodyconnect.com. That’s soul S-O-U-L body connect dot com. In the show notes, you’ll also find links to her website and you’ll also find the link to her downloadable resource, Your Resiliency Toolkit. Lindsay, thank you so much for coming to the show.
Lindsay: I’m so grateful. Thank you so much, Melinda.
Melinda: I’m Melinda Cohan, and you’ve been listening to Just Between Coaches. Just Between Coaches is part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Consciousness Explored and Teacher Tom’s Podcast. To catch the great episodes on Just Between Coaches, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or a starred review. It is the best way to help us get these ideas to even more people. Thank you and we’ll see you next time.