Who would want to listen to a podcast featuring 2 CPAs?
Yeah, me either. Sounds pretty boring, right?
But today’s episode does not have anything to do with taxes or any of that boring stuff!!!
My friend Michelle Kerr is here with us to discuss how we can form deep and more meaningful conversations with other people, whether they be with co-workers or others outside of work, and since Michelle is a relationship ninja, you’ll want to listen to this whole episode.
So here’s to throwing out all the “technical jargon” and become a relationship ninja forming strong bonds with others… Even if it is while discussing those dreaded taxes 😛
Listen in at: http://www.jasonmefford.com/jammingwithjason225/
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Alright, well, I gotta tell you folks I am super excited for today’s episode, so I have.
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Jason Mefford: My friend Michelle curve with me and you know I could start off and maybe I will i’ll just start off with a bad joke right, you know what happens when two CPA is walk into a podcast.
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Jason Mefford: Well, you might be thinking oh my gosh I don’t want to listen to a podcast with two CPA is they’re just going to be talking about tax and that’s going to be boring.
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Jason Mefford: Right well whatever you do listen, because what you’re going to find out is even though we both maybe CPA is what we’re going to talk about today is absolutely not what you would expect to CPA is to talk about so with that we’re going to roll the.
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episode.
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Jason Mefford: hey Michelle how are you my friend.
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Michelle Kerr: yeah i’m great how are you today.
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Jason Mefford: i’m excited to have you here with me there’s you know we’ve known each other now for a couple years and it’s.
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Jason Mefford: Even as we were talking right before before we hit record and so again, who knows where this is going to go folks right, this is a.
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Jason Mefford: This is me right so who knows where this discussion is going to go, but even more parallels with your life in my life, I mean it’s like it’s no wonder that we have this connection, as friends.
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Jason Mefford: Even though we’re halfway across the country from each other so anyway, I wanted to you know, bring bring in maybe you know just thumbnail you know we’re both CPA a’s right but but we’re not going to talk about that kind of stuff today right, but just kind of let let people.
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Jason Mefford: know a little bit about you, because I want to get in and.
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Jason Mefford: and talk about something that’s both passionate for us, which is.
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Jason Mefford: Soon connection.
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Michelle Kerr: Absolutely, thank you for having me honor to be here.
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Michelle Kerr: My name is Michelle I grew up in indiana.
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Jason Mefford: who’s your who’s your.
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Michelle Kerr: indiana hoosier right on the border of Illinois and indiana and most all of my extended family lived in the area and my family is very entrepreneurial so the business was modeled in all facets of my extended family everybody was involved in in business and.
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Michelle Kerr: I think I just really admired the.
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Michelle Kerr: The role that small business plays in the global economy and seeing how people navigate conversations around that the guy I would say I kind of glamorized.
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Michelle Kerr: What it meant to be a business person so that that was why I didn’t know a cta and I actually decided in eighth grade that I wanted to go to college to study.
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Michelle Kerr: Accounting not knowing anything about the county I took a high school accounting class I was good at it and all of the profiles.
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Michelle Kerr: You know personality profiles that that that would be a good career, for me, I think my other two choices were to be a nurse and I don’t have a clinical stomach so that one out quite.
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Michelle Kerr: Any kindergarten teacher.
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Michelle Kerr: which I think I verbatim said they don’t make any money yeah so it was the county.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and it’s funny right because we both ended up that way in our in our training right, I mean it’s it’s a good, solid thing to have right, you can always fall back on it, I got told that a lot right.
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Jason Mefford: What I think is interesting, you know, and then I alluded to before neither one of us are really the traditional stereotypical CPA right but.
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Jason Mefford: But we’ve lived that life for years and now we’re kind of trying to unpack who we actually are underneath right.
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Jason Mefford: Exactly so so maybe talk a little bit about that you know as you’ve gone through you know your life because yeah I mean for being a CPA professional business, you know you gotta all these things are expectations that get thrown upon you right.
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Jason Mefford: How did, how did that work for you and.
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Jason Mefford: In your life, you know because because again you’re expected to kind of be one person professionally but i’m guessing that probably wasn’t who you felt that you were underneath right.
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Michelle Kerr: yeah i’ll say a couple of things, so my dad what what self employed and he didn’t actually finish college they didn’t have enough money so he dropped out after a year and a half and my mom never went to college she worked for the phone company for 18 years.
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Michelle Kerr: And my dad really instilled the principle of hard work ethics ethical business interaction and he was he would be one person at home, you know very strict and stern my friends are afraid of them a good man like a loving man, but also, he would withdraw when he was pleased with you.
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Michelle Kerr: But he instilled those those values for my brother and I, and then I you know I would be with him out in the Community, and he was like a mayor employee who is this guy.
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Michelle Kerr: But he’s like hey Jason how, whatever your wife’s name and and they’re like Oh, is this your daughter and i’m going, who is this guy like he was so engaging with people so that had been modeled to me kind of how to.
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Michelle Kerr: get to know people and I I grew up as the firstborn overachiever I have one brother to 20 months younger.
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Michelle Kerr: And so I was typically doing the good girl role i’m also the only girl in both sides of my family, I was the only the only granddaughter.
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Michelle Kerr: So i’d always been kind of an old soul, like in the kitchen with my grandmas and and and hearing stories about their family.
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Michelle Kerr: I remember, most of my youth I couldn’t wait to grow up, I just wanted to go into business because it was the language of business and there’s a portable degree that I can do anything with high minded and French.
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Michelle Kerr: and
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Michelle Kerr: I just wanted to get there, get to that grown up I loved like the image back at the time.
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Michelle Kerr: Women in business for wearing pencil skirts and hosiery closed toe shoes and someone from the local school business came and spoke at my high school classroom and I was just enamored with all of it, the computer.
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Michelle Kerr: All of the technology of the office environment, the professionalism and you know kind of being proper, if you will, like propriety you know.
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Michelle Kerr: But inside, I would say it worked for me, because I am more reserved and perceptive and introspective.
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Michelle Kerr: I learned through the career to engage people and draw them out, I think I learned some of that, through my experience going to church growing up to just being welcoming and i’ve i’ve always longed to have deep authentic connection with people.
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Michelle Kerr: have more meaningful conversation more authentic and real conversation, and maybe that’s because my brother and my cousins were into things I thought was trivial, and I was beyond that wanted to grow up you know.
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Michelle Kerr: So i’ve always wanted to connect beyond surface level thing, so I think I think that’s honestly why i’m a CPA is because.
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Michelle Kerr: It was a means to an end, I wanted connection and intimacy and to matter to be important and what better way to do that, then helping people with their money and finances and then meeting you.
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Michelle Kerr: to advise them then trusting you you’re being talking about very intimate things I mean, these are things people.
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Jason Mefford: People don’t like to talk about their.
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Jason Mefford: Finances right, I mean that in their sexual life.
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Jason Mefford: Those are like the two things that nobody.
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Jason Mefford: Usually wants to talk about.
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Michelle Kerr: Exactly and throughout my career all of my feedback was you know you need to be more technical blah blah blah yeah.
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Michelle Kerr: i’m not a technical person really i’m a relationship person, and in my firm I known as a relationship ninja and it makes sense to me now that I understand that my highest value is connection.
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Jason Mefford: Well that’s that’s why I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about this, because you know a lot of times in professions like ours or other professions, we tend to.
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Jason Mefford: treat people like transactions right we did we just got to get it done, you know i’m.
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Jason Mefford: i’m interviewing you for your you know your taxes or whatever i’m working on right now, so I gotta ask you all these questions and I gotta be productive, so I got to be quick about it right.
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Jason Mefford: And there’s really no bedside manner, if you will, that that typically goes along with it right so but you’re a person who.
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Jason Mefford: Who wants that deep authentic connection and focusing on relationships is important right, I mean, in fact, people that I work with it’s like they’re very technical, but they have no relationship skills and it’s like.
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Jason Mefford: Of course you’re having trouble right because you’re not doing it so so I mean kind of talk a little bit about that, what does it look like to actually connect with somebody because I again, I think.
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Jason Mefford: I think a lot of times to people that are technical introverted whatever right it’s like if I go oh Michelle nice picture on the back on your wall and you go Oh, thank you now we’ve connected right that’s not connection.
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Jason Mefford: Explain.
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Jason Mefford: My connection is.
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Michelle Kerr: Okay, so you don’t mean in the context of what I do professionally you just need what.
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Jason Mefford: Just in general to.
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Michelle Kerr: connection means that you’re willing to share enough of yourself to let down the wall, a little bit to.
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Michelle Kerr: expose not necessarily private information, but real.
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Michelle Kerr: Sincere thought and feeling and sentiment around things that matter to you, whether that’s your love of poetry or your love of your dog or travel or vacation sharing enough of you to let someone else identify with that or not, and possibly connect with it and to be.
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Michelle Kerr: relatable.
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Michelle Kerr: You know, to understand like to understand someone and have them reflect back to you.
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Michelle Kerr: That part of you.
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Jason Mefford: Well, I think that’s interesting because, again, you know as you.
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Jason Mefford: As you’ve been talking there’s a lot of other little inflection points.
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Jason Mefford: right that again if if you and I are going to have a connection so let’s just talk a little bit about maybe connection with other people, and then I want to get to the connection with yourself.
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Jason Mefford: That you and I have talked about before, because a lot of people forget that right, but the you know some of the stuff that you’ve said already, you mentioned poetry.
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Jason Mefford: I write poetry too right there’s there’s a connection there you know early in our you know adolescent life we kind of knew that business was for us, I mean I was the nerd that at 13 was like subscribing to forbes magazine and reading a cover to cover it 13 I know it’s like.
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Michelle Kerr: wow I was never.
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Jason Mefford: You you weren’t that bad right but.
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Jason Mefford: But right so so there’s there’s all these different things, your your parents and your growing up, you know there’s a lot of parallels there as well, right.
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Jason Mefford: So, even in going through and talking you’ve shared.
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Jason Mefford: A little bit of you to me that makes you much more relatable.
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Jason Mefford: So, so I mean, how do we How does that connection now come about, I mean if somebody’s trying to connect with another human.
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Jason Mefford: You know what are what are some of the things that you do, because I know that’s like one of your highest values as you love connecting with people, how do you do it.
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Michelle Kerr: I think.
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Michelle Kerr: First of all.
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Michelle Kerr: When you’re uncomfortable with yourself when you’re so shelled up and walled up with yourself it’s very hard to connect with anyone else.
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Michelle Kerr: I mean you’re basically not putting out any points of connection with you know some of your be like when we have something over us like a Shell and I used to actually say to my Shell may sell.
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Michelle Kerr: Like a true outer Shell, but the inside, was really saw I just didn’t it’s a very small circle that got the T that up but I said, and then I would be in my environment before like you were your emotions, while you’re asleep but i’m like.
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Michelle Kerr: You know i’m trying i’m trying.
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Michelle Kerr: But it’s like my hardest so big it just kind of comes out sometimes when i’m my natural self when we’re operating from and a lot of people are going through life.
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Michelle Kerr: operating from a place of hurt and misinterpretations that we learn as young people, their whole experiences of life is from that place.
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Michelle Kerr: And that’s one of the biggest things I learned in the last two years and the lines of allowing everyone had their own experience of life.
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Michelle Kerr: And to have compassion for them, because I was that way to i’ve had moments of my life i’ve been that way where i’m living from that place of my pastor my path.
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Michelle Kerr: This always happens for me this never happens for me i’m always disappointed because.
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Michelle Kerr: Somebody looked at me wrong or somebody didn’t give me the promotion, I wanted, whatever it is so when you’re operating from that place.
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Michelle Kerr: I think it’s very difficult to have genuine connection, but in the simplest form that you can be in connection with the cash person cashier person.
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Michelle Kerr: When you’re checking out in a store for a moment you’re in relationship with them, you can be pleasant and courteous so there’s I think degrees of connection, but the kind of connection that i’m valuing is a very deep.
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Michelle Kerr: Meaningful more raw more real.
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Michelle Kerr: Not the news, not your republican democratic political affiliation your religion but you as a person who are who is Jason without regard to where you live, where you’re from what nationality what religion and what is common there and that’s something I think i’m an instagram type six.
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Michelle Kerr: which is known as the Loyalists and it says there’s nine types and they’re based in different things.
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Michelle Kerr: Six is based in fear and I thought was how I grew up with all rooted in fear fear this don’t do that you’re going to break your head they’re going to crack your head open all those things.
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Michelle Kerr: But one of the things six look for is stability, security.
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Michelle Kerr: structure, I mean it really fits well with accounting right.
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Jason Mefford: No it’s not yeah no wonder that that’s what you chose to do professionally.
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Michelle Kerr: And it was also content, because I didn’t know any accounts I didn’t I started my first job in public accounting and I was six hours away from my hometown and they told me that there were mandatory Saturdays and I was like you mean I can’t go back home.
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Michelle Kerr: I was so naive, I was 21.
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Michelle Kerr: Anyway, and on a little tangent but that’s.
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Jason Mefford: that’s where we go on this on this podcast so that’s just.
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Michelle Kerr: A bit.
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Jason Mefford: But I want I wanted to ask a little bit more about, because I think I think one thing that.
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Jason Mefford: You know i’m sure there’s a lot of people that are listening that Thank you know what I I don’t have the kind of relationships that I really want.
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Jason Mefford: Right, I do feel alone I don’t really feel that intimacy with other people.
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Jason Mefford: And maybe they’ve gone from relationship to relationship to relationship right, and so, then that kind of reinforces makes it worse, because then you’ve got this oh i’m so happy and then all of a sudden there’s this loss and abandonment that happens in life right, and I think what.
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Jason Mefford: The point that you brought up is, you have to be comfortable with yourself first right and so i’ve heard again, you know intimacy if you want to have intimacy into myself, I see.
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Jason Mefford: Right is another way of kind of looking at that so.
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Jason Mefford: So if people want to have connection and want to have intimacy with other people they got to get comfortable with themselves.
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Michelle Kerr: It sounds like right here for sure um yeah i’m you were talking, I was just thinking back in my own life.
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Michelle Kerr: My my home life was good, I had a good home life, but my dad and my mom were not very good examples of communication, particularly my dad.
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Michelle Kerr: So if I look back in my in the past of my life, the people who had influence both of my grandmother’s were very at a very special bond with both of them, and I would say they’re two of the people who knew me better than anyone, maybe even my my first husband and my second husband.
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Michelle Kerr: And why that was they were open and vulnerable, I mean they were they did a great job, but they weren’t like authoritarian with me my my mom’s mom.
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Michelle Kerr: lost her mother at like age eight so inside there was still like this burly girlishness it was like her little girl within her and my little girl.
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Michelle Kerr: Within me became like kindred spirit and she always allowed me see her, she had an onside she loved to dance she told me stories about my grandpa who died when I was three.
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Michelle Kerr: And how he raised my mom and her siblings and that was connection, like, I was getting that connection with her and learning more about my mom and my family and then i’ve had school teachers who’ve been mentors in my life.
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Michelle Kerr: there’s a lady that I had her Seventh, Eighth and Ninth grade for consumer education and cooking and sewing and.
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Michelle Kerr: child development and all these different things and I grew up helping her clean her house through high school and College as extra money.
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Michelle Kerr: And then she had kids and I went with them every year to help, but I look back we’re still friends to this day she was in town, a couple weeks ago and we went to lunch and she’s like 63.
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Michelle Kerr: But she was somebody who invested in me and also allowed me to know her you know she kind of she contributed to that.
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Michelle Kerr: classy woman image and organized together.
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Michelle Kerr: Because my mom wasn’t a good demonstration of health at the time she has now, but she didn’t do that till she was 60, and so I had people in my life, who you know invested in me by sharing and drawing me out and helping me grow and develop and.
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Michelle Kerr: You you you’ve got to be willing to give something of yourself to to have connection you can’t just like leech on to someone that you feel connection from and feel all of their.
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Jason Mefford: You know you got to be able to.
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Michelle Kerr: to gather you know Bruce lipton talks about being in phase and not in phase and have you ever felt like down and not really wanted to go to like.
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Michelle Kerr: A holiday party or any kind of social gatherings you weren’t in the mood, but then you get there and you’re really.
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Michelle Kerr: Having a good time with whoever you’re listening with, and you, you actually get energized by it, because you’re in phase with what they’re talking about.
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Michelle Kerr: that’s what I mean with the shared experience, where together your magnifying a higher vibration vibration and frequency then each of you individually do alone.
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Michelle Kerr: So there’s got to be some give and take in the exchange to feel connected, which means you have to know yourself and be comfortable enough in your own skin to share some of you.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and I think that that can be hard for a lot of people right, I mean it’s it’s been hard for me at different points in my life.
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Jason Mefford: i’m sure it’s been hard for you at different points in your life right because.
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Jason Mefford: A lot of times so you know we grow up who we are, then we get trained we get indoctrinated with you know, religion and profession, and you know I mean again in our profession, it was when I worked at Arthur Andersen was my was my first gig out of college right and it was it was.
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Jason Mefford: In that firm right, it was very much that you know respectable, you know kind of a thing I mean that you, you had to wear a hat up until the 16th you know I remember one at one of the partners that I knew, you know, he was an old school partner and his first day of showing up at work.
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Jason Mefford: He comes in, he doesn’t have a briefcase.
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Jason Mefford: And everybody looks at him and they’re like where’s your briefcase he’s like I don’t have anything to carry in my briefcase well you can’t show up to the client’s office without a briefcase so they stopped and bought a briefcase.
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Jason Mefford: So he walked into the client with.
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Jason Mefford: Nothing in his briefcase, but that was kind of the image that was expected you know if you were a partner in the 50s you had to mow your lawn.
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Jason Mefford: In khakis and a button down in case a client drove by right, I mean there’s there’s like all these pressures of.
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Jason Mefford: of not being necessarily who we are and so we get taught to put on a face of what we expect everybody else once but then that kind of hides us, and I think makes it more difficult for us to have this kind of connection that you’re talking about.
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Michelle Kerr: For sure for sure, and I think before the times that we’re in now.
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Michelle Kerr: You know, with coven and everything, where people are even more isolated.
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Michelle Kerr: it’s almost magnifying the need for or the fact that the state of business that we all lived in for so long, going going going, you know that, where I grew up, we had a swing on the front porch and people actually were on the other, Porches and you would talk.
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Michelle Kerr: And that doesn’t really happen anymore so everything has become so transactional.
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Michelle Kerr: In our exchanges with one another, I mean most of the time we’re on our phones and barely like even looking up to make contact so it’s also about being present.
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Michelle Kerr: With who you’re with and turning off your devices and giving your full attention and you know really connecting over something meaningful and not just picking up the kids or can you get milk on the way home or I paid that bill saying.
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Jason Mefford: Well, no, and then I had an experience this this last week because I want you to share a little bit more about kind of some of the.
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Jason Mefford: Some of the stuff that you’ve learned and worked on here, but you just kind of reminded me of you know, sometimes we end up being transactional we just.
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Jason Mefford: You know, like you said we text people I mean I remember I texted somebody this week, you know, and it was kind of a transactional sort of text and and there were a response back was you know hello, and then whatever and it’s like all of a sudden, I just sat with that and i’m like shed.
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Jason Mefford: I didn’t even have the common courtesy to like do an intro like hey how’s it going or use the person’s name it was just like.
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Jason Mefford: You know sort of a thing and it’s like so I I recovered I got back in integrity and I sent a message back.
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Jason Mefford: You know that was that was more connecting in its nature, instead of transactional more about the relationship, but you know yeah we we we tend to do that a lot, a lot of the the niceties the common courtesies the taken the time to sit in the front swing and talk to your neighbors.
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Jason Mefford: yeah it is really kind of gone which isolates us that much more.
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Jason Mefford: In I know you know you’ve you’ve gone through this whole.
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Jason Mefford: kind of back to that you know you’ve got a.
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Jason Mefford: you’ve got to be comfortable with yourself.
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Jason Mefford: In order to share and have the connection so let’s let’s go there, a little bit, because I know you being your friend, I know you’ve you have done a lot of work.
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Jason Mefford: yeah on this in the last couple of years, so maybe you know kind of share what’s your journey been like because people that want to go through the same journey they need, they need to have somebody to model.
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Jason Mefford: Right and show.
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Jason Mefford: what’s possible and you are somebody who shows what’s possible right, I mean you’re in a totally different place now than you were a few years ago.
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Michelle Kerr: I am i’m going to go back in time, a little bit again so as a young person I think i’ve always been more reserved, not the first to speak up or the life of the party, but.
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Michelle Kerr: Very introspective and perceptive but not like in a backwards way, maybe a little bit as a young person, but I grew out of that relatively early like as a teenager.
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Michelle Kerr: But my.
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Michelle Kerr: My ability to to connect with people and share.
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Michelle Kerr: I think I always knew where I was, but I also lived a lot of my life from a place of meeting other people permission or approval of what I doing like.
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Michelle Kerr: You know society teaches us that achievement is self worth and achievement means you love yourself and that isn’t true when I got my degree, but I passed the exam.
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Michelle Kerr: When I made partner in the firm those aren’t the things that make me feel self love and self worth those are things I did or achieve.
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Michelle Kerr: And I think I felt pretty confident in who I was, but I was also just insecure and indecisive with my decisions and looking for someone else to say yes that’s a good idea, very externally validated and it hasn’t been until the last two years, that I realized.
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Michelle Kerr: And I went through life letting with the stinking thinking like.
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Michelle Kerr: These things keep happening to me why does this happen to me I don’t understand i’m such a bad person.
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Michelle Kerr: Well, no one’s going to advocate for you, if you don’t advocate for yourself and so really learning to use my voice and speak up for what I think what I say what I need what i’m paid my value, whatever it is, been really empowering for me.
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Michelle Kerr: In the last two years.
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Michelle Kerr: I would say that.
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Michelle Kerr: I went through a period of time after my divorce.
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Michelle Kerr: That I just got to kind of a place of like this emptiness and it was right when I made partner.
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Michelle Kerr: We sold the House that I lived in for 13 years.
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Michelle Kerr: I had always wanted to have children, on my own, and I didn’t I married somebody with kids and i’m great relationship with my two stepdaughters I adore them and i’m glad they’re in my life, now we went through some hard periods.
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Michelle Kerr: So there was just the feeling of like i’ve had everything planned out and nothing has gone according to plan.
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Michelle Kerr: And it was I stayed in that state for quite a while and that victim last day and looking back and knowing what I know now, I can see that I basically abandoned myself most of my life, I had a fear of being alone or being abandoned.
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Michelle Kerr: Like I would say things like everyone I love leave we a lot of loss in our family death from cancer and stuff and then of course the marriages.
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Michelle Kerr: Both both of them I married my high school sweetheart to start and he’s been my only ever partner get all these affairs and.
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Michelle Kerr: I just kept thinking like what is wrong with me but i’m the common denominator in all this, and what I now know is that I was so uncomfortable with myself, like, I could not be alone with me I couldn’t when I moved out of the House and into an apartment.
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Michelle Kerr: I would just stay gone all day until it was time to go to bed if that wasn’t tax season, I would play tennis every night another week or so to my brother’s house and see my nieces.
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Michelle Kerr: I just numbed out on Overdoing i’d come to work because I knew what needed to be done here, I had something to prove I had made partner my clients needed me.
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Michelle Kerr: I could feel important I could feel like i’m matter, because these people need me.
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Michelle Kerr: But the truth was that I could not be alone with myself, because that would mean that I would have to feel all the feelings of this empty empty accomplishment that meant nothing because nothing else was here, but I sat in that for way too long until I met our mentor.
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Michelle Kerr: Which is where I met you, and that has been the, this is the most.
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Michelle Kerr: at ease with me and self compassionate with me that i’ve ever been in my life in the last two years.
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Jason Mefford: Well, because i’ve.
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Jason Mefford: i’ve had again our lives parallel in so many different ways right and big shout out to Jim Norton as well, so he’s he’s he’s who Michelle was referring to, but yeah cuz he’s he’s made a big impact in your life in my life and thousands of other people’s lives as well right because.
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Jason Mefford: Because it is that you know and that’s why I wanted to talk to you again, too, because so much of the time you know, like you said we don’t want to deal with our own shit.
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Jason Mefford: And we want to blame everything else, and the circumstances that we’re in, and we want to thank oh it can’t be me.
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Jason Mefford: When it’s usually us right so it’s likely if you don’t have the relationships that you want it’s usually a reflection back on us, and until we take care of.
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Jason Mefford: ourselves and do some of the be comfortable actually being with ourselves, I mean that’s you know why are so many people busy go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go do all the time, I think it’s exactly what you were doing what I was doing.
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You know.
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Jason Mefford: there’s there’s benefit for it.
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Jason Mefford: right we we don’t have to look ourselves in the mirror, you know and and that’s really but that’s where the healing.
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Jason Mefford: comes as well right, so you know I know we made reference to poetry before I mean what are what are some of the ways that you’ve been able to help get comfortable again with yourself love.
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Jason Mefford: yourself the be comfortable with who you are so that you can make those connections with other people as well.
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Michelle Kerr: that’s a huge.
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Jason Mefford: that’s why I asked.
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Jason Mefford: I asked him.
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Michelle Kerr: I remember.
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Michelle Kerr: In the first round of the transformational coaching program where we met maybe like and I had joined that program i’ve been listening to the podcast and it said.
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Michelle Kerr: join the waitlist I was like Okay, and I thought, maybe that’ll help me as a partner in the CPA firm, but I also was curious about the subconscious mind my brother had been talking to me quite a bit about Bruce lipton and patterns and the speed of the subconscious brain, which is.
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Michelle Kerr: formed by the time we’re eight and the slow processor of the conscious brain and I was like oh my gosh I had with 44 years and overpriced.
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Back then.
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Michelle Kerr: And so I got on the waitlist and I thought that, when the program started, I was there for business and like four or five weeks, then Jim said on the call.
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Michelle Kerr: You cannot grow and evolve as a human being, when you’re constantly hating on that human being and I just started crying because I realized.
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Michelle Kerr: i’d grown I grew up in a very my dad was pretty critical but I adopted an inner critic.
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Michelle Kerr: That took up residence up here and stayed with me my whole life and I had a difficult time receiving constructive feedback because whatever you wanted to give me constructive feedback, I was already beating myself up about it in my head so to get that back to just just hurt.
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Michelle Kerr: So.
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Michelle Kerr: I lost my train of thought, with where I was going with that, but yeah the inner critic was there and.
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Michelle Kerr: After that first round and did I had changed my intention from business to.
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Michelle Kerr: sell for and then from self worth to self love, because I realize i’m being very unloving with myself.
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Michelle Kerr: I went through a different program that one of the coaches offered in the summer on.
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Michelle Kerr: Releasing emotional weight, basically, and there were a lot of journal prompts and that and in that journal writing I remember how much I love writing.
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Michelle Kerr: But also so much poured out of me like when the pen and the paper it just kept going and I love, I read the things I was saying to myself.
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Michelle Kerr: And I thought I would never say that anyone even somebody didn’t like I would never use these words they’re full of hate and that’s how my self talk was.
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Michelle Kerr: So initially was just becoming aware of the records that were on playing in my head over and over.
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Michelle Kerr: About hi looked or my way or my voice was one of them I didn’t like my voice, I had been told that I mumbled when I talk and what are you trying to say I can’t understand you said, all these.
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Michelle Kerr: messages about why people don’t listen to me or take me seriously stories they made up to support my stories that my voice had something wrong with it, and now i’m i’ve had so many people tell me that my voice is called me and reassuring.
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Michelle Kerr: So yeah I was fixing myself talk and then just lots of journaling and unpacking things and taking myself for a walk or committing to not eat at my desk or.
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Michelle Kerr: To not just make a smoothie and grab and go like actually sit down and prepare a meal and eating mindfully not in front of my work.
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Michelle Kerr: Little things that I I had just in that two or three year period after my divorce gotten in a pattern of being on the go grabbing look whatever to keep me going to do my job and not take care of myself.
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Jason Mefford: yeah and it sounds like that you know when you started changing you did take time to take care of yourself right because, again, sometimes our product, you know, all we got to be productive that’s why we do that our desk right.
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Jason Mefford: Instead of it’s not really going to make that much difference if you go for 15 minutes or half an hour and actually separate it right.
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Jason Mefford: But, but also, I think some some tangible things you know that you brought up there with with the writing with a journal prompting you know, I know, for me, I.
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Jason Mefford: When I was going through a tough part in my career, I started writing again, you know so i’ve I have half of a novel.
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Jason Mefford: Actually, that is, that is written I don’t know if it’ll ever but it, but it was very therapeutic.
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Jason Mefford: right for me and like you said you know I use poetry, for the same thing journal journaling.
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Jason Mefford: use the same thing, because I think sometimes like you said we don’t realize how hard we’re being on ourself until we get it out and you went back and you read those words and you’re like man I would never say that to somebody that I hate it.
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Jason Mefford: Why am I saying that to myself right, and then you start to have the awareness so now, you can start start doing things different.
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Michelle Kerr: Things to this particular had 30 days i’m journal prompts yeah the weekend to catch up so went over six weeks so five days a week, there were prompts to follow.
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Michelle Kerr: But I was just surprised at what came out the volume and I like to write, and I think i’ve just gotten in the habit so much at work and being on the computer.
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Michelle Kerr: That there’s a different part of your brain that engage when it’s writing and.
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Michelle Kerr: It just flows more easily and it taps into that right side of the brain as well that creative part, and that is where I remembered that I love I love to write letters and poems and cards and.
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Michelle Kerr: I had been stifled that part of me a little bit, and then there were some other exercises in that program because a lot of things had to do with my body weight as well during that period of time I had an emergency surgery my gallbladder.
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Michelle Kerr: Where resentment lives.
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Just so you know.
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Michelle Kerr: And my weight changed after that and it hadn’t been the same, I was making that mean.
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Michelle Kerr: All kinds of things, and one of the journal prompts was to go back over your life and look at different pictures of yourself at all different ages and stages of life.
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Michelle Kerr: and think about what kind of messages and self talk were you saying to yourself, then we unhappy with your legs or your eyes or whatever now you look at me like we’re good there.
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Michelle Kerr: So we always don’t like where we are where we’re at and then later we’re like Oh, I was good, back then, I mean you wouldn’t say we have their seasons of life, you wouldn’t say to.
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Michelle Kerr: Your kid I mean I have my own kids but you wouldn’t say when they’re 14 like I liked you better when you were for.
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Michelle Kerr: Joe you celebrate all the ages, that they were right.
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Michelle Kerr: it’s the season.
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Jason Mefford: yeah well and just like you know I had a lot of acne when I was 14 right so it’s like it’s like again and again my parents never were like oh you’re ugly you have acne.
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Jason Mefford: right but but did I say that to myself, probably write a little bit as as you go through it so being careful of of what we’re actually saying that way, but I think it’s I think it’s interesting too because.
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Jason Mefford: You know i’ve experienced this you have experiences a lot of people I talked to have experiences to that has made me kind of realize that.
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Jason Mefford: You know, as adults so much of the time we’re like I gotta find myself I gotta find my purpose I got it whatever right, and so we end up spinning ourselves around.
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Jason Mefford: and almost everybody that i’ve talked to we’ve always known what it was go back to when we were somewhere between the ages of about eight and 1514.
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Jason Mefford: There was something about who we were and what we thought the world was going to be like that we usually forget right from those teenage years up until our adulthood.
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Jason Mefford: And I think it kind of seems like that’s similar for you as well, right, that is your reconnecting with yourself getting more intimate with yourself you’re really just unlocking that girl that’s always been there, that you built the wall around.
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Michelle Kerr: yeah that when I said get your feet on the ground and get in your head and do all that analytical stuff.
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Michelle Kerr: Get out of your head get your feet on the ground and quit being so dreamy, I think, is what I call it.
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Jason Mefford: um.
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Jason Mefford: The dreaming is free sorry that.
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Jason Mefford: Just went through my head.
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Michelle Kerr: period in time, where I said I don’t know how to dream.
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Michelle Kerr: So I stopped saying that and just let myself like go out ponder something that I wanted to do and then like one of them was, I want to live on a Catamaran for at least a month or so.
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Michelle Kerr: I want to be near the shore, I want to go out during the day for smart excursions but at night, when we talk, I want to be near the shore.
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Michelle Kerr: i’m still like as I play with this more Emily you don’t want to be in a boozy hotel or I can see my Catamaran but i’m in the hotel at night i’m not sure what is sleep on it a lot of private stuff so like somebody asked me one time I have you ever looked up the prices.
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Michelle Kerr: Oh, I didn’t I did now, and you know I think about it and I let myself, like the play or flirt with the idea I think some of it is just being curious and flirting with these ideas like what would that be like What would it be like to write what would it be like to live on the Catamaran.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and to realize that it is it’s Okay, for it right and again that we can be.
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Jason Mefford: who we are.
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Jason Mefford: And and not have to live within the boundaries of what we think other people are expecting.
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Jason Mefford: Right now, some people might drop off from our life as a result of that that’s always something that can happen right.
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Jason Mefford: yeah you and I have gone through divorces and relationships we were living proof folks right when you change sometimes other people in your life don’t don’t carry on with you but.
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Jason Mefford: But at the end it’s worth it, I think right, I mean you.
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Michelle Kerr: Know it’s like Jim says it’s only going to last and relationship with someone as common as your identities are you so if your identity is one thing and mine’s a different way we’re gonna we’re gonna fall away eventually.
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Michelle Kerr: But again it’s like knowing thyself knowing thyself and it helps me, it has helped me so much.
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Michelle Kerr: My friend race helped me with this when I was letting go of something after my divorce like letters and cards and.
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Michelle Kerr: I got emotional and she was like well, what is it the card day and i’m like well they thanked me for my sacrifice my role in his kids flies and.
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Michelle Kerr: So a lot about his kids and she’s like that you’re so close with them and they call you and you guys love each other and you go to lunch like your relationship is a testament to that So do you need the card to tell you that, or is the relationship living and showing that enough.
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Michelle Kerr: And she shared with me that when her mom died.
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Michelle Kerr: She looks and in the past, just going through relationships who’ve been in that helped her to know her to think about what did I receive from that relationship, and I was very free with me because I did have takeaways like that most recent marriage grew me and allowed me to receive.
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Michelle Kerr: Open up my world as far as travel like five star travel lots of places around the world, and just seeing the different topography of the world and the people and the places and all the beauty, that is.
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Michelle Kerr: In creation, we are all one everything is one the places the food the beauty, you and I, the animals were all created from that same innate intelligence and it’s it’s inside the fabric of who we are.
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Michelle Kerr: me.
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Jason Mefford: yeah and I think that that that kind of you know ties it around in a in a big bow in some ways as well, and what we’ve been talking about is that.
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Jason Mefford: We are all connected.
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Jason Mefford: In anyway.
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Jason Mefford: Well, how do we choose to connect.
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Jason Mefford: Right, are we going to be loving to ourselves loving to other people, or are we going to you know show up and do things that.
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Jason Mefford: is not how we would want to be treated so why would we treat anyone in a thing that way as well, because what you do to someone else you’re doing to yourself.
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Jason Mefford: And is that right yeah in again, I mean, I think you know again your your desire for this connection I think everybody listening, we all have a desire.
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Jason Mefford: For connection right but it sounds like from your story where that connection really starts.
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Jason Mefford: Is inside right sure the connection starts with me and, as you change as you love yourself more than the connection can actually happen with other people.
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Michelle Kerr: I think people are craving that that real vulnerability unfortunately we’re in an environment where a lot of division is President and the media feeds that.
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Michelle Kerr: So, setting aside everything that’s going on in those issues and I was never one to like to talk about politics i’ve always kind of just navigated around that and just.
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Michelle Kerr: Thought to ask people questions more about them and their life and anytime there was an opening or something like I would find the common ground i’m always looking for the common ground.
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Michelle Kerr: That I could identify and then I share a part of me.
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Michelle Kerr: That matches that to reflect back to them and to you know, let them feel seen and heard and be present and it’s like.
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Michelle Kerr: we’re meant to be in Community we’re meant to be known and to know others.
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Michelle Kerr: And there’s so much isolation, right now, when you can look at everyone from that place of compassion and allowing them to have their own experience of life and not trying to put.
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Michelle Kerr: Your opinions on them or your religion or any of that math no math they were no be worth and then like without all of that going on.
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Michelle Kerr: You and I can have a conversation and be real and see where the common ground.
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Jason Mefford: And I think for everybody listening, you might want to rewind because Michelle just gave you like the golden relationship.
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Jason Mefford: Key if you will right, where she said, well, maybe i’ll repeat it, how about that right.
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Jason Mefford: That when you because again your partners and other people call you the relationship ninja right so here you go folks are some relationship ninja help is find the common ground right, I mean you, you and I have traveled literally all over the world we’ve met people all over the place.
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Jason Mefford: We can all find something in common with anyone right.
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Jason Mefford: So.
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Jason Mefford: yeah so instead of looking at differences find something common ground share something relevant about yourself.
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Jason Mefford: right because, again, you said earlier on, you know we have to often share or give before we receive that’s The other thing that so many people don’t understand you get after you give.
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Jason Mefford: Right say that again folks you get after you give so unless you’re willing to give you’re not going to have some of that intimacy and connection that you’re that you’re really searching for.
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Jason Mefford: Oh.
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Michelle Kerr: i’ll just say i’m still a student.
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Michelle Kerr: relationship expert okay telling you what connection mean to you, but I did write a poem I love to share with you.
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Jason Mefford: I would love that I was hoping, you were gonna feel comfortable doing that.
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Michelle Kerr: Well, this I didn’t hear this music for but something you just said, made this one of mine and I wrote those I think back in May.
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Michelle Kerr: As possible possibility to include in a book preference or an usher it is, I am infinite wisdom, I am infinite grace, I am a powerful creator I take up space.
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Michelle Kerr: I am peace joy and love, I am innately divine perfectly imperfect infinitely sublime i’m here to serve, I am here to explore, I am a beacon of hope, I am here to implore.
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Michelle Kerr: Mind body and spirit awaken again I am being called up it’s now not when my gifts are needed, I recognize them now no more fear and hiding I lay all of that down connecting to others stanton mother restores within me and knowing aboard.
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Michelle Kerr: A desire to know you to see and to hear to acknowledge and honor why you are here.
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Michelle Kerr: You reflect me and I reflect you when we honor that there’s nothing to do for each one’s experience allowance and great humanity reflected What a beautiful place.
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Michelle Kerr: I welcome you, along with a grateful heart, the door is always open when you’re ready.
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Jason Mefford: Thank you for sharing that yeah it’s.
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Jason Mefford: me yeah and I think that’s probably a perfect place to end, you know this is again, as I told you folks at the beginning.
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Jason Mefford: It wasn’t going to be anything like you were expecting and it’s not and what Michelle shared today.
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Jason Mefford: Is stuff that we all need to hear we’re all searching, you know, for that connectedness and and.
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Jason Mefford: sharing with you how to do it and there is so much power actually in that last poem that you just read there.
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Jason Mefford: that’s one of those you could pick apart and listen to and read over and over and over again it’s going to mean something different to you all the time, so, so thank you, my friend, I knew that I had to have you on here and and talk and I really.
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Jason Mefford: really appreciate it, I might have to have you back in the future too, because there’s, so much so many other places, we could have gone to the.
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Michelle Kerr: Good work you’re doing in the world, and your impact and your personal impact in my life he’s been a great friend and you are referring to me last fall and I really appreciate you today.
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Jason Mefford: Well, thank you, I appreciate, you and I think our relationship again it’s it’s a testament to that connectedness and that.
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Jason Mefford: We impact each other, we are each other, we are all connected and we need we need each other to become our highest and best selves as well.
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yeah.
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Jason Mefford: Thank you.
