How Great Leaders Create Cultures Where People Thrive with Kristi Baxter

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Kristi Baxter, executive coach, leadership consultant, keynote speaker, and organizational development expert who is passionate about helping leaders cultivate high-performing teams and purpose-driven workplace cultures. Drawing from her experience coaching executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations, Kristi shares practical insights on authentic leadership, emotional intelligence, effective communication, and developing leaders who inspire trust, accountability, and meaningful results. We also explore the importance of coaching, resilience, employee engagement, continuous learning, and creating environments where individuals and teams can reach their full potential while driving sustainable business success. Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, coach, manager, or aspiring leader, this conversation is filled with actionable leadership strategies to help you strengthen your influence, empower your people, and build a thriving organization.

You can find her on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristibaxter/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kb-insights/
https://www.kristibaxter.com/
https://www.instagram.com/kristibaxter9/
https://www.tiktok.com/@kristibaxter9
Email: kb@kristibaxter.com

Transcript

Kristi Baxter 0:00

And the other conversation I had with somebody was around this whole jobby thing. I'm like, well, you know, I'm coaching. And they're like, well, are you coaching or are you a coach? And they're like, is this a business or is this a jobby? And I was like, wait, what? They're like, are you an entrepreneur? Or like, what are you doing here? And that was actually the switch for me. Is like, oh, I'm not a coach who's in business. I'm actually an entrepreneur who happens to be a coach.

Davis Nguyen 0:24

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swain, and I'm a business coach and the founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:08

Welcome to Success Leave Schools Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Christy Baxter, president and founder of Christy Baxter Consulting LLC, where for over a decade she's helped high-achieving women leaders move past burnout and self-doubt into confident strategic leadership. She's trained in positive intelligence and also serves as an executive coach for multiple organizations. Welcome to the show, Christy.

Kristi Baxter 1:34

Hi, Pedro. Thank you very much for having me today. I appreciate it.

Pedro Stein 1:38

Oh, great to have you. You know, and you could be doing so many things with your life, you know, thinking about it, right? It could be a plumber, it could be a chef. Well, you chose coaching, right? And consult slash consulting. So can you walk us through why uh you made that decision, why coaching, right? And uh a little bit about the journey of that made you choose that.

Kristi Baxter 1:58

Yeah, it's um it's a great question. So I we have to kind of go back in the time machine to my time at Coca-Cola. And my boss at the time had a coach. And in those days, you didn't really get a coach as a high performer. You got a coach when you were a bit of a fixer-upper. And so the coach that he had was this really interesting gentleman. He had been a 20-year Air Force chaplain, got out of the Air Force, got um a PhD in organizational behavior and psychology. And he was with our team for probably about two weeks. And I just thought to myself, like, damn, that is a cool job. This guy gets to go into companies and help people be the best version of themselves and kind of unwind, you know, our us from ourselves in many ways. And I literally like the seed was just planted, and I didn't do much with it until a few years later when I had left Coke and I was up here living in the Northeast, which was not the hotbed of consumer products marketing, and I really had to reinvent my career and a career that would allow me to be a mom and still have a professional life. And so I started doing executive recruiting that evolved into career coaching, and my career coaching really evolved into kind of leadership coaching.

Pedro Stein 3:17

Interesting. So you're looking at a guy, you're like, dude, that that job seems so cool, right? And uh, it's not just about the job itself, it's like the impact, right? And helping people and getting them inspired. And at the end of the day, they will perform better, but it's almost like a ripple effect that you see happening like an aura thing, right? In the business. I love that. Totally. Now, I'm curious about one thing because uh we were talking uh previously the recording, right? And you mentioned you're 14 years in the game. You call it for a while, like around two years, a jobby, which I love the term, okay? Yeah, I'm gonna seal that. But I want to understand the shift that actually the leap of faith that made a difference when you're like, okay, wait a minute. Uh it's not just about this, is not that this doesn't feel like helping people or even a calling or a jobby. This is a real business I'm building around this, right? So can you walk us through it first if that was scary, right? And what made you go all in?

Kristi Baxter 4:17

Um, yeah, I actually think there's there was a lot of learning and lessons for me. So in my kind of, I call it my BC, my before children career in consumer products marketing. So I worked for Disney, I worked for Coke, I was naturally very good at it. Um it just I didn't have to think about it, it was very intuitive to me. And when I had to reinvent myself and kind of pivot again into coaching, you know, there was this drive that like I really want to do this, but I was also held back by my fear of failure and fear of not being really good. And so when I started, I kind of tiptoed into the pool. I didn't just dive in all the way. I kind of like stuck a toe in. I'm like, oh, it's a little cold, and kind of came out and I didn't just go all in. And the things that kind of were, I would say, very wake-up call moments for me is I had one of my first coaches asked a question which I ask of a lot of people today, which is, you know, we were talking about my fear of failure and kind of how it was really impeding my success. And she said, Listen, are you willing to be bad before you're willing to be good? Because you're not just gonna be good. You have to go effectively do the reps. Um, and I actually really had to sit with that and think about it because I was not used to being bad at things. I didn't like it. The high achiever in me liked to be good at things and be the best all the time. And so I really had to figure out whether this was gonna be a worthwhile journey for me. And the pull to do it, have the lifestyle I have and have the impact on people, you know, eventually won out. But it was really scary. And the other conversation I had with somebody was around this whole jobby thing. I'm like, well, you know, I'm coaching. And they're like, well, are you coaching or are you a coach? And they're like, is this a business or is this a jobby? And I was like, wait, what? They're like, are you an entrepreneur? Or like, what are you doing here? And that was actually the switch for me is like, oh, I'm not a coach who's in business. I'm actually an entrepreneur who happens to be a coach. So if I want to be successful, I have to treat this like a business. Like I just happen to be selling coaching services. And so processes, procedures, kind of some of the basic business stuff that is not fun, sexy, or exciting. Like I really had to think about. So I was parallel pathing now, becoming a better coach. You know, coaching, we are constantly evolving, educating ourselves, putting tools in our toolbox, but also really setting up business systems to be successful. And that that was the switch for me that really changed it.

Pedro Stein 6:46

And we have a saying here in Brazil, which is there is no half pregnant lady, right? It's either you are or you're not. There is no no in-between. But I I love that because you're you're testing waters, you're still feeling like it. Like, is this a real thing, right? That is totally natural, especially in the early days. Now, I want to go back in time a little bit since you mentioned already a time machine, and I love time machines, okay? Um I mean, 14 years in the game, 12 treating as a real thing, right? A full-time job. I want to call a job a full-time thing. Um, and there is an evolution of who you serve, who you attract, right, from day one to who you serve now, right? So, can you walk us through that evolution of your ideal client profile, right? Because in the early days of coaching, sometimes we're we're trying to help everyone. Yeah, I can help you, but eventually we sharpened a blade, uh, we attract a certain type of people, and we know we can help them best. So please, can you kind of enlighten us on that journey?

Kristi Baxter 7:43

Yeah. So when I started, I came into coaching, like my entryway into coaching was through career advisory. So I had been doing executive recruiting. So the things I helped a lot of people with um in early days was career transition. So my ideal, my ICA was really somebody in career transition, whether they had been um riffed out from an organization, so re-orged out, or whether they came to a point which a lot of people get to midlife, which is like, listen, I don't actually know what I want to do when I grow up, but it's not what I've been doing for the last 20 years, and I have no idea where to go. It's almost like we're paralyzed. So that's who I started with. And to be honest, um, a couple of those folks, once they landed or figured out what they wanted to do, ended up hiring me for leadership coaching. They're like, hey, I really enjoyed working with you. Do you do leadership coaching? And at the time I didn't, but I was like, of course I do. Um, and I went and I got myself educated in leadership coaching very, very quickly because I had been a leader, I was a very natural leader all my life. Um, and so it felt very um on target for me and felt very aligned. And so that's where I started. And so the more leadership people I got, I mean, I've been very, very blessed to have built a business largely off of referral. So, hey, I get a phone call out of the blue, somebody's like, hey, so-and-so told me they really enjoyed working with you. Do you have space? Well, yes. And so that's where it started. And I would say, as I've kind of evolved in coaching and as I've been coached more, you know, one of the things that um a lot of business coaches will tell you is like, you attract you, right? So you are your ideal client. And I think that has largely been the case. I am a high achieving, strong pleaser, strong controller, a lot of push energy kind of person. Um, I've evolved a lot. I don't quite have that. I'm on the other side of that. Like, I've really learned how to um lead out of joy versus anxiety. And I think of a lot of like high achievers leave out of lead out of anxiety, right? Like, who am I if I'm not achieving? Who am I if I don't get the results? If I'm defined by being the person who gets stuff done. And so I'm on the other side of that. There's a lot of energetic work that kind of needs to be done around that. But that's who I attract now. I attract people who are high achievers, who have a strong people pleaser, who honestly are tired. They're like, why am I so tired all the time? Or they feel this kind of burden of leadership versus the blessing of leadership. So, in many ways, part of the work we do is to help them feel lighter about leadership. Um, and it really is a feeling of how they're moving in their body. Like confidence, I want to walk into a room and not be stressed out. I want to get out of my head and stop overthinking. I want to feel confident that when I open my mouth, I don't have to have the right words. I'm okay with the words that come out. Like all of that stuff that's kind of in our inner world. That's a lot of the stuff I work on. Um, and again, I've walked the walk and I've been on this path.

Pedro Stein 10:52

Interesting. Um, you mentioned certain traits that you had in the past and yet you still attract now. So, in a way, it sounds to me that you're guiding past Christie, you know, the person you were, and that you made it to a different person you are right now, but you you get it. You had skin in the game, you understand the way of thought. Is that did I got that right? Something like that.

Kristi Baxter 11:13

Yeah, it a hundred percent. And and here's kind of the deeper work. So, one of the things when people start talking about coaching and transformational coaching, and I always think this is funny. When I first started coaching, everybody's like, oh my God, such deep work. We did deep work. And I was like, what the hell is all this deep work? Because again, I was like the achiever. Um, and I've really since come to appreciate like what the deep work is. And it is, you have to kind of go and excavate like some of your skeletons in your closet. Um, and as you're doing that, we have an identity upgrade, right? And so we can talk about the skills, we can talk about the mindset work, we can talk about energy work, but the underlying thing that really had the biggest transformation for me is identity work. And a lot of people are not successful in kind of their coaching journey because they're not willing to step into the discomfort of really doing deep identity work. And I'll give you an example. Um, a lot of female executives really struggle when they have kids because they've been this like powerhouse female executive, and all of a sudden they're like, oh my God, I'm mom. And they don't kind of get that it's an and. They they're still playing in the I can be this executive or a mom. And and there's an identity shift. Well, if I'm mom, am I still this badass leader, right? Because we didn't identify with being a mom for so long. And to be honest, like there's a lot of I think mom baggage just in general. Like we have mom jeans and soccer moms and mini band mom, minivan moms. Like, why is it all negative, right? And and so people who have really built their identity around being these successful leaders look at that as I think, in some ways, a downgrade. I did not ever feel, I mean, I didn't feel that way about being a mom, but I definitely struggled with letting go of my corporate identity. That was hard. And it held on with the death grip.

Pedro Stein 13:06

Okay. And is it safe to say, based on the intro and all that, that it's mainly women that you work with that you serve?

Kristi Baxter 13:14

Um, I would say primarily women, but I actually still have a lot of male clients. Um because I think men go through very similar identity issues. I'll give you an example. I have um I have a client that I've worked with in the past that finally got like the big job. Like he went from being a COO to a CEO, and his identity crisis was around he'd always been kind of the second in command, and he's like, Holy shit, like I'm where the buck stops, right? And that was really hard for him to like be the ultimate person where the buck stops versus having like a safety harness and and not having that safety harness of like the CEO was he just did never see himself in that role. He was always like, he told himself, I'm the number two guy, right? Like even when I met with him, he's like, Listen, I'm the number two guy. He never saw himself as that person. So that really required us to do some identity work. And identity work is just like evolution, right? We have to kind of decide what parts of our identity we want to keep and what parts in many ways we've outgrown or that will no longer serve us in kind of the next evolution of ourselves. And then kind of it's like gardening, it's just like doing some very strategic pruning of the parts that no longer serve us and continue to grow the parts that we need to grow into.

Pedro Stein 14:35

Okay. So a little bit of a game of pretend here. Okay. Let's pretend I'm your avatar. I'm uh, well, not me, right? My long-distant cousin called Pedra. I want to hit the bread and butter here. So Pedra is a high achiever. Okay. Yep. Uh, she's spinning her wheels, burning out, doesn't know what's not connecting, she's unsure of what's next and all that. Uh, and she's a leader, okay?

Speaker 2 14:59

Yep.

Pedro Stein 15:00

Um, so first of all, how would be Pedra able to find you, right? Uh marketing-wise.

Kristi Baxter 15:08

Well, Pedra can go to LinkedIn um at Christy Baxter, she can go to Instagram at Christy Baxter9, she can go to TikTok at Christy Baxter9, or she can reach out to me very simply, kb at christybaxter.com, or go to my website, christybaxter.com, and that's Christy with a K, R-I-S-T-I-B-A-X-T-E-R dot com, and find me. Any one of those wishes she can find me. I'm not that hard to access.

Pedro Stein 15:37

Okay. So let's say she did that. She went through your LinkedIn, your TikTok, your website, or even was referred to work with you, right? Uh, that also counts. Um, they're like, she reaches out, she's like, hey, Christy, look what you got out there. Would love to work with you. How does that look like? Uh, we can speed up the sales process a little bit, or you can add a note there. But what I would love to, first of all, saying there's alignment, okay? She's coachable and all that. But I would love to know is like, how does it look like uh, I mean, behind the curtain to work with you, right? And uh the outcomes she can expect.

Kristi Baxter 16:17

Yeah, so um, pretty simplistically, um I always start with kind of assessments so I can understand somebody's operating system. So I have a number of different assessments I use. They're not particularly onerous, but they help me understand your inner domain, right? So Pedra's inner domain. So how strong is her judge? Does she have a strong achiever or controller or hypervigilant? There's this little cast of nine characters that we have that kind of are playing in our inner domain and really impact how we um experience the world. And so we start with a background history. So, you know, love or hate your childhood and your family, your family impacts how you show up in the world more than most people appreciate. So it's just really helpful to understand, you know, your background, your growing up, your parents, your family structure, all those kind of things. And it's not to go in and be a psychologist. I'm not, but I've done this enough to know that a lot of how we show up starts then, right? So your operating system is largely established by the time you're seven years old psychologically. And a lot of your the things that any of us have, like an achiever, a controller, we're really coping mechanisms as a child coming from the innocence of a child. So I just want to understand that. We do the assessments, we kind of, you know, every assessment is unique and it doesn't land for everybody. So we just kind of pull the threads so that I really have an understanding of how they're moving through the world. We create a vision, right? Like, where do they want to go? What is it they want to get out of this? Like, this is not about, I think you should get this out of coaching. It literally doesn't matter. It's what does Pedra want to get out of coaching? And what does the feeling that she wants to have? One of the things, I mean, I just did a sales call yesterday, and the client was like, I want to walk into the room and just for the life of me feel confident. They're like, I always feel like all eyes are on me and that people are looking to judge me. And they're like, I just don't want to feel that anymore. Okay, so that's a feeling. Um, so I so I grade people, I kind of do a scale of one to ten. Where are you now? Where would you like to be? And then get a sense of what does that look like? Because confidence looks very different for everybody. And I think it's helpful for us to have just an idea of where we're going. And then we get to work. Um, and the work is really starting to unwind some of those saboteurs, um, working on mindset work. So, okay, I overthink things. Well, what's going on in my head when I'm overthinking? Have I teach them tools? Um, like learning how to question your thoughts. So that they now start to build a toolbox and it's a shift in being. It takes time. The thing about coaching is no human being comes with an instruction manual. As a parent, I can tell you it would have been a lot easier if they did. So I can't tell you whether this is going to take three months, six months, or two years. And it's a journey. Like I just kind of am like their Sherpa on a journey. Um, and we do the work, they do the work. Um, and it's usually a lot of questions, a lot of perspective. I do, I have a pretty deep toolbox. So we do everything from mindset mastery to um somatic, so body work to nervous system regulation work, right? I'm not gonna feel confident if I can't um learn how to manage my nervous system and I'm perpetually in fight and flight mode when I go into that meeting. Um we create new ways of being. I love to do mind gardening, right? Like I create, I overlay a lot of neuroscience in this as well. Um, so your brain needs to be able to see a different possibility. It doesn't actually have to believe it, it just has to know that there's a different possibility. So we mind garden, we plant seeds of what possibility might look like. Um and then you'll start to see the clients start to see as they're moving through like what seeds are taking root and germinating and what is going to bear fruit, and we start to kind of go towards those. And what I found is that as we do work, I tend to have clients for, you know, honestly, more than two years because we're constantly upgrading, they're constantly evolving. And a lot of times, like I have clients who've been promoted three or four times and our work together, and like we think we're we think we're kind of there, and they're like, oh my God, I got this promotion, it's awesome. But now how do I manage people who manage people who manage people? I just got good at managing people who manage people, but now I have three steps. Like, what does that look like? Because it's a different way of being. Um, you know, a lot of times like when we talk about achievers, achievers really struggle with what's my value if I'm not driving results, like directly driving results, right? And when you get to be a more senior leader and a lot of your impact is growing leaders, like how as a leader are you growing great leaders, right? It's not so much about did I, you know, did the sale, we make the sales numbers. It's like, are you really enabling the people underneath you to shine and have like great success with the sales numbers?

Pedro Stein 21:15

You know, I'm gonna try to throw one here because I'm looking at my wife. She's a business owner, she's a former teacher, right? Okay, and uh, I'm trying to understand from my point of view, a guy, how does uh her struggle, right? What what I see, and this potentially can be linked to your your clients and all what you see, right? I see her as a business owner spinning her wheel sometimes with a feeling of guilt because she's unsure if she should spend more time in the business or with the kids. Like, what's the point, you know? Um, and I and and it's always like not about where she should spend the energy, it's always this guilty feeling, I a vibe. That I get from her, right? Do you see that happening? And if so, can you help someone with that? You know, navigate that to get focused on what are we aiming for? Because to me, talking with her, it sounds like she's confused sometimes on where to focus. You know what I mean?

Kristi Baxter 22:17

Yes. Um, the short answer is yes, I see this quite frequently, and yes, I can help. I mean, women carry a lot of load, right? And this is not to be sexist, but generally speaking, most women carry more family responsibility. And I have some women who have stay-at-home husbands, and it's wonderful, but they still like we just are wired differently. It's not good, bad, or otherwise. So we tend to carry more load. We worry about things. Our brain is constantly on, you know, okay, the kids are doing this. Okay, I have to do this for my business. And we walk around carrying the weight of not enoughness. Oh my God, I'm not a good enough boss, I'm not a good enough wife, I'm not a good enough mom, versus focusing on what we're actually doing well. So there is a bit of a mindset switch. Like we have to change the habit of not enoughness. And that is a mental habit, right? Like the brain wires things for shortcuts. So if your habit is to think like, oh my God, I'm not a good enough mom, I'm not a good enough like boss, I'm not a good enough entrepreneur, you're gonna create that as a reality. So we want to switch the reality to be like, this is what I do really well, this is what I'm great at. And I think women especially have a little bit of this tendency to live in the or, right? I can do this or that. I can be a mom or a business owner because it's harder to be an and, right? But you can a hundred percent be an and. And you know, when you're a working mom and almost all my female clients have kids at some stage, some like babies and some like are about to be empty nesters. You know, um, but sometimes you get the best of you and everybody else gets the rest of you. Sometimes work gets the best of you and everybody else gets the rest of you. Sometimes your family gets the best of you and you get the rest of you, and that's okay. It's okay. Some days you're gonna be really focused on your family and your kids and your husband, and that's a okay. Work's always gonna be there. There are times where there are, I mean, I have some clients who have some pretty big like work things, you know. Look at an accountant. I have some accountants, it's like tax time. Their family knows, don't really talk to me in March and April. You're not gonna get much of me. Um, and that's okay. And part of it is just for us as women to work through what is it that we're feeling guilty about. And this is something that women largely have this expectation that we've been fed culturally that we can do it all with a smile. It's like we're super women with a cape. And somebody told us when we went back to work that you can have a family and you can be this executive and you can do it all, and you can smile. And so we as women hold ourselves up to that. And the reality is like it's hard. It's hard to work a full day of work, get your kids to 30,000 different activities in two different places, and come home and have some semblance of dinner because everybody's going 40 different directions. It is not easy to do that day in, day out, week in, week out. So it's what do you have to let go of, right? And a lot of times it's letting go of an ideal that was never yours to start with. Um, and really creating what your vision of success and what your vision of how you want your life to look and feel looks like.

Pedro Stein 25:33

So I'm not I'm not crazy. Good. Okay. No. Good, nice. Uh appreciate the insight. Now I'm curious about one thing, Christy. Um, we're talking about future right now, shifting gears for a second. So, what's next for your business? You know, looking ahead, where do you see the business going?

Kristi Baxter 25:50

Um, that's a great question. So I really want to start doing more group coaching. So, masterminds, I have not dipped my toe into doing masterminds. That is coming this fall. Um, I will have my first mastermind launch in September. So I'm really excited about that. Um, I am starting to create more um online content for sales, so mini courses, um, larger courses. I have two contents for sale right now. Um, one is about kind of taming your inner achiever, your hyperachiever, and one is breaking up with your pleaser, right? We've been dating long enough, it's time to break up. Um, and those are just short little courses on how to kind of move forward. So I'll be creating more content and more products and services that I can scale versus just being dependent upon me and my own capacity with time. Um, you know, I definitely want to create more programs inside of businesses. So right now I do a lot of training inside of businesses, I do a lot of um, you know, team development inside of businesses, and I would like to be able to create content so that I can train people to kind of basically feed themselves, right? So if you give a man a fish, they eat for a day. If you teach him how to fish, they fish for a lifetime. Um, and I'd really like to be able to kind of teach companies how to actually fish for themselves in a way that I have known to be successful.

Pedro Stein 27:14

So exciting.

Kristi Baxter 27:16

That's the future. A lot on my plate.

Pedro Stein 27:19

Yeah, mastermind September and launch and all that. That is super cool. That gets me excited. Um now, whenever we're aiming towards something new, right? Always something we're we're improving uh right now. So, what are you current currently trying to tighten up in your business?

Kristi Baxter 27:37

Um, I would say my online presence. So, you know, I think one of the things for a lot of coaches, myself included, is that I did not start coaching so I can be a content creator. Um, in fact, when I started coaching, there really wasn't this thing called content. There was LinkedIn, which is largely more where we connected versus more where we put out um content. And so one of the things I've been a little reticent to step into is this whole notion of content creation. And I've really come, much like you know, you have to learn to be bad before you can be good, I'm reliving that lesson of just stepping into the discomfort of being online, being seen, having opinions, knowing that people aren't gonna agree with my opinions, and that's okay. Um, so that's really my edge right now is that kind of content creation to be more visible online. Um, I've been very quiet on Instagram and TikTok. Um, I certainly have a presence on LinkedIn. Um, in all honesty, I feel like everybody on LinkedIn is just like super well behaved and it's kind of tiring. So I'm really trying to put a little bit more effort into some other platforms so I can be a little more unfiltered, um, to be honest.

Pedro Stein 28:49

Okay. Now you mentioned a time machine at the start, and I would love for us to hop on sci-fi territory real quick. Okay. Okay. Uh let's have a first stop that we can go back 14 years ago. Okay, when you opened shop, you started your business. If you had the opportunity to give yourself one piece of business advice that you wish you knew back then that you know now, what would that be?

Kristi Baxter 29:13

Um be okay with failure and be okay being uncomfortable. Really. I mean, that I think is one of the biggest things is you know, for me, it was learning that failure is okay. And it's just it just is a data point to learn and redirect or keep going versus making it about me. And that is kind of the the strong hyperachiever of like if your entire identity is built on getting results and you don't get results, that's kind of a that is an identity crisis. So I think that's one piece. Um and it didn't feel comfortable to not be good. And so for me, I would love to tell myself that like you have to go through this. It's what I tell tons of clients all the time like there's no way around it. You're gonna have to just wade through the discomfort and be okay being uncomfortable, even though everything in your body might be telling you no, right? As human beings, we actively avoid discomfort. Um, and so to know that it'll be okay, and you have to do the reps to get to the other side.

Pedro Stein 30:14

Okay. Now, second stop, you can go back in time in those 14 years, you can pick a point in time. And uh the idea here is a top of mind moment that you're like felt the most fulfilled in the entire journey. Something like you're looking back at that moment, you're like, oh, this is why I started this, you know? What would that be?

Kristi Baxter 30:39

I think it is the first time I had a client who had like a really big just breakthrough. And they came on to a call, and you know, I will talk a lot of times about like not gaffing or not giving a shit, right? Like I call it kind of give a shit status. And I remember this actually comes from a client, and she's like, we'd worked for together for quite a while. She had a lot of stuff in her head, and that's okay, we all do, no judgment. And she got on the call and she's like, Oh my god, I did it. She's like, I literally walked into this meeting that normally like causes me near anxiety attacks. And she's like, I literally just didn't give a shit. And she's like, It was the greatest feeling ever. She goes, It was fun, it was enjoyable. It was she's like, This is what it's like, like this is what it can be like. And I was just like, Oh, I felt like the heavens opened up because that like that was accumulation of a lot of work she did. I mean, I'm just the guide on the side, but for her to have that feeling that was literally like life-altering for her, just in how she felt about her work and how you know you could see just her whole entire energy had shifted, like that one little thing, just to walk in and be like, oh my god, like she was irritated. It came out of a place of she had had a bad day, she was mad, she's like, fine, whatever, I'll quit. I don't even care. And like she walked in, but she's like, This is what it feels like, and it totally flipped for her. And for me, I was like, oh my gosh, this is why I do this. I love getting people to a place where they feel unapologetic, they can own their brilliance, they can be themselves and stop worrying about what everybody else thinks. Because to be honest, we get in our head about what other people think, and most people don't care. They're too worried about what everybody else is thinking about them, right? Because that energy now shifts. She felt lighter, she felt more confident, she felt more comfortable, like like that, just in a flip.

Pedro Stein 32:26

Dude, that is so funny. You mentioned like I, my first client, my coaching business. Uh I was like, he was like, Oh, it took months. He was like a neighbor of mine, right? And it took some it took months for me to reach out to you because I tripped that day on the kids play, whatever. And I I hurt my hand and I was embarrassed. And I'm like, dude, what are you even talking about? I don't even remember that, right? It's just like there people are so over their heads that they don't realize, like people have their own lives and they're they're dealing with their own stuff that they don't care as much, right? It's you that is caring too much. But anyhow, uh love the reminder, love our stops. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, Christy. And we're gonna have all the links in the in the description, but where can people find you best and connect with you?

Kristi Baxter 33:16

I mean, I would say if they want to reach out, the easiest way is to send me an email. So it's kb at christybaxter.com. I would love to have their follows on Instagram at Christy Baxter9, TikTok at Christy Baxter9, or LinkedIn, just Christy Baxter. I think I'm the original one there.

Pedro Stein 33:33

Okay. You know, I gotta highlight some golden nuggets from today. Okay, so bear with me. Um, let's go back to the origin story first. When we were talking about that cool coach that had a cool job, and you're like, wow, I want to do that one day. You know, this is one thing that puts things into perspective sometimes. It's how we have uh the ability to inspire others, and we're we don't even realize like that guy, maybe he doesn't even know that. Maybe you you did told him that, but it's something that he was just in that space, that moment, and the ripple effect that created for you to help women, uh, past Christie's, right? Um, that is so cool to watch. I love that type of story. Um, okay. Now, second, I would say is I love that quote from that coach that told you, Are you willing to be bad before you're willing to be good? No, I was talking with a a coachy the other day, and it was like so tactical on the I would say even the sales calls, like, oh, and we're gonna do this and what's expected, and blah blah blah. And he went, he never did the reps, right? With what I was about to coach him. And and it's almost like let's say you never drove a car and you're reading the entire manual, dude. Just do the test drive, you know, just feel it. How the how that felt like, and then talk to me later because people they they they tend sometimes to not simplify stuff and they're getting to their heads and they're like, oh my god, spinning their wheels of multiple scenarios to make it perfect. But at the end of the day, it's like you said, it's when you realize you can do your your best, but your best and getting results doesn't equal controlling stuff. Because if you try to control, it's like man's what's the quote again? It's like man makes plans and God laughs, something like that. It's just like it is what it is, man. Do your best, expect the results, but doing it in a cool energy, doing it in a grateful energy too. Like uh the one you mentioned to lead out of joy instead of anxiety is one thing. The other thing you mentioned, the the mind garden, planting seeds of what's possible is another thing. And the last but least, uh, it's don't give a a sheet. Uh like don't give a shit. When you were talking about your client, right? She goes into the room and she's like super confident. And the thing is, like, especially in sales, I was in sales for a while too. Yeah, um, people pick up on a needy energy. If you're like not confident, it's the body language. But whenever you're so confident that you're I'm going, I'm gonna go there either way, whether you like it or not. If you want to hop on, great. If you don't, it's all good either way. They're like, what's up with that? You know, you don't need me, you don't want me to sell something. Like, no, dude. I'm just like, I'm just trying to help people and all that. So this is just my long-winded way of saying, Christy, that I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. It was great having you on.

Kristi Baxter 36:34

Thank you. It was really my pleasure to be here, and I really enjoyed our conversation. So thank you very much, truly.

Davis Nguyen 36:40

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business to six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.