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Mireia Mujika: Hi everyone. And welcome to this new episode of ‘Ways to Grow’, where every two weeks, I will interview experts to help us understand and discern different disciplines that will help us grow, improve our well-being and be better leaders. With this aim, we will travel from east to west, from the pure psychological studies to the ancient Germans. We will look at every field, and you will take what interests you. Join me on this journey of learning and discovery. My name is Mireia Mujika. I am a personal and executive coach. And for this episode, I have invited Michelle Kempton to join us to talk about co-active coaching. Michelle is a professional coach, certified by the coaches training institute, master certified coach by the international coaching federation, and founder of captain coaching and training. She does leadership, development and organizational change. Michelle has more than 18 years of experience in coaching, leadership and course design. She is a supervisor and examiner for the CTI or Coaching Training Institute certification program. She is also a trainer for the European leadership program, and facilitator and mentor coach for advanced coaching courses. Michelle has facilitated courses in multiple industries including medicine, law, sports, education, banking, and fortune 500 companies in more than 30 countries, and has worked with brands like Telefonica, Vodafone, Adeslas, Volvo, Renault, Nestle, Bimbo, among others. Michelle is partner and trainer for the institute for experts coaching in Spain, in Cuade. She has worked with the Spanish football federation, the Spanish Olympic committee and the Spanish synchronous swimming Olympic team. Michelle is also a teacher and facilitator in more than five universities master's programs in coaching, emotional intelligence and leadership for doctors. Apart from all this, Michelle is mum to three children, she was born in the states but she lives in Valencia Spain, and therefore she speaks Spanish apart from her native English. Listener, if you want to know what coaching really is how it works and how it can help you or your co-workers, both personally and professionally, this is your episode. We talk in depth about co-active coaching which is the world's largest and most established in person, and online coach training and leadership development organization in the world. And the one that both, Michelle and myself are certified in. Apart from this, if you are a coach yourself, Michelle shares some of her techniques that by experience I cannot tell are immensely helpful. But before we start, let me remind you of our website, waystogrowpodcast.com, where you will find the details of all our guests and also the books and resources they recommend. And if you like this podcast, please, please, follow and rate us so that we can keep growing. Finally, welcome Michelle. And thank you very much for accepting my invite to be my guest today. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. 

 

Mireia Mujika: That is great! I am honored to have you here. It is really, really nice. But before we get, we will be talking about co-active coaching today but I wanted to tell our listeners how I actually met you. So, it was in Madrid, and this was my synergy program, the fifth course that I did for co-active coaching, and then I had the pleasure to meet you. There as you were… what do you call it in front of the room? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Leader. 

 

Mireia Mujika: In front of the room leader, exactly. So, there was Michelle, and I fell in love with you Michelle, I have to say. Michelle is this person that is super warm. That is what always comes to me when I think of you; it is warmth. It is something that is embracing you. So, I really like enjoying those two days and a half with Michelle. And then I was fortunate enough that in my certification, Michelle was actually also my mentor. And she was telling me like, okay, you have to improve this, and you have to improve… It was really nice. I really enjoyed my time with you. 

 

Michelle Kempton: I enjoyed my time with you. I remember, you being the demo client with my co-leader Pilar, and I remember the aliveness and the courage you showed that day, like you really stood out in that class. So, I was actually really pleased to see that I got you as a supervisor, that I was not going to be able to mentor you. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah! And that was great! 

 

Michelle Kempton: It was a sweet coincidence. Yeah. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. I always remember, actually now that you mentioned that, yeah that I had to get out of my courage and the strength in that class. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. I remember, you really got stretched out of your comfort zone but you went for it. And it modeled something for the whole group you were in. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. Well, for the listeners, so Pilate, who was the co-leader at that time, she actually asked me to be a trainer, which I was actually. Well, yeah, until now I used to do some physical training or yeah, fitness training; and she asked me to do that for the class. So, yeah, I had to ask someone is to do, an imaginary someone to actually do pull-ups. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. But what I remember about, it was how you stepped into kind of leadership and you were so bold and alive, that there was a contagion in the room after that.

 

Mireia Mujika: I really felt empowered, I have to say. I really feel this is me. I go for it. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah, I remember. Exactly! That is great! Like there was a moment of like “this is me”. That is what coaching is all about is getting to the essence. And maybe flowing from there, it was a moment of authenticity for you. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. Essence, authenticity, this is what I wanted to talk about. So what is the cyclic coactive coaching and where is it coming from? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Okay. Well, so, first of all coactive coaching, when it first started, it really was a program. It is a model. It is a way of being in the world. It was originally a model to train professional coaches. And then it evolved into a model really for leadership and for just interacting with people. I think the best way to explain it is that, ‘co’ is kind of the being and ‘active’ is the doing. And the philosophy of co active coaching is that, I mean first of all, it is for really tapping into human potential. And we believe that the doing should flow from the being. So very often and especially now, we get busy in life. And we just want to get the job done, right? And we get to a point where it becomes very superficial. It is almost like we become human doings instead of human beings. And co-active puts the ‘being’ back in the human being. So, it is like everything you do, ideally is infused with being. It comes from a place of honoring values or being connected to a sense of purpose with what you are doing. And it is about consciously choosing what you do rather than being on autopilot in life, which is just what happens, right? Or the hamster will, you just replace… you are ticking boxes and getting the job done but it is almost like, you have lost your soul or you have lost your heart. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Your authenticity… 

 

Michelle Kempton: Your authenticity and fulfillment, right? Because when you just become a human doing, you have also disconnected to feeling fulfilled in life. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, yeah. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. ‘Hacer por hacer’, we say in Spanish. 

 

Michelle Kempton: ‘Hacer por hacer’, exactly. And it leaves you with a real empty feeling at the end of the day. ‘Athar Pura Farik’, right, doing just to do, just to take the boxes get the job done. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. And where is it coming from, you said? 

 

Michelle Kempton: The co-active model. Co-active coaching, the school started, it was really like a backyard business in California. Yeah, I mean, they never ever imagined, it would grow and expand and have the impact in the world that it did, and that it has… 

 

Mireia Mujika: You will… Oh sorry that I interrupt you. But you were one of the early adopters, right? 

 

Michelle Kempton: I was. I got to be a kind of pioneer for co-active coaching in Europe and in the Middle East. So, it started in 1992. And the three founders were Henry Kinsey house, his wife Karen Kinsey house and Laura Whitworth. And when they started it in 1992, coaching still was not known. If you talk to people about coaching, they did not know what it was. And again, they had no idea what their impact would be on the world. Since then, I think we have probably trained 65,000 to 70,000 people in the world, probably in 30 different countries. And it is probably one of the most highly respected in-person coach trainings in the world, because of the integrity and the quality around how we train people. 

 

Mireia Mujika: The integrity and the quality is; I do agree with that. What is what fascinates you more about active coaching? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Well, first of all, I want to say I am very grateful to have been hired, early on when I was hired and be a part of the wave of people bringing this into the world because it was so exciting, it was so exciting. I mean, I went to Dubai, I do not know 16, 15 years ago to do this work. And there was a buzz in the room; there was a buzz around this, like we were doing something that would impact. I mean, it, to me, was like spreading a beautiful wildfire of sort of consciousness and awakening and… Yeah, so I just wanted to speak first to my gratitude. And even today, as I sit in front of a zoom room and do this training, because right now most of it is online, I have never taken it for granted, I have never gotten tired of it, so that I am continuously fascinated just by human beings. And then as in terms of the model, I think of it like, maybe what most fascinates me is that, let us say you are my coachee; when you and I work together, it is like we step into this bubble.

 

Michelle Kempton: And there is like you are present, I am present, and there is this kind of third entity or magic that enters into the space, when there is I think intense focus and presence. Suddenly, it is like where attention goes energy flows, and we magically discover and find answers, and there is improvement and creativity that brings kind of an unexpected process of discovery in service of your growth and your evolution, and it is hard to explain. But it is like, in this bubble, magic happens. And it has to do with you and me, our connection, presence, and the focus on doing whatever it takes for your growth, your learning and your evolution. So to me, I am fascinated by this kind of third thing that happens between the two of us; that feels like magic. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah, a magical bubble. 

 

Michelle Kempton: It is a magical bubble, it is. It is a magical bubble. I say, it is like taking a time out from the storm and it came from life, right? And you step into this bubble. And you have like the kind of the luxury of attention and focus on your life. You know, who you are, who you want to be, what is working, what is not working… 

 

Mireia Mujika: And where everything is possible, if I can add. Do you have the feeling that everything is possible in that bubble like…? 

 

Michelle Kempton: It does feel like that. It is like a connecting to essence, and the answers come. And, you know, and I am a strong believer in like in visualizing. And, you know, there is lots of neuroscience behind visualizing; your desired future basically. In fact, I have my own model, coaching-mentoring model that I use. And it is all about visualizing with all of your senses; where you want to be? What you want to achieve? And then it gets stored in your brain, and your brain then goes to work on finding the path to get there.

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes! Beautiful input! Yes Michelle, completely agree with that. It is awesome! So now you were saying that you have your own models of coaching. So can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. So, this model was developed from working a lot in organizations, because the companies would often ask me can we have the coach also be a mentor. And I said, you know, if we are doing pure coaching, no. But let us create a model for coaching and mentoring. So, it is called the drive model. And there is a part, in the steps you go through. In the coaching conversation, there is a space for mentoring. And it is within the context of a brainstorm. So it is still very co-active but it allows a leader or a mentor coach to bring in some of their own wisdom. And spread that the learning and the growth of the coachee or the mentee. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Okay. 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, I say that it is really coaching with a dash of mentoring.

 

Mireia Mujika: Of mentoring…  

 

Michelle Kempton: 85, 90 percent coaching and 10 mentoring. But it allows for a space of guidance or sharing of wisdom and experience that can serve the other person. And that is what companies want. They want their senior leaders to be able to pass down some knowledge; and with pure coaching, you can do that. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah, completely agree. Yeah, I have had at least the feeling that sometimes your Sprue coaching can be a little bit limited. That is the feeling that I had sometimes. Yes. So, now imagine that as you said that you are working with companies. So, imagine now that I come to you as company and I would like to have a process for my managers, for example. So, how would you approach that? What would be the process that you follow there? 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, you mean a coaching one-to-one or training for the managers? Which? 

 

Mireia Mujika: You can explain both of them. I was thinking about coaching but you can just… 

 

Michelle Kempton: Right. So what I do, an awful lot is the coach, I train managers and leaders in the coach approach, the leadership, so that is basically how do you take this deep listening and empowering questions, and tapping into people's values in order to motivate them, or collaboration, conversations, all of this, like how do you use it in the day-to-day with teams. So, I am passionate about the coach approach to leadership and culture change. So that is one thing. Another thing is working one-on-one with a manager. And if I am working one-on-one with a manager in a coaching process, then of course we would be zeroing in on whatever it is that manager needs to improve. And sometimes, they will bring… I will work with that manager but also their manager will give some feedback about what this person needs to improve, maybe they have a 360. And usually we work with what I call a public agenda and a private agenda. So we will work with what the company and the manager sees that it is areas for improvement for this person will also work with whatever that person needs. Sometimes it is very much about what is happening in their personal life that can be impacting their professional life. And those are the things that when the manager shares basically the progress of the coaching. There is part of it that is private, that does not get shared, and it is part of it that is public which is what the company is at because often it is the company paying for the coaching, right? So, they want to know. And that always goes through the manager. But it allows us to, basically, with the kind of coaching that I do, very often there is more impact on a manager by working with a lot of personal things that may be having this person out of balance, right? There are a lot of issues with work-life balance, with creating boundaries, with time management. So yeah, so that is often we go into, you know all the different areas of the manager's life. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Okay. So, the question that I get quite a lot is like what happens in a session with a coach, right? Am I supposed to close my eyes? Am I supposed to jump out of the table? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to just sit down and talk or do I have to…? What would be the answer there? 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, one of the beauties of this kind of coaching is the improvising in the moment based on what is needed. And the greater range a coach has creativity, the more exciting and different things can happen. So, you have your very basic conversation where you and I are sitting in a chair, we are talking. And then you have things like what you just mentioned where you might close your eyes and visualize something, we might put music on in the background to impact your emotional state, we might use props, you know, sometimes I use play mobile figures, and I might put a play mobile figure right up to the camera on zoom, and say, “Mireia, this is you, what advice do you have for this?” Like a kind of a third person, we might use storytelling or, you know, we go into fantasy and I say, “Once upon a time, there was this beautiful, wonderful coach named Mireia, who wanted to have a successful coaching business.” So, there are all different creative tools and resources to bring liveness into the session. 

 

Michelle Kempton: And also invite the coachee to dream. You know, it is not easy. But there is ways to or, you know, like the one where I said, you know, I put a little figure, it might be a statue that I have on my desk. And I say, “If you are telling me, Michelle, I just do not know the answer to this.” And I say, “Well, so let us imagine, this is your daughter, and she is struggling with the same thing, what advice would you have for?” And suddenly, you have the answer. Right? So, there is creative ways to tap into the inner wisdom and resources of a client. So, you could be doing all sorts of things or, you know, maybe you feel like you are trapped in your life and I might say, “well, let us create that and you might get under your desk.” Experiencing the trapped feeling so that we can actually take you there in your body, and then we see what happens, and it is a blow-by-blow rather than guiding you actually. Suddenly, you close your eyes and you go, okay, what does it feel like inside to be trapped? What is happening? What is my experience? and that can be super transformative. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes! Super powerful! I remember these are the things that actually you told me about when I was doing my certification. I learned so much from you about those things, and about how to fabricate those contexts, so that someone really feels like being trapped or being free or whatever it is. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. I think powerful coaching is not talking about something, it is experiencing something. 

 

Michelle Kempton: And it is like, the bigger or the greater range the coach has and the sort of bigger toolbox, the more you can come up with creative ways to take a person into an experience, where transformation can happen. It is not intellectual, it is experiential. 

 

Mireia Mujika: And this is something that I always talk to with my guests. We always talk about the wisdom of the body. And this is a question that I always ask my guests. So what is that? So you were saying it is not intellectual, it is actually experiential. Like meaning that it is not intellectual, it is not in the head. It is actually, where is it? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. So it is in the head, it is not about making the head wrong, it is just that we are mostly in life focusing from, you know, a thinking place. And the metaphor I like to use is like imagine that we have met on an elevator; an elevator that is very often stuck on the top floor. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Our job as coaches is to help move the elevator down here, where the person can feel enough… this is another brain, the heart brain, like the intelligence of the heart. And that we do that by asking, you know, like so what are you feeling or what does your heart say, you know, what are you sensing, right? So, we bring the elevator down here. But we can also bring the elevator down even lower and ask about what is your impulse, what is your instinct. And we are tapping into different centers of intelligence in the… 

 

Mireia Mujika: Or what is your gut feeling…? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah, what is your gut feeling? or the question of what is your intuition on this, what your sense is, what your intuition is telling you. And so suddenly now instead of approaching an issue from just what do you think, we have now got a much more holistic approach. And when a client taps into these different intelligence centers, they are able to make a much better decision. It is like having a much more powerful compass to direct them their lives. So it is not about making the mind or the heady place wrong, it is just about helping the client tap in from a more holistic approach… 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes. I remember, I think it was you that… now I am doubting if it was you are not but someone said that, when we know how to play the piano first, we just play this first 16 because that we have just in front of us, right? Whereas, like, if we are an experienced coach, then we can actually play the whole range of the piano. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. And the way you get to that, right? Just like anybody learning to play the piano is being willing to fail, being willing to experiment, and you can design with your client and say, look, I have an intuition to try something, are you willing to play with me, and please let me know if it does not work. So that you are designing, co-creating with your client. And that way, it is easier to take risks because you are not sure that it is going to work but if you do not try it, you would not know and you would not get to those outer keys. So, it is also about experimenting and being willing to fail sometimes in service of stretching yourself as a coach and also stretching your client. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes. So, apart from a co-active coaching, what other disciplines do you use together in your sessions? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Well, so I mentioned the drive model, right? So there is that, and that is especially in with corporate clients. I also use a method called the Merlin Method. And if people look this up, they might have tried finding it out… 

 

Mireia Mujika: Merlin? 

 

Michelle Kempton: The merlin method. I was trained in that method many, many years ago with a leadership project with Andessa by a leadership Guru named Jim Selman, who came in from Canada. And I modified that tool to make it work for me but it is a very powerful tool. And basically, it is about creating the present from the future. He believed that the present moment should be created from the future. So that is the name ‘Merlin method’ is. Quite magical, people love it, and I have taken it into lots of organizations. And then, I also do a lot of role play. So that is not something we training in coactive but I use it all the time. So, if you come to me, you say, I have a really important conversation coming up with my husband or my boss, I am really nervous about it or whatever, then we go into actually having that conversation where I am your boss, and sometimes I am you and you are the boss and we kind of do whatever it takes to get you prepared. And again, it is like there is neuroscience behind that. If you practice it and you experience it in a way where you are on your values and you are visualizing how you want the conversation to go, it is much more likely to go that way. 

 

Michelle Kempton: So yeah. So, I do, I use a lot of role play. And then creative resources, that maybe we do not go into so much in the trainings, we do some but drawing, dancing, music, using different tools to create an experience for the clients. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes, as we were saying before, right? Creating that experience; not just talking but experiencing, experiencing the transformation. So, there is this friend that we have, he is called Mike, he is called Mike. And he is around 30 year olds, who suffers from burnout at work. So, what would be your approach to him? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Well, so first of all, this is really unfortunately very common at the… 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, the first approach, and I think I mentioned this earlier, would be to look at, I mean, first of all the bubble for Mike would be great, like Mike getting to just step into the bubble would already relax his nervous system because people going to burn out when their nervous system is on overdrive, it is like they have gone into survival mode. Their brain is trying to survive. The load that they have taken on…

 

Mireia Mujika: Fight or flight… 

 

Michelle Kempton: Exactly. They are in fight or flight. So, they become less resourceful. And then, it starts taking a toll in their personal lives in on their health. That is the most worrisome thing. You know, I have clients, who, you know, who come to me and say, I have had, you know, two or three panic attacks in the last, you know, a month and a half, stuff like that, where they are at their limit. And so the first thing is just stepping into the bubble, really good thing. It is like we slow down, we slow down; they have somebody in front of them, who really cares… I even use my voice, right? Creatively to like just slow down, almost like a soothing, you know, nothing to do, nowhere to go, this is all about you. And I guess the first areas to zero in on are time management, boundaries, very often people go into burnout because they are often high performers who do not know how to say no, and they are used to being able to manage a lot. And so what happens is, oh, if you are a high performer Mireia. They would say, oh Mireia can handle it, let us, you know, let me call her. Let me call her, you know, 12 o'clock at night and say, “Mireia, I need this thing tomorrow because we have to do a presentation and I know you can handle it.” And you go, “Well, yeah, right. Okay. I will take that.” So what happens is, we focus on time management because we cannot always blame it on the organization or on the boss. Very often, it is the client's patterns, not being able to say no, taking on too much, not being able to close the computer when they get home. You know, sometimes it is experimenting with at five o'clock or six o'clock, every day you close the computer and you do not open it up until the next day at eight. Go put it in your car, give it to a family member that locks it, you know, locks it in the closet, right? Or your phone, take the email function off your phone, you know. A lot of times it is just getting their life back. And connecting them to who they were before burnout, or before they went into overdrive, getting them back to the being because going back to where we started, oh, burnout comes from doing, doing, doing. Like, they have lost the connection with their soul, with purpose, with meaning. So, the coaching would also… so not only would we look at the practical things of time management and setting boundaries and what actually are you doing from when you wake up to when you go to bed but plugging them back into meaning, to values, to purpose. And a lot of times it is helping them, like with role play, design that conversation with their boss saying, “I am working with a coach. in order to be at my best, I need to cut back here, I need to maybe delegate a project.” It is having those conversations where they take back control over their time and their lives. If not, it is very dangerous. It is very, very dangerous. Burnout is a serious thing. I have had clients, where burnout has taken them out of the game for a long period of time. And getting back and recovering is no easy thing. So, when you start seeing the signs, it is time to get help. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. It is time to go to call a coach, Michelle. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah, to call a coach or even just start researching; there is a lot out there now because this is such a common problem of just seeing even, you know, if you cannot afford a coach or you do not have time or whatever, to just do a little of your own research, and start practicing little things because burnout happens; it is almost like paper cuts; it is like a million paper cuts, it is a slow process, right? So, the same way you get there, slowly, you can also get out of it slowly. So it is looking at what do I need to do in my day-to-day to kind of come back to a being place, feed my soul, honor my values. And sometimes it can be little things, like, you know, that coffee in the morning, reading the paper or talking to my partner that I sacrificed. I am going to bring that back, right? So, you start bringing back the things that make you feel like a human being again. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. We are saying human being. Who is the client that would most benefit from a session with you? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Wow! That is an interesting question! I mean, I can tell you that I very often get women leaders, just because it seems to be that is what I what, you know, those are the kinds of clients that are often I draw. I think anyone. For me, it is not so much about what they do, it is about somebody who is ready to grab the bull by the horns, so to speak. Or commit to what it takes to change. They want more; they want a more fulfilling life. And so, it is more like the kind of client that I like to work with is somebody who is ready to commit to what it takes to step out of being maybe a victim of life and being a leader of their lives. Because in my definition, everyone is a leader, everyone is resourceful and whole and able to be a leader of their own life. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. Perfect! Beautifully placed! And finally, as last question actually. What book or other resources would you recommend to a person interested in your discipline? 

 

Michelle Kempton: A book… so a book about coaching? 

 

Mireia Mujika: A book about… yeah, a book about coaching. 

 

Michelle Kempton: I am a lover of books. So it is like depending on the area. Right. So, I mean, you know, I am passionate about the coach approach to education and raising kids, there is a good book called Kid Quote Pro. I also like, you know, this book is quite good, The Coaching Habits - say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever. Of course! I would have to recommend the co-active, you know, the coactive coaching book and the leadership book which is… Alright, so you have got this one but you have also got the coactive leads to. So, co-active coaching and then you have got co-active leadership. You get used over time the coactive model into… really this is a model for leadership, kind of, you know, based on the definition that I just shared that everyone is a leader. So, those are, let us say, and let me think if there is another one that I would recommend. You know, I am reading one right now that I really like which is Rethink by Adam Grant. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Rethink, yeah. 

 

Michelle Kempton: And I love this. This is a very good book for the times that we are living, which is about unlearning and reimagining, you know, we used to think, you know, it is important to learn and… His approach is like, some of the things that have been working are not working anymore. And so maybe it is not about learning but unlearning, innovating, and being creative under pressure because things are changing, you know, everything is… The unexpected is happening every day, right? Like with everything that is happened in the last couple of years. And so, it is a book about re-thinking, reimagining, and being innovative and creative. Trying things or coming up with things that maybe have never been done before because we have to be more mentally agile with how disruptive everything is now. So that is a really cool book, Adam Grant. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Okay. Which is the last book that you read? 

 

Michelle Kempton: I am always reading several books at once because I listen to them on audible. So, I like the Kevalian, the Kevalian is actually the seven principles that is quite a spiritual book. Untamed, this is a great book, I highly recommend that one. I am also reading the Wild Woman by Mikhaila Oem. Excellent book! She talks a lot about the body. And that is a really good book for women, who are finding themselves stressed and wanting to have a better relationship with their partner. And be sort of flowing more in their life and in the world and they found themselves sort of in the opposite of that, maybe, and then be in the doing in the go, go, go… So yeah, so that book is about how you get back into balance with flow and go. She talks about flow and go… 

 

Mireia Mujika: Flow and Go! Okay. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Flow and Go!

 

Mireia Mujika: Perfect! Okay. And there is a question I always ask to my guest and is there anything that I have not asked that you would like me to ask? Or is there anything that you would like to add to this session here? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Well, you know, what comes to mind just because I was inspired by this yesterday and I put it in my post on LinkedIn, is that since we have talked a lot about the doing and the being and how right now, I think there is quite a lot of danger. And I think mental health and well-being is a priority right now for organizations and for people. It is been tough, right? And in my moments of stress, I do something that may sound a bit strange. But I go walking in the park. And I observe dogs and children because they are full of aliveness, they are present. In fact, I created the list on LinkedIn… 

 

Mireia Mujika: I read your post, it was beautiful. Yeah, I liked it. 

 

Michelle Kempton: So, it is like finding inspiration in innocence and in essence. I think dogs and kids are sort of like they are… it is unfettered essence. It is to me, there is purity about both of them. And by observing them, it helps me plug back in to that beautiful, kind of pure spirit that they have. So, I think of it like dog and baby therapy, right? So I highly recommend that if people feel stressed, it may sound like a funny thing but try it. Just sit in a park or walk somewhere, where there is going to be a lot of kids playing and dogs running around and let their joy be contagious. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Let it be something that helps you remember who you were and how you was when you were a child. And I think it plugs you back into something that is our birthright, which is joy. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Hmm! Oh beautiful! Our birth right joy! And I think Michelle was beautiful. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Sometimes hard to find that was why… 

 

Mireia Mujika: It is. 

 

Michelle Kempton: I created ways to play, I cannot do that. 

 

Mireia Mujika: But I am going to take this challenge onto me. And whenever I go to the park with my kids, and I see dogs, and I see them interacting with each other, then I would let it just come to me and flown to me. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah. And your own kids, you have got two little inspirations at home. One of the things that is, now that my kids are older me to, yes, is playing with them. I love to like get on the floor and draw with them, you know, Legos, it was like a meditation for me, it was an escape into pure presence because they are timeless, right? They are not worried about time. 

 

Michelle Kempton: And it was, they are beautiful for me and I really miss that. I see mothers walking their kids and I thought, I know that a lot of those mothers are stressed but I look at them, I think, I am envious of you, I am envious because kids pull you into the here and now like nothing else, right? And it is their beauty. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes. This is amazing, Michelle. That is all for today. Thank you, Thank you so much for taking your time out to be with us here, and for all this wisdom that you pass on us. So, thank you very much for that. I hope you can join us for another time, talking about something else, something different maybe but it will be… 

 

Michelle Kempton: My pleasure! I will invite you to my podcast. Did you do that?

 

Mireia Mujika: Yes. Tell our listeners what is… so your podcast is ‘Leadership Game Changers’. That is it,right? 

 

Michelle Kempton: Yeah, ‘Leadership Game Changers,’ conversations with heart and humor, right? And I just interview people, who inspire me, and who are changing the game out there in their corner of the world. And I try to make it really useful for listeners, you know, asking those leaders about tips, you know, what do they do to keep balance in their lives? What are their practices and routines? And then also, who they are and how they got to where they got to? So, yeah, it is just really, it is a podcast to inspire people. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Yeah. Great! So, to our listeners, just follow Michelle Kempton, and her podcast ‘Leadership Game Changers’, and also you can go to waystogrow.com, where you will find all the information about Michelle and the books and resources that she shares with us. So that is all for today. Thank you very much for being with us. And see you next time. 

 

Michelle Kempton: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. 

 

Mireia Mujika: Thank you. Thank you. 

Hi there, it is me again. If you think that is any discipline that you would like to listen to in this podcast or if there is any feedback that you would like to give us, please go to waystogrowpodcast.com and leave us another. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And see you soon. Bye.