The Uncommon Leader Podcast

Embracing Transformation: A CEO's Journey to Find Clarity and Joy

• John Gallagher

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Cindy Carrillo, a remarkable leader with a flair for transformation, takes center stage as she shares her journey from corporate CEO to the creator of a soul-nourishing retreat at her Colorado ranch. Her childhood, defined by a delightful absence of expectations, paved the way for her unique success story. Listen as Cindy offers profound insights from her book "Finding Your Next," where she redefines retirement as a thrilling reinvention of purpose. Explore with us the symbolism of cowboy boots over high heels, and how embracing dreams, regardless of age, can lead to personal fulfillment.

Discover the enchanting tale behind the CC Blue ranch, born from a serendipitous moment and transforming into a legacy of family adventures and empowerment. As Cindy guides us through the fears that often hold us back—like fear of the unknown—she reveals practical strategies to overcome personal barriers and seize our aspirations with newfound confidence. Through storytelling and coaching, the ranch becomes a haven for self-discovery, where individuals and partners find clarity in their next life chapters amidst the joy of interacting with animals.

Join us for an inspiring wrap-up with Sydney Carrillo, whose journey as an author and coach adds another layer of excitement and vision. Her upcoming second book and impactful coaching program are a testament to dreaming big and maintaining a visionary mindset. Be ready to share these valuable insights with your network and help others discover our community of uncommon leaders. This episode is an invitation to keep dreaming, evolving, and embracing every phase of life with clarity and joy.

Thanks for listening in to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Please take just a minute to share this podcast with that someone you know that you thought of when you heard this episode. One of the most valuable things you can do is to rate the podcast and leave a review. You can do that on Apple podcasts, or rate the podcast on Spotify or any other platform you listen.

Did you know that many of the things that I discuss on the Uncommon Leader Podcast are subjects that I coach other leaders and organizations ? If you would be interested in having me discuss 1:1 or group coaching with you, or know someone who is looking to move from Underperforming to Uncommon in their business or life, I would love to chat with you. Click this link to set up a FREE CALL to discuss how coaching might benefit you and your team)

Until next time, Go and Grow Champions!!

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Speaker 1:

And I think there are many, many people out in the world who find themselves in a position, whether they're in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, they're looking at retirement, whatever it is where they might have the opportunity to find their next, and they don't know where to begin.

Speaker 2:

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. Today, I've got an extraordinary guest, cindy Carrillo, joining us. Cindy's journey from being the CEO of her own company to running a transformative immersion experience at her ranch in Colorado is nothing short of inspiring. In this episode, we'll dive into Cindy's unique three-day immersion experience aimed at helping individuals, couples and business partners find clarity and alignment in their lives, and we'll explore her personal development story from her book Finding your Next. Along the way, cindy shares valuable insights on redefining retirement, breaking through personal barriers and embracing life's next phases with clarity and joy. And embracing life's next phases with clarity and joy. This episode offers a wealth of inspiration and actionable insights, and I've already got several people in mind to share this episode with, and I hope that you'll share it too. Let's get started. Cindy Carrillo, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I am so looking forward to our conversation today. How are you doing?

Speaker 1:

I'm doing great, so happy to be here, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Good, Well, I know you've got a great view out your back window there. We're recording this on a Friday afternoon, so we'll get through this and you'll be able to enjoy that view. But we're going to learn a little bit more about that view as well as we go through the journey of your story today. But I'll start you off the same way I start all my first-time guests with a question that is asking you to share a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, you know I had a great childhood, just a great childhood. Here's a story. So it's a little later in my childhood I was about 16 years old and I had an older brother, so he was a senior in high school. I was a sophomore sitting around the kitchen table with my parents and I was never an exceptional student. I was. I was always kind of an average student, didn't if I? If I applied myself, I would get straight A's. But I got to say didn't apply myself all that much.

Speaker 1:

I had a lot of different interests and I remember getting my report card and sitting around the table and really supportive parents by the way table and really supportive parents, by the way. And when my brother gets his, I get mine and mine's like an A here, mostly Bs as science, not great like a C plus. And my brother in all earnest, like looks across the table at me and he says so, cindy, how does it, how does it feel to be average? And it wasn't like a diss, it wasn't like he wasn't putting me down, he was really curious. And I gotta say, you know, I, I, my parents, kind of leaned in like, yeah, how does it feel? And it seems so weird to say it now, but I was like it's fine, I'm fine, I'm fine living the life that I'm living right now as a 16 year old.

Speaker 1:

But I will tell you, I kind of grew up under the radar and I was the youngest of all the grandchildren. I was the youngest in my family and nobody expected a lot from me. They did not expect me to do well, but there were no real preconceived notions about who I was going to become and what I was going to do. And as I look back on that, as I went through my career in my life and here I am at 67 years old, I appreciate that because I wasn't locked into anything as a kid and I remember my mother always saying to me oh honey, you just do whatever you choose to do. You just do whatever you choose to do, and when you figure it out you'll do it well. And I think that sort of was the freeing moment in my childhood and my early adult years too to just relax.

Speaker 2:

You're fine. I like that because, again, we talk about so many, especially with authors, and the start of their story is this great tragedy that they've overcome or whatever it is, and I get a sense, even as I read your profile, read your bio and through your LinkedIn work, that there's a lot of success in your world and there may be some things that you've had to overcome along the way, but it sounds like some of that overcome is just the expectation that there wasn't an expectation. You had to set that for yourself. So I appreciate that and I can tell right away how that has impacted your story here that we're going to talk about today, and that's your book Finding your Next. Now let's start off with a very important question, because I need to speak with your publisher.

Speaker 2:

Although I think, you might have self-published the book, because I think you spelled the word incorrectly. I know that you're missing an E inside of that word, so there's got to be a story behind the title to get started. So tell me that story, let's hear it.

Speaker 1:

You know, when I talk about finding your next, I always have to emphasize the next. And people ask the question all the time and as I've become a coach in this part of my career and even when I was running business, the question was always actually what's next? What's next? And when we say it, we emphasize that and we kind of rush through it. And when we say it, we emphasize that N and we kind of rush through it. So when I was going to write the book about finding your next, I wanted to really emphasize the importance of the next and we just didn't put an E in there because it really wasn't important, because when you say it it's just NXT, just NXT.

Speaker 2:

I got to tell you I was trying to find it. It's just NXT, just NXT. I got to tell you I was trying to find it. I was trying to find the answer before I came to you and I didn't find it. I thought I was going to get an answer like oh, it's the secret recipe and I can't tell you what it is, or I'd have to kill you. It's like the thing that's gone back in the family for a long time. But I appreciate what you're saying. With regards to the emphasis of on the word next, I don't know may or may not. Again, I like to read a lot of books, and one of the most impactful books that I've read in the last several years was by Jeff Henderson, called what to Do Next as well, so he spelled it with E, so you may have to talk to him that he spelled it incorrectly instead of you, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2:

But look, so that is the story, and I make up, after just some of the brief conversations that we had, that it really is about your next in terms of your story. So why did you write this book when you wrote it and who did you write it for?

Speaker 1:

You know, I think the reason that I wrote the book was that it was a pretty big transformation I went through. I ran a company for over 20 years founded it was the CEO of it, grew, it did an amazing job of building a team and a product and built something new and exciting and reached a point in my development where I realized, oh my goodness, I think I'm done with this and I'm looking for what's next, and that process unto itself of coming to the decision to move on and to sell the company. Look, I was in a great place. I didn't. I wasn't in crisis, it wasn't a horrible situation that I needed to move from, and I realized that many of us find ourselves in a position in life where we're just ready, it's an opportunistic, next it's I'm good. And now? Now what and how do I apply everything that I've learned?

Speaker 1:

So when I sold the company, I was in a unique and fortunate position of having some resources, having all the time in the world and being able to really go out into the world and say where, what? How would I thrive next? And ended up buying a ranch in Southwest Colorado. I tell you, I've never lived on a ranch before. I've always been a nice suburban girl I don't know anything about living in rural America and really went through a 10-year transformation from being a CEO lots of great suits and high heels and fashion was a thing and traveling and amazing experiences to now living on a ranch.

Speaker 1:

I now have a great cowboy boot collection and just a different wardrobe. But really it was much more of a deeper transformation of what was productivity going to look like, what was important to me in my life. How do you go through a process like this, from becoming from being a CEO to now being a ranch girl and that's essentially who I've become and a coach and developing different kinds of programs and totally different than who I was before and what I did, and yet totally who I was before and what I did before, just in a different way and what I did before, just in a different way.

Speaker 1:

And having gone through that process, I thought I'm not that unique. I'm actually not that, you know, I'm not that special. I'm quite ordinary. And I think there are many, many people out in the world who find themselves in a position, whether they're in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, they're looking at retirement, whatever it is where they might have the opportunity to find their next, and they don't know where to begin.

Speaker 1:

I wrote the book, and I wrote the book using my story as the illustrations of the process of going through to find your next.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I would imagine, even as you talk about that and I actually have there's a person that I've been coaching that has absolutely come to my mind that is going to get a copy of this book in their mailbox next week as you tell that story. First, I love the analogy of high heels to cowboy boots. I think that is really cool as you talk about, or whether it's team members to goats and you'll get a chance to talk about your goats that you have on your ranch as well. I think that's a really cool story that draws. But my guess is you were in a situation, as you mentioned, from a resource standpoint, that you, frankly, didn't have to do anything. You could have retired. What does that word sound like to you, even back then or today? What does the word retired sound like to you?

Speaker 1:

You know, I said I was going to retire and but every time I said it I put air quotes around it and I would retire. So I knew that retirement in a more traditional sense, which I think most of us think about, is we're not earning anymore. We might volunteer, we're spending our time, maybe we're playing sports, pickleball's, a thing I don't know. I knew that I wasn't done working. I didn't know how I wanted to work, so I used retirement as the bridge, as a way for others to understand that I was taking a break to figure out how I wanted to work next and how I needed to design a different way of living my life, with a different way of working. But I still like to earn and I think that retirement is a place and a time most of us think about. We don't have to work and earn a living anymore. We're living in a different way, and that just wasn't the case for me.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. I mean, I'm close to where you are and I get tired of asking that question, even of when I'm going to retire, because I don't I just don't sense that word. Uh, as much as looking forward to that date, if you will that you stop, because it has too much of you. Stop, you don't add value anymore. There's some other word that, whether it's reinvents or whatever it is, that you can continue to add value, and one of the ways you've done that is with your book. So your book has 16 chapters, I, you and one of the ways you've done that is with your book, so your book has 16 chapters. I don't want to not talk about that. I could talk stories all day long, but, uh, you know the book has 16 chapters. We clearly don't have time to go through all 16 of those chapters, but it's important about where you start. So where did your story start and how you wrote this book? What's the first step?

Speaker 1:

You know, the first step was to um identify the dream. And I think that as we age, we stop dreaming and we think that we've got to get so rational and so logical and so real. And I'm not talking about dreams that are fantastical, I'm talking about dreams that can be based in reality. But they're aspirations for ourself, of what we think we can do, based on who we are, where we can thrive, where our skills and our strengths are. And I remembered back, you know, when I moved to Colorado I think I was 19 years old, and I took a road trip with my best friend, nancy, and we came down to Southwest Colorado and we found this little town of Euray, which is called the Switzerland of America, and I looked up at these mountains and I was awestruck and I thought I think I shouted it out in the car One day, one day I will live here in these mountains.

Speaker 1:

And then I went back and life happened and I started to work, I got married, I had kids, I started a business and I think I forgot the dream.

Speaker 1:

And when I found myself in this point in my life, I started to reimagine life again and what kept coming back were snippets of this dream, this magnificent view, this living in the mountains, this lifestyle change and, as I kept saying it and as I would put air quotes around, I'm gonna retire in the mountains with a beautiful view and I'm gonna sit on a big porch and a rocking chair with a really big hat and just sort of look at that view.

Speaker 1:

I remembered the dream and so that became the direction that I went in. I'm going to go back to that area, I'm going to see what's in that area, I'm going to see if it still has meaning to me. And I did. I came back down here and I saw those views again. And it's the one thing about mountains, you know, takes them a long time to change, and the amount of time between me being 19 and having sold the company, they didn't change all that much. They were still absolutely magnificent in the way that I remembered them. So I realized this is where I wanted to be.

Speaker 2:

I love that as a first step and I certainly appreciate as you talk about. As we age, we stop dreaming. I don't know why that is. I think it's something that is there. It leads me into one of your questions. But you end up purchasing this ranch and it's the 30, 35 acres.

Speaker 1:

And now, once you want animals and yeah, it's 35 acres with nothing on it. I mean there's pasture. So I'm like, oh my goodness, what does this mean? But you know, I stood on this land and it was a very sort of fortuitous coming together of timing and and everything. It was 2008, 2009, when I was on the land, right after the economy had tanked, real estate market had tanked, and so I'm looking at this 35 acre parcel with three mountain ranges surrounding it. Normally I wouldn't have been able to touch it, but it was good timing and so I bought it.

Speaker 1:

I was given the opportunity and I bought it, and my first inclination was oh my goodness, where do I go from here? I know nothing about building on raw land. Essentially, there was no services, but when I stood here and I looked out there, I could see a future. I couldn't see where the barn would ultimately be, I couldn't see where the garden plot was going to be, but I could see my family coming. I could see my friends coming and us wanting to share it. I could actually hear laughter and joy and I thought, oh, now all I have to do is build it and, to quote the famous movie, and if I build it, they will come, but I need to build it with a certain intentionality of what I'm trying to create.

Speaker 1:

And that was the second step. That was trying to figure out what's really important, why, why are you doing this? And I think we all have to ask ourselves. You know, when we all go through the process of figuring out what's next, what's our first human knee-jerk reaction? It's to get into the weeds. I want to change my job, okay, well, what does that mean? Well, I've had this job with this title. So, logically, we begin with what our title is going to be, what we need to earn, where we need to live. We want two or three weeks vacation. We get into the nitty gritty stuff and I'm interested in wait, let's back it up. You're making a major change in your life. Why? What do you want this to do for you? What's the life you really want? Why don't we begin with what's really important in the life you want to live? Then you can design around that. But if we don't stop and back up and ask ourselves why, we miss the point of designing the life we really want.

Speaker 1:

And I had this unique opportunity with 35 acres in front of me. I mean, everybody gets to ask the why, but not everybody has 35, you know virgin lake acres in front of them. So asking why and what I wanted to do with it. So we wanted to share it. We wanted friends and family to come down. I also live six hours away from my core group of people, so nobody's stopping by for dinner. Somebody's coming by for a few days. So we needed to build the accommodations that people could be comfortable here. We wanted a sustainable life. So, looking at materials, energy, food, everything about living a sustainable life what did that look like? What could that look like? That became the criteria for all the future decisions about how to build this lifestyle that we wanted to live.

Speaker 2:

So, so fun. Field of Dreams you had the Ranch of Dreams or the 35 Acres of Dreams, that movie. There's another one. They make movies about this kind of stuff, right? I think it was Under the Tuscan Sun. It's not a movie that I watch, right? I mean, I think it's one of those movies, right?

Speaker 1:

I'm sure, I'm sure.

Speaker 2:

But you didn't like. You didn't call it the field of dreams or the ranch of dreams. You came up with a name for it as well, so let's drive down that path just a little bit and talk about the name of your dream location.

Speaker 1:

So you know, we realized that we I keep saying we it's my partner, matthew and so coming down this area all this time and driving by all the ranches because when you're doing this you need to go and like, look at what everybody else has done before you can make up what you want to do, you know, and get inspiration. So we're doing that and, oh my goodness, everybody names their land. You know, growing up in suburbia, you do not like name your house Right, but down here and in every rural area, people name their properties.

Speaker 2:

And if you're right, so you have the gate you know, and we decided to go down low.

Speaker 1:

But yeah you know, and so we're coming up with horrible names. You know peaceful acres and vista view and just looking back on it.

Speaker 1:

you know Peaceful Acres and Vista View and just looking back on it, you just get really kitschy and you get silly and we were sitting, we were starting to build and so we had an RV at the time and would park the RV on the property for a few days and meet with the builders. We're sitting at the kitchen table on the RV and we're coming up with really stupid, silly names and then Matthew's phone starts. It just sort of lights up, you know, when you kind of hit it, and on his screen it says CC Blue. And I'm like who's CC Blue? And my name is Cindy Carrillo, so CC, and this is going to sound really, but I have blue eyes and his nickname for me was CC blue and I didn't know it.

Speaker 1:

He just put me in his phone. He would call me blue every now and then, but I didn't know. That's how. He had me in his phone and I got all you know who is that. He looks up at me and he goes well, that's you silly. And I was like no, and I got, I'm getting all the comfort now. You know, it's just sort of ah, it just touched my heart and he's the one who looked up and said that's it, that's the name. And I said, well, that seems kind of selfish to put my nickname up there, but it has taken on a life of its own. So the ranch is CC Blue and even my kids talk about coming to CC Blue and I personally I love branding from being in business for so long, so we brand everything and it's all CC Blue. So it's a beautiful, beautiful way to have it take on a life of its own. That's even beyond me.

Speaker 2:

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show. I have seen the branding. I've seen the coffee mugs with NXT on the bottom. Next, next on the bottom of that coffee mug I've seen a picture.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, you're into the branding part of it, as you see that. Okay, so we took that off ramp for a little while. I went to that rest area about the name. That is so cool how it got named on a pocket dial or a butt dial that you called yourself and now you name it CC Blue Perfect. Back on the on-ramp here. Look, you've gone through those first two steps and we can't go through all of them, but I want to touch on at least two more. One is you talked about the breakthrough blockers.

Speaker 2:

So, there had to be a time where you're like, nope, not going to work. Tell me what those breakthrough blockers are that not just you, but keep folks from realizing their dream.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think we all do it. I think there are things that we come up with ideas, we get excited about what could be next and something stops us. And as I was going through the process, I realized that it's actually just a few things that stop us. The first two. First two have to do with fear. The first fear is the fear of the unknown and oh my goodness, of course it stops you in your tracks because you don't have any idea what's in front of you. So I looked out at the land, I got really excited, bought the property and I got to tell you the couple of weeks following that, I was paralyzed, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown. What do I do? Where do I go? What could it be? It's almost like standing on the cliff, you know, and you look down and you can't even see the bottom. It's just darkness. Well, of course we're going to stop, because nobody's going to be foolish enough to jump into that without shedding light on what's below us, what's out in front of us. So I think, when we experience the fear of the unknown, it stops us with a bunch of oh my goodness, what if? Questions. What if? What if I fail? What if this goes wrong? What if? And I think if we just understand that, that that that is the flashing light that is telling us we need more, we need more information. And it's not a flashing light to stop us, it's a light that's telling us move forward, gather more information and figure out what the questions are and what the answers are, then the fear starts to dissipate because it's no longer unknown. We have steps in front of us.

Speaker 1:

The other fear that then sort of creeps up is when we've got the voices on either side, and that's the fear of failure. Their side, and that's the fear of failure. You know, that's another. What if it all goes to hell in a handbasket? What if it just doesn't work? And here's my take on failure. I don't think failure exists.

Speaker 1:

If you learn, we all need to make mistakes in order to learn. We're not just going into our next with the full blueprint of how to do it, step by step, and it's going to be perfect. We need to try and we need to sometimes make mistakes. Then we need to learn. If you learn, there is no failure.

Speaker 1:

So if we ask ourselves what's the worst that can happen, oftentimes we get to a place where we realize it's not that bad if I mess up here or there. So for me, you know, if I ask myself what's the worst that can happen, it's not failure, it's not making a mistake, because I'll learn and I'll do better the next time. It's death, that's sort of like if I could die or maim somebody, hurt somebody else, then it probably isn't worth the risk. But short of that, I could pretty well figure it out. So once I get to the place where failure is not an issue I've answered a bunch of questions then those blockers that are trying to get me to stay where I am in the status quo it's too risky. I can kick them out of the way and I can feel the excitement and I can move forward onto the next step.

Speaker 1:

The third blocker that is almost the most insidious out there is our willingness to settle for what's not great, and the first two fears are trying to keep us there. But I always ask my clients you know, why are you staying? You're not happy, your boss is driving you nuts, you hate your job, you wake up in the morning depleted of energy versus moving into something else, and the answer I often get is at least I know what I've got. What if I don't find something better? I'm not sure I have the time or the energy to find something better or more, and oftentimes we feel like the amount of time and energy it would take and the risk involved isn't worth it. And my take on that is you are worth it, you're worth it. There can be more, and the time and energy you spend staying in a miserable state or staying in a place where it's just not good enough, but maybe it's just okay, is actually as much time and energy as you would spend on finding something different or more.

Speaker 2:

So we have to take that one away. You have to overcome those things. You're exactly right. Those barriers can be ones that they have kept so many people from achieving greatness.

Speaker 2:

They don't even realize that there's limiting beliefs that exist inside of us. Okay, look, so you talk about those barriers. You've now got a book and a corresponding workbook that goes along with it to help people to work through their process. You also do one-on-one coaching. I want you to talk a little bit about your unique immersion program. Tell me about that, what you do at CC Blue, and maybe share a fun story, a success story that you've had with a client at CC Blue with your immersion program.

Speaker 1:

You know, I started the immersion after we had been at the ranch for a number of years and we've got a beautiful guest house and we've got a barn full of animals and we've got a beautiful garden with a greenhouse that grows vegetables all year round. We've developed a lifestyle. We want to share the lifestyle and concurrently, earlier in building through the ranch, I started a coaching business based on all my years in business and came out a number of years ago looking at a way to combine the two. How do I take the coaching business and this amazing place that we've created and the lifestyle that we live? How do we share that and blend those together? And what we came up with is the idea of an immersion an immersion here for about three days.

Speaker 1:

But the unique part about it is that I don't actually like to work with larger groups of people. I thrive. My sweet spot is working with individuals, couples or business partners. You know we're talking about what the alignment needs to be, whether or not it's your own alignment as a couple or as business partners to move forward, and so we developed a process behind finding your next. Where people come to the ranch, they stay in our guest house, we feed them, we pamper them, make them feel really good because you know why come otherwise.

Speaker 2:

Do we get to pet goats too?

Speaker 1:

Oh, you get to pet goats and pig bellies and miniature horses. It's an amazing experience but, more importantly, it gets people out of their current reality and into an environment that is very open and very safe, and this is an opportunistic kind of coaching. Now, I've had a few people come when they've been in crisis. No two ways around it. Most people come when they are looking to find what's next in their life and they just don't have the clarity. They don't know why and they don't know what the why is behind what they're looking for. They're getting mired in the details. So when they come here, we back it up and we go through a process of figuring out the why and then we get into the details and develop the path, and it's a pleasant experience, it's a joyous experience. It's lovely to watch people come with maybe a vague understanding or preconceived notion of what they thought they should do and end up leaving with a new sense of clarity and openness to what they could be doing, not what they should be doing.

Speaker 2:

Love that. Well, I think that's probably going to be quite an experience for many, and I know that just has to be fun Again. How your dream has started out 35 acres of open land and what it's turned into sounds really phenomenal. I'm curious throughout your career maybe again another off ramp here for just a minute and choosing to write the book were you a reader in terms of your personal development, career as a leader, and, if so, who was someone that you really enjoyed reading or who was an influencer for you from your personal development?

Speaker 1:

You know my own personal development. I I'm a little irreverent in certain ways. So there's an author, jen Sincero, who I read, who has a book on you're a badass and um, it was. You know, her style gave me a certain permission to write a book with that was just honest and could have humor in it and be forthright and direct. I always wanted to write a book but I never had a topic that I thought was worthy of a book.

Speaker 1:

And let me tell you, the process of writing a book is one big finding your next unto itself and that is a concept within the book and something that I think I've lived in my life and coach about, which is we have the opportunity to have many, many nexts little next, midsize next and big next and if we approach them all the way I approached the book as it was a next for me. So there was a process to go through, there was a learning to get from it, and it's not when you write a book, it isn't just about what you're going to put out, it's about what you're going to get from it as well. And it was a tremendous learning experience for me and I had the fear of failure, oh my goodness and the fear of the unknown and the willingness to settle, all sitting around my head at very different points. So we still had to really break through those blockers. Every time you enter into a next, you have to do that. So sometimes we call it a next step in our lives, a next phase, whatever I happen to call it a next. So the book for me was so fulfilling because it was about telling the story of the process, the lessons learned, so somebody else could learn from that process and internalize it themselves, but also go through it yet again in the actual writing of the book. Gosh, I just hope I can do it and get through it and then get it out there.

Speaker 1:

And then what? And then what? Then wrote the workbook, the audio. I just finished recording the audio book which is coming out later this month. So which was yet another. Next, because I had a phobia of reading out loud, believe it or not, especially in public. And here I sat in a studio for like 20 hours reading to an audience that was not in front of me, but I knew they'd be out there. So another next. So now I'm thinking I wonder if there's another book and you know what the title? No, I don't know what the title is. Do you know what the topic is?

Speaker 2:

What's the topic?

Speaker 1:

It's what we were talking about earlier retirement. What the heck is this thing called retirement? I struggle with it, you struggle with the idea of it. I think there's a boatload of us out there who are really trying to reinvent what retirement looks like, so that just might be my next.

Speaker 2:

I had lunch with someone today. How much longer are you going to work, john? As long as God will let me work? I'm telling you because I love what I do and that's what you really find what's going on. So the book test for you book test that I've heard before for me is on the reader side as well. So they read your book, they put it up on the shelf, like those, if you're watching on YouTube, can see behind me and they're going to look at that shelf for a while. But a year later they're going to see the binding of your book that's sitting there. What do you want them to feel when they see that binding, when they look at it a year later?

Speaker 1:

I want them to pick it up again because they're going through their next, next and say, ah, it's just, what was that thing? What was that story? What was that? I want the book to be used. I want the book to be revisited and I wrote the workbook because a number of people told me they would have liked to have a guide that as they were reading the book, but really almost after they read the book and for future years, to be able to help them work through the process yet again, because we're not done, we're never done. I hope we're not done. So if our goal is to have many nexts in our lives, then I hope that people will use the book and that there will be lots and lots of pages turned down or lots of highlights on the ebook or whatever and use the workbook every single time they're going through an X to remind them that there's a process, to remind them that there are questions they need to ask themselves.

Speaker 2:

So cool, Cindy. How do folks get in touch with you? And also, where do you want them to go to get your book?

Speaker 1:

I want them to go anywhere they want to get the book, but it's mostly on Amazon. It's also in a number of different places where you can buy books, you know. Finding your Next we talked about branding. It's my website, so Finding your Next with an NXT and my contact information is there Talks about my coaching service, where I do one-on-one through Zoom, and it also talks about the immersion to find your next at CC Blue Ranch. So it's just Finding your Next.

Speaker 2:

Excellent. I'll put a link to the show notes so that everybody can get there. I encourage everybody to go and get the book as well. Last question you get the last word. I'm going to give you a billboard. I don't know how many people can see it from your ranch there, but you can put the billboard anywhere you want to and you can put any message you want to on that billboard. What's the message that you put on there and why do you put that message?

Speaker 1:

Oh, billboard. Ah, you know, know, it's funny.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think I'd go back to the first thing that I said here on the podcast, which is don't forget to dream hmm, makes a great hashtag fits well sydney carillo, I've had a blast chatting with you on this interview today and, uh, I wish you the best going forward in the second book, as well as success with this and your coaching program as well thank you, thank you, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

This was a gas and that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.