The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Michael Jaquith, Life Coach, Entrepreneur and Scientist

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Catholiclifecoachformen.com

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks chris voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming to you in the inner gate podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here what do we do now oh it's the same old the drill go to youtube. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for being here. What do we do now?

Oh, it's the same old. The drill, go to youtube.com, force, ask, Chris Foss, hit the bell notification button. How could we ever forget that? We didn't. We're just testing you. See if you really knew. Go to all the groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, especially LinkedIn. Like, the LinkedIn newsletter is crazy these days.

Go subscribe to that thing. Also, go over to our big LinkedIn group, 103,000, 2,000 people on LinkedIn. Just search for The Chris Voss Show anywhere. Also, go to goodreads.com for Chris Voss. You can find my books and all the different books that we're reading and reviewing and the great authors we have on the show. Just amazing stuff lately.

We had Nixon's secretary on recently. That was amazing. His personal assistant, I think I should say. Anyway, guys, we have another amazing gentleman on the show. He's joining us today to talk about his business and who he is and what he is. And Michael, how do we pronounce your last name correctly? Is it Michael? Jakewith.

It's a tough one, but I appreciate that you asked. That was going to be the guest that I was going to take a make. Michael Jakewith is on the show with us today. He is going to be talking to us about what he does. He is a life coach with a rather unique background. He has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cornell and worked in corporate research for almost 10 years. While there, he was blessed with tremendous mentors and exposure to many good books, and he eventually decided to leave the corporate world to go entrepreneurial.

Both his wife and himself have chosen to become certified life coaches. Welcome to the show, Michael. How are you? I'm doing awesome, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it. Give us your dot coms, places where people can find you on the interwebs. Absolutely. Mine's pretty simple. I am www.catholiclifecoachformen.com. Podcast the same, Catholic Life Coach for Men. My wife took a little different tack.

She is www.madeforgreatness.co. No M. It's going to 4th E.M., so we're just going with the gut, C-O. Same deal with the podcast, Made for Greatness. There you go. So tell us more about you. What sort of is your origin story? Where did you come from and how did you get here, I guess? Absolutely. I grew up in

this really kind of broken home up in rural Northern Michigan. My dad made some epically bad life choices, went to jail for 10 years when I was in sixth grade. There was definitely some abuse that occurred before that. And I came out of this home saying, you know what? I'm not going to be that guy. I want to be someone else. Well, it turns out that didn't work out quite so well for me. And even though I did kind of go out there and work my way through school and end up with this PhD from Cornell. So like, yep, I did it. Put the checks in the box. I get married. I started having kids and whoa, wait a second. That guy that I was so mad at most of my life, there's a little piece of him that lives in me. And so I was so blessed at this point in time.

Like a lot of people, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And my apple landed a little closer than I would have liked. And I had a couple of guys at church, a couple of guys that are secular, and this awesome boss when I worked for Intel. There's one brief story about that, just to kind of highlight him. I was promoted quickly. I was very successful. And first year of having this brand new team, four or five direct reports, he calls me for a meeting. He says, Michael, we got to talk.

I said, sure, what's up? And he's like, okay, this is going to hit you hard, but every single one of your team has asked to leave because they can't stand working for you. Every one of them. And I was like, whoa, I didn't know what to say. And he said, but I see potential in you. And if you're willing to learn and to change, I'll give you another team. And he took me through the coals, like every email, every meeting he sat in the back and audited,

every interaction. And he just, it was a phenomenal, I owe this man a debt I can never repay because he transformed me so much. Two years later, I had one of those original five guys in a meeting and he afterwards physically pulls me to the side original five guys in a meeting and he afterwards physically pulls me the side at the end of the meeting says michael what happened what who is

this guy i'm talking to you now because he wasn't here two years ago and that kind of set the stage like i because of this i had this taste of how awesome it is to be involved in changing people's lives that is freaking awesome man that is awesome i'm glad somebody had the insight because uh sometimes they just usually fire you and they just go, eh, working out, bye. Yeah, yeah. But clearly someone saw the potential in you and great leaders do that. And it's really cool. So where did you segue from there? Because I mean, you went from being a PhD and a chemist to being a life coach. That's not the track most people take. No, it's an unusual one. And it's kind of funny. Every so often it comes up when I'm talking to a client and we'll dive into some technical detail and be like,

wait a second here. How do you even know this stuff? And it's so it's fun. But so I put in about seven years at Intel and the entire time working for this guy. And I was given another team. That team did phenomenally well. He was very successful and each year got better. And when I left Intel, we actually wanted to move somewhere else smaller. And then I actually had the flip side experience. I went from the world's best boss, the world's worst boss. This is the world's worst boss who was entirely self-focused, couldn't see any of the big picture. And I just started adopting other people on the team and mentoring them while I'm working at this other job. And I love that part so much. And eventually I said, wait a second here. I am feeling like the best part of my day is when I take somebody who's

struggling and help them out. And the worst part of my day is when I actually do my job. And so it was rough. It was rough to look at all the corporate benefits, the guaranteed paycheck, retirement, the healthcare, I mean, all that, right? And you're like, I don't need those. I can go without those. At this point, I've got six kids. And so it's kind of a little scary of a jump in that way as well. My wife and I talked about it and we both have this faith background and through a lot of prayer and discernment, we said, all right, we're taking the jump. And I can tell you twice, I've never looked back. Working for yourself is really one of the greatest things ever.

It really teaches you a lot about yourself and makes you, what's the word I'm looking for? Self-actualized, like nothing else. It puts you through the gauntlet like something else. Having to not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from is a whole different high wire. And I started my first company when I was 18, never looked back. It's just, it's an extraordinary thing and it teaches you so much. And if you don't learn, you probably go out of business. But how long have you been a life coach now? So I've been two years. We staged a little bit. My wife launched her business first while I was still working elsewhere. And so that

kind of helped us buffer a little bit. She's been doing this now for about five years. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, that's smart to stagger it. I didn't get a wife. I should have done that. I just can't afford them. I can't afford the divorces. So that's a wife joke. That's a marriage joke, actually, not a wife joke.

But I can't afford the divorce. I'm still saving up for my first divorce before I get married. Well, you know, I tell people life coaching is a whole lot cheaper than divorces. So, you know, you may as well take a stab at it first. There you go. Might as well. Well, I think, I don't know, there's another joke there with stabbing, but I don't know. I'm going to leave it alone. Anyway, enough comedy. So basically tell us who you usually work with. Who's your clients that people that usually can help the most?

Absolutely. And they all kind of fall into the same general bracket of category. For me, it's a guy, for my wife, it's the ladies. And it's a guy for me who says, oh, I cannot stand that I'm still doing the ladies. And it's a guy for me who says, Oh, I cannot stand that I'm still doing this thing. Maybe he's addicted to pornography. Maybe he's drinking too much alcohol. Maybe he's just being there kind of deep down in his heart. He thinks not a very good husband and he doesn't like that his wife doesn't like him. Maybe he doesn't like how his kids don't want to be around him, whatever it is, there's something in his life. And he says, I don't want this anymore. And I want to change. And people love this phrase. Oh, he hit rock bottom. I tell people,

there's no such thing as rock bottom. You just decide one day you've had enough, you're ready to change. And so they come to me, they generally have a faith background, but I work with people who don't as well. And we say, let's change this part of your life. And we look inside and we find something in there that is not what they expected, generally somehow tied to their past, and they confront it and good things start happening. That's pretty freaking awesome, man. That's pretty freaking awesome. What are some success stories that are some of your favorites? You know, some of my favorites, I'll give you a couple of quick ones here. I have one client who's completely blind, who came to me just utterly despondent, unable to find a job, couldn't put two bits together.

His wife was pregnant and just was really crushed, right? And we worked together for about a year and a half, all things said and done. And at the end of it, he's got a job he loves. He's becoming a father he's proud of being. And he just, I mean, he's still just as blind. But the difference now in terms of how he shows up to the world is staggering. Here's another one. I know another guy who was in his early thirties and he came from another troubling household, kind of like my

situation. And he just was crushed under this weight of, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I can never succeed. In his head, he wanted to get married, have kids. He wanted a big career, but every time it came up to the moment to say yes let's take this risk let's try this thing he backed off because he wasn't good enough and he never imagined that the core of that came from what his father had told him and how he internalized that and as we exposed that to the light and brought into that faith background again is so powerful it just he left on fire he's like that's it I'm going out.

Last time I talked to him, he was in a serious relationship. No, no, you know, invitation to marriage yet, but he's working that way pretty intensely. Well, it's interesting so much. We've had a lot of authors on the show and over the years, it's just become really apparent to not only my life, but a lot of people I've known in his life. And of course the study and research that people come on the show talk about, how much that childhood experience shapes us and really kind of almost, I don't know, haunts the right word, but haunt can be the right word sometimes, but it really impacts our whole lives. And it's like a lot of times we really have to go back and reconcile that stuff. It's really, it's like if you were building a house and you said to me, Michael,

let's build a house. I said, cool, let's build this foundation and leave some big holes in the foundation. That should be fine, right? Let's build a house up there. Sure.

The first windstorm comes along and you're like, this house is a little shaky. I'm not sure what's going on here, right? And adding a few more two by fours up on the roof isn't going to solve the problem. Sure. I love that analogy. That's like a perfect analogy. Let's build a house on this rickety-ass system and see how it turns out. What could go wrong, really? Right. Think about it. Yeah. I mean, being a parent's tough. I mean, a lot of people don't prepare for it. I feel like you should have to go to college for two years to learn how to be a parent and hold a relationship down.

Yeah, because people always try and do it on the back end to save everything. It's like, well, let's go to counseling when everything goes to hell. Right. And you're like, I mean, and I'm not making fun of people to do that. I think that's the appropriate thing to do. I've been in that situation where you're at the end of a relationship and you're like, maybe we should go to counseling and fix this broken, rickety ass, like you mentioned, holes in the foundation system. And I think if I ever got into a long-term relationship again,

I would probably just go to counseling like right away so that you could lay a good foundation and stuff. And parenting is a tough job. I mean, that's the reason I didn't have kids. It's tough. It's freaking tough. It's hard as hell. You don't sleep.

I mean, so even if you are sane and you got your shit put together, you're not going to. You're not going to. Yeah, I lose a lot of sleep. People die. I mean, I'm on parole for like 10 murders right now. I'm just kidding. I'm a bear in the morning. It takes a couple of cups of coffee, about five pounds of

B vitamins to get me up. So what are some techniques or tips that you can give people to help? And of course, let's plug your podcast as well. You've got a burgeoning podcast. It looks like it's growing quite well. Absolutely. I think the number one thing that I have to say to answer that question as a life coach, and you'll find the first several episodes are all dedicated to this thought, is just understanding the power that your mind has on creating the reality around you. And I don't mean this in some sort of new age woo way. Like I'm talking to you here as a PhD scientist, as a man who's deeply faithful in my background. And I'm telling you, all of that aligns with the same conclusion that your thoughts create what happens. Here's a great study I just read. I can't believe this

study. ACL surgery, right? You get this control group. One half of the control group gets the actual ACL surgery. One half of the control group, they just open the knee and don't fix it. The two groups recover at the same rate, which is mind-blowing to me. I had my ACL done about 10 years ago now. My little tendon was shattered into little fragments. And the thought that our minds are so strong that they actually can create the reality, even for a shattered ligament in the knee is just really cool. And so the first toolbox, the first tool that you have to have is to understand you can have a thought and it may even be true, but if it isn't serving you, if it isn't serving you if it isn't helping you become who you want to be get rid of it i was coaching once with this gal and she was a lovely lady and she struggled with

emotional eating all right and so there's one time her husband's traveling and she bakes a whole tray of brownies and she sits down puts in her favorite tv show and proceeds dude you got it eat the whole tray in one sitting right and she's like it's a bad thing. Well, exactly, right? And so that's kind of what I was after too there, right? And so she thinks to herself, oh, this is so horrible. I'm the worst person in the world. No one should ever eat a whole tray of brownies in one sitting. She feels so bad, she gets to make herself

some popcorn. That thought's not serving her. It's not helping her. It definitely is not. And so much of, that one's a silly one we can laugh at, but so much of our life is filled. I've never done that. Me neither. I don't know what you're talking about.

Sure. But it's filled with those sort of thoughts. Yeah. It's interesting. And it probably goes back to something in their childhood they're trying to reconcile. Totally. It's really interesting.

So what made you want to start? Actually, here's the other question I had in my head. So how did a lot of what becoming a PhD person, because there's a lot of thought process. That's a lot of work to become a PhD. What sort of things and talents of building your career in chemistry and learning your PhD and stuff, how did that really prepare you for being a good life coach? Because I imagine there's a lot of maybe analytical stuff that had to go into when you're dealing with people. How did that convert is the word I'm looking for. It's actually an incredibly powerful tool in my toolbox. Let me give you a quick story.

When I was doing my graduate work, I came to my boss one day, my mentor, and I said, okay, I've solved the problem. Here's my solution. He looks at it for a few seconds, scratches his head and says, huh, are you so sure about this? I'm like, oh, absolutely. He says, let's dig a little deeper. How about we try this experiment and see if it actually is for sure real. And I did it. And of course he was right.

And I, my, my assumption was totally unfounded and too aggressive. And so I take that same concept into life coaching. You work with a person, human being is like one of the most complicated objects we know of in the universe. I mean, just look at their brain alone and the neural interactions there, and that blows away the complexity of galaxies. And to make an assumption early on in the process when I'm discussing a client is a horrible disservice. And I see this happen on so many therapists, so many coaches. Oh, yeah, I talked to a guy once who had this problem. I know what's going on.

Let's just solve it right now. And that curiosity, that inquisitiveness, that attention to detail has been a great asset that's really been helpful for me as I do this. I had that problem with salespeople. I used to force my salespeople to ask the first question, what are you trying to accomplish? And then shut up and listen.

And so many of them would take off on a tangent or they were trying to fulfill their monthly quota and they would not be giving the client what they needed or what they wanted and they would just go right to closing what they thought they would do or assuming what the client thought they wanted and sometimes I mean there was very rare times usually with it was with the new loan officer who was who wasn't following the rules of what you're trying to accomplish and listen. And sometimes we have somebody closing, they're like, I want a 15-year mortgage instead of a 30-year mortgage. People were just on autopilot. And

sometimes people that are leaders or instructors, they can do that. They could be on autopilot and they just go or they just go for low-hanging fruit that's easy to solve. So I think it's good that you have that sort of analytical background because a lot of good coaches that I've seen, they do have a really good analysis. They'll sit and listen, and they really know what the real target is instead of just low-hanging fruit. And it's hard work. You have to really take your own brain, set aside everything that's going through my head. What did my wife make for dinner last night? Which of the kids just took? We just got baby chicks, and aside everything that's going through my head. What did my wife make for dinner last night? Which of the kids just took, we just got baby chicks and it's that time of year.

And so they're carrying their chicks around, the chicks poop everywhere. All that stuff has to be taken, put to the side and be 100% focused on uncovering the details of what's going on in front of you. You guys have chickens in the house? Yeah. So we live in Northern Idaho and we have five acres and this has been a very cold spring. And so we just got our babies this year and it's too cold for them to be outside. So we took our downstairs space, create a little chicken area down there. Oh, the kids are, that's the best babysitter of all time. Really? The kids haven't come up since.

Wow. All right. If I have kids, note to self, chickens. Yeah, it's been darn cold. I'm so, it's supposed to warm up though this week it's like guests you have in your podcast tell us about that so i love having guests that have either encountered some sort of darkness in their life that they've overcome or have encountered some sort of way that they've really transformed a part of their life to be better and those are almost the same thing we people sometimes say oh

i don't have that much darkness and i say say, really? Because the darkness is relative. And just to throw it out there, one of the first things always happens whenever we talk about childhood is people telling me, don't worry. My parents were good parents. I'm like, well, sure. They tried hard. I mean, my wife and I joke all the time. We think it's more important to start a therapy fund for our kids than a college fund. They're going to need it more, right? I screw up too, like everybody else. And so it's okay to say, yeah, my kids are going to need some help and you need some help. And the same because your parents, they weren't perfect. And in embracing that, allowing that to be said out loud, oh, my parents did this thing and I took it this way.

And here's what it did to me initially. And here's how I changed how I look at it. That's the core right there. Almost everybody has a story that fits something like that. A therapy fund. I'm telling you that I think it's the wave of the future. You don't need a college fund. You need a therapy fund.

I love it. That's brilliant. I mean, people should be doing that. It's one of those things. What are some great stories you've had on the podcast? So here's a great story. I love it. That's brilliant. I mean, people should be doing that. It's one of those things. What are some great stories you've had on the podcast? So here's a great story. And we're going to pull a little bit of the faith element for this story.

So here's this guy. And he's married. He has four children. He's making almost no money. And they're renting this house. And he and his wife both feel that God called him, oh, you should buy this house over here, which by the way, was totally outside their budget. There's like no possible way that you could even do it. And he's like, this is ridiculous. His wife says, I think she's just dreaming. But nevertheless, he sits down and he really evaluates what's going on inside of himself and

says, maybe this is the way to do it. And so he takes the leap with a little bit of introspection, actually a lot in his case, he would claim a lot of introspection, a lot of hard work inside. He said, okay, we're gonna take the work. And it's so funny. There's probably, he said 15 or 20 different points along the way where it looked like God was going to pull the rug out front of them. They weren't going to get the house. And the last minute, some crazy stuff, all aligned, things were discovered on the property. That meant they had to drop the price significantly. Oh, wow. And it pushed it just barely into the range. At the last minute, he found a banker that approved him for a little bit more. At the last minute, his parents chipped in a little bit of money unexpectedly.

This whole series of events that all came around because he was willing to face his own insecurities and his own doubts and say, yeah, I'm going to push forward and try for this thing. That's pretty freaking amazing. Sometimes we know in the back of our minds what we should do, and we just have to figure out a way to do it. But it's amazing the problem-solving that the human beings are available to. Is there a hard case that you've ever had to solve that you were able to overcome to help someone in their coaching? Yeah, I think some of the hardest cases to solve deal with identities.

And when we see ourselves as being a certain sort of person, let's say I am a bad father, I am an alcoholic, I am whatever. These identities become internalized so deep that we cease to even be aware that they're there. And as a coach, when I go in to tug on one of these identity pieces, it feels like I'm shaking their world. I've had grown men, like imagine big burly men who could like point the way to the gym with one arm, break down sobbing because they realize that they've internalized this piece of their identity. I'm thinking particularly of this one man right now, and he was really struggling with addiction to pornography and he had internalized the identity that he was a bad man and i think he was not actually understanding the faith-based

background in his proper setting that's something we talked about but because of how he looked at because of what happened to him as a kid and what his mother was and all these different pieces his identity was that he was corrupt he was broken there was nothing that could be done for him and like right now one of the things i tell clients all the time, we look at the word broken in modern parlance. What do you do with something? It's broken. You throw it away. I've got this little pen right here. If it broke right now, my trash can's there. I toss it. But then when we think about if I'm a human being and broken, well, boy, that's a very scary conclusion all of a sudden. And to challenge that piece of identity, to even go there and look at it is really difficult. So, Coach, you have to create a space that's safe enough to even be able to go and look at it,

to challenge it, and eventually to take it out and say, no, there is goodness in you, no matter what you have done. And praise be to the Lord, he was clean and sober. He's been over a year and a half now. He's been completely sober from pornography. That's what he wanted. Wow. That's pretty amazing. So you work with the men in the business, and then your wife works with the women. That's probably a good way to separate the workload and identify stuff that you need to take and do. There's several different resources you have on your website. You've got Marriage and Family.

Let me pull that back. I opened your master's section there. You've got Marriage and Family, Leadership, and faith that you have some resources set up. So tell them about some of that. I think it's really important to understand that when you want to change your life, you first have to very clearly identify what is the problem. It's so common. People at the start will be like, I'm just grumpy. I'm unhappy. I'm unsatisfied.

I'm unfulfilled. I mean, we could make a Rolodex of all those complaints. Mine complaints mine is i haven't had my coffee well there you go but see you've identified the problem you know there's a blood caffeine level problem here let's change here right so at least you're ahead of the game there yeah when well oftentimes what i'm trying to do is if i get somebody who's in this malaise of unspecified grumpiness i want to at least from the right from the beginning, start them thinking. And it's that critical thinking that's so key. What is the problem statement? Where is it at? Is it in how I'm leading people? Is it at my job? Is it my wife?

Or a lot of us, we don't know because it spills out everywhere. And with my story I mentioned earlier, I saw it spilling out at home. I saw it spilling at my job. My whole team wants to leave. My wife's super grumpy. What is it? But to understand that on a deeper level starts right there. And so I think leadership, I'm a John Maxwell fan through the core. I think leadership is influence and that we're called to do that in every aspect of our life. And that's a really powerful and fulfilling calling.

Whether you want to focus in more on your marriage and your family, which a lot of guys do. It's a very common phenomenon right now that most of the guys I work with, whatever reason they come in with, we end up drifting into marriage, family, and sexuality. That's just a part that every guy struggles with right now. And so it is good to have those differentiations, but that struggle, that digging, I think is what's really most important. There you go. So on your website, you have a section for masters. Tell us about what that is and what you do there. So this is new and I need to fully own. I'm copycatting my wife on this one. Don't tell her I said that. And they launched this group program as they filled up with one-on-one clients. Here's how it goes. You get to the point

where you just can't take any more clients to work one-on-one as you introduce a group setting. And so I'm totally copycatting her and stealing her idea, which she stole from someone else though, which is this idea of if you're a guy who is, maybe you're not quite in the depths of despair and you're able to process and live on your own, you join this. It's a pretty nominal monthly fee. There's videos, there's a community, there's group coaching. Group coaching is awesome because the biggest problem I think that drags people down is this belief that they're alone. Nobody else struggles with this. I go to Facebook.

My friends have an idyllic life on Facebook. I go to all the other social media, and everything is perfect. But you go to this group coaching call, and you hear each person talking about how they're viewing themselves as a failure at work, in their marriage, as a father, whatever. And you're like, I thought it was only me. And so that group setting can be very powerful. Definitely. I mean, it makes all the difference in the world with being able to have people that sometimes we get trapped in feeling alone.

Like, it's just me, and the world hates me, and I just suck. And you think your problems are the only, you're the only one who has them in the world. You're like, I'm the only one who has these problems. And then the beautiful part about stories and group settings and learning from each other. And this is why we have stories. And really when it comes down to movies, books, everything is stories and parables that we can use to learn from each other's mistakes or, or see how others solve problems. Just like you borrowed your wife's thing. Don't tell her. So that's how we learn as human beings, because life doesn't come with an instruction manual. Last time I checked, has anybody else gotten one?

I haven't got one. Yeah, so it's in the mail, from what I understand. They're still having issues over there. So this is how we learn. We learn from stories and lessons. And one of the beautiful parts is sometimes when you feel the most alienated from everyone in life is when you talk to other people, you find that, Hey, wow. Okay. You have some challenges and experiences like I did, like I'm having right now. How did you solve them? Or

you got through this and they can tell you, Hey man, I went through, you know, I went through this with my dogs passing away, the grief part and dealing with death and loss of it for me, a dog child. And I started talking to other people and dealing with death and loss of, for me, a dog child. And I started talking to other people and sharing my pain and they're like, Hey man, I got through it. You're going to be fine. You just got to, it takes time. Just take it day by day and people that can help guide you through the darkness and challenges of life. So the group settings are really good that way. I mean, it's really, it's really bad when we become isolated and we don't realize that there's other people that can maybe help us get through our issues.

I think empathy is so important. This is something I took from your books. I regularly give my clients homework to read books from different people, including your books. The story I'm thinking of particularly comes from Never Split the Difference where you're trying to connect with people through a hotel door that's the other christmas okay yeah sorry sorry but the empathy part is so powerful and you need to set the stage for that it's very hard to have empathy when we think somebody's in a totally different situation and isn't struggling with what we're struggling with. Right? Yeah. I mean, I think I talk about it in my book, Beacons of Leadership, and whether it's empathy, it's about more about leadership in the context of that, but empathy and understanding other people and stuff. And of course, I think it's in characters

and stuff. So what other things do we need to touch on about you and who you are and what you do? I think the only last point I want to throw out there is a lot of people have this notion that modern life coaching is somehow woo or new age or mystic-y. And don't get me wrong, there certainly are coaches out there who embrace that approach. What I want to tell them is that's not necessarily true. Life coaching is an entirely compatible. My own Christian faith background is a hundred percent compatible with the truths and approaches that are embraced by life coaching. My science, if you want to be whatever you are, don't allow a difference in perception about what something might mean to stop you from pursuing and getting help because it

is an option. It can be better. We think we're stuck. We think we're a trap. We think we're alone and we think we're broken. And oh, don't worry. I can't try that because here's my Rolodex of excuses, right? Take that Rolodex, throw it away and be like, hey, maybe there is a chance something here might work. Check it out. Both my wife and I, we offer a free one-hour phone call. It doesn't cost you a dime. Come find out what's going to happen. Most of the time when people come, they start the phone call like this,

and they say, Michael, this is probably bogus. There's nothing here that's going to happen. And we end the phone call like this, tears coming down the eyes, saying, I can't believe this part was in me, and I didn't even know it. Wow. And it can be transformational. There you go. So how do people book with you?

So you can go to my website, www.catholiclifecoachformen.com. Same thing for my wife at www.madeforgreatness.co. She spent all our money on the group coaching so she can't afford the M. And she's right there. You'll find a link for coaching for, we call it a discovery call to discover if it's right for you. And it's totally possible that you can find an awesome coach that doesn't fit you. And that's totally fine. It's the same thing with therapists. I talk to people all the time who say, I had this horrific event in my childhood. And now I'm trying to find a therapist, but everyone I talked to was horrible.

I'm like, cool. Keep looking. You will find one that does. Take a risk, even if there are other differences. My wife and I found a marriage coach who was like as far from us religiously as they could get but she was brilliant and she made real big help i'm speaking well now aren't i but she makes a really big impact to how we communicate as a married couple and so you find the person that can help you and don't stop looking till you do that's definitely

important i mean communication is so important like i, people should really go to college as kids. And you should have to go to college for two years and figure out how to communicate with each other. Be good spouses to each other. I think that would really help a lot of marriages. I'm still going to college to learn how to be a better person so I can be a good spouse someday. I think at about 70, I should have myself mastered. But that's another story. So there you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on

the show, Michael. We've certainly learned a lot. Give us your plugs again, the podcast and everything else so people can find you on the interwebs. Absolutely. You'll find me at www.catholiclifecoachformen.com, podcast Catholic Life Coach for Men. You'll find my wife at www.madeforgreatness.co. No M. Same thing with the podcast, Made for Greatness. That comes from, I think it was Pope Benedict who said, you were not made for comfort.

You were made for greatness, which is really an awesome way to look at the coaching in general, which is if you're willing to go through the discomfort, greatness is what waits on the other side. There you go. There you go. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show, Michael. Thanks for tuning in.

Be sure to go to youtube.com for Jess Chris Foss. Hit that bell notification button. Go to goodreads.com for Jess Chris Foss. See all the wonderful things we're reading and reviewing.

Also go to, excuse me, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those great places where the show is featured and all that good stuff. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time.