How to Manage Emotional Responses to Discovering Your Strengths

Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 11, Episode 25

Below are audio and video plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

Many people who discover their strengths come away from their assessment results feeling positive and saying, "That's really me!" But what about people who have the opposite reaction to their CliftonStrengths^® assessment? Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and organizational founder Kalyn Romaine has witnessed the negative reactions as well as the positive, and has brought numerous coachees to a place of embracing their strengths. In this episode of Called to Coach, Kalyn offers her unique coaching experiences, including to traditionally underserved groups and cultures, and the success she has found in turning clients' views around. She also brings insights on packaging your coaching, along with the greater self-awareness involved in avoiding the "fixer trap." Join us and be challenged and inspired to be a better coach.

The heart of coaching is, how can you create a space that is so equally expansive and safe that people could feel free to reimagine their entire lives in 30 minutes or in an hour?

Kalyn Romaine, 56:31

By that time, I kind of know the client a little bit, because we've talked a couple times. They understand me. And really building that trust, I think, is important with navigating the emotional piece too.

Kalyn Romaine, 28:08

Understand and know that as a coach, when you step into "fixer mode," you are fixing it according to what you would do, not what they would do.

Kalyn Romaine, 37:48

Jim Collison 0:01
I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on August 31, 2023.

Jim Collison 0:21
Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, and you don't see the chat room, it just means you're not on our YouTube page. Click the link right above me there. It's right there. Join us over there. We'll be taking your questions live. If you're listening on the podcast or YouTube after the fact, you can send us your questions: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app, or right there on YouTube, right down there on YouTube, so you never miss an episode. Kalyn Romaine is my guest today. She is equal parts Executive Coach, Founder, Organizational Psychologist and Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach -- that sounds like a busy life -- who leverages over 15 years of experience in education to cocreate companies and careers that people love. As the Founder of Dream Forward Consulting, Kalyn uses witty wisdom (I love that line) and pragmatic questions to help clients see what's possible, and then achieve it. Her Top 5: Strategic^®, Achiever^®, Futuristic^®, Focus^® and Ideation^®. Kalyn, great to have you on Called to Coach, and welcome!

Kalyn Romaine 1:28
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. You know, I always love our conversations.

Jim Collison 1:33
We've had some good ones. We've probably had three shows, just getting ready for this program. We spent some time together talking about this at the summit. We had a couple of meetings, just kind of thinking about, you know, what could we cover in something like this? And so, thanks for being patient with me. And thanks for being on today. I appreciate it.

Kalyn Romaine 1:54
Absolutely. Well, again, this is the Strategic and Ideation in me. I love those layered conversations, because it gets deeper and deeper. And just to let y'all know, Jim and I have covered sociology, psychology, we've touched a little bit of religious studies. We've done some, like, marriage and family counseling information to get prepared for this.

Jim Collison 2:20
Yeah, the physical effects of coaching. All of those.

Kalyn Romaine 2:24
Exactly. Somatic coaching. We touched a little bit of everything and get ready for y'all today.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Jim Collison 2:27
Well, I read your bio, but it's always best to hear it from the individual. Give us a little bit of your background, just for folks listening. Tell us who you are and, and what you do.

Kalyn Romaine 2:36
Yes. Too many things. No, I'm kidding. So I am part psychologist, part chef, part author, and part coach, and I love all of it, and a lot of founder. So I have a pretty storied career, I think, that crosses the intersection of organizational development, HR and DEI -- diversity, equity and inclusion. And I've worked for companies like Amazon and the Walt Disney Company, tech startups like Zapier and I worked in government and nonprofit too. This included stints all across the country. So I've lived in New York City, in L.A., in Chicago. I'm native Detroiter. And I have tons of certifications in things like, of course, Gallup strengths, but also just coaching at a general level. I'm an ICF PCC, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and I have some certifications in HR and change management. I'm also a Ph.D. candidate. So I should be finishing this year, getting my Ph.D. in work psychology. Yes, I'm so excited! If anybody is listening that is a Michigan grad, Go Blue, because I'm also a Michigan grad. And, you know, I always tell folks, I love to do what I call cross-pollination. So I've lived in different cities, studied different disciplines, had the pleasure of working in a bunch of different companies and industries, and all of it has value to add. So I'm really, really excited to just find out more and more about the world through all of the work that I do. So thank you so much!

Jim Collison 4:10
Yeah, no, great to have you. You mentioned Zapier, and only you and I know who they are. They're a, they're a --

Kalyn Romaine 4:16
I know. It's like a hidden open secret, because it's like you talk to people, and they're, they don't know what it is. But then they're like, Oh, yeah, I know somebody that used that. It's so funny, but they're like a billion-dollar tech startup. They --

Jim Collison 4:28
This and that. They create these integrations in between SAS companies. Wade Foster, their CEO, I had interviewed him way back in the day on Home Gadget Geeks, on my, on my tech podcast, before they were big. And it was just, it's kind of been fun to see them grow. So to hear you working with them is kind of, it kind of brings it full circle for me. I can't get them to answer my emails now, but maybe I, maybe through you I could get them back on.

Kalyn Romaine 4:55
I was the inaugural head of DEI for them. So I did a lot of, like, work readiness work. And I actually, so I was the head of DEI during the, some pretty pivotal events, I'll just say that, over the past few years. And that taught me a lot, actually related to what we're going to talk about today, just in terms of, like, managing emotional responses, and how I can stay in a neutral zone to focus on problem solve. And so again, everything that you have as a coach -- I tell people this all the time when I'm mentoring coaches -- every professional experience that you've ever had is useful for your coaching journey. It could be your ability to organize information, your ability to remember things, your ability to pick up on nonverbal cues -- whatever it is, it has value, no matter how distant it may feel from the actual coaching discipline that you sit in now.

Positive, Negative Emotions Surfacing in Discovery of Strengths

Jim Collison 5:54
Yeah. Kalyn, we're going to talk about the strengths discovery process. And ever since we started talking about this, I've been, I've been getting excited for this interview. I think sometimes as strength coaches, as I work with the 15,000 Certified Coaches around the world, plus all the coaches around that that may or may -- that are not certified, but that ask us questions -- sometimes I get the feeling that the pinnacle of strengths coaching is that Strengths Discovery Course, right? People, people focus on it so much, and it, it is a little bit of an adrenaline hit when someone recognizes their strengths for the first time and goes, Oh my gosh, this is the best thing ever. But that's not always the case. We don't talk about maybe when it goes wrong or when there's negative experiences. So can you talk a little bit about, from an emotional aspect, as we think about both positive and negative emotions that come with this idea of strengths discovery?

Kalyn Romaine 6:52
Yeah, so it's so interesting, because, of course, again, a lot of my work sits at the intersection of how DEI affects people and culture. And we take for granted how little some people get to use their strengths or get to be celebrated for their strengths. And I know even for me, when I first discovered strengths, it was in my first master's program back in like 2012, or 2013. And I remember taking the assessment. And I was so surprised that it spoke from such a positive angle. That alone was shocking to me. And just the, the science of strengths, that it's like, Hey, you got some stuff that you naturally do really good. So let's just keep, strengthen the net. Like, what? I shouldn't constantly be focusing on everything I'm doing wrong? And that was emotionally overwhelming at that time, because I was going through a really difficult divorce. I was, I was getting ready to relocate so that I could be closer to family to just kind of find myself again. And I think the strengths tool at that time was shocking, because a part of me knew -- because, first of all, let's be clear, people get their strengths results based on what they say. Right? So what you put in, that's what determines it. And so some people are shocked, because they're so used to hearing what other people think of them, versus how, something telling them, Hey, this is how you're showing up, based on a wide array of questions about your behaviors and your thoughts and your desires and your wants and how you show up in the world.

Kalyn Romaine 8:38
So that was shocking, because I had been conditioned to think of myself in a very particular way. And I wish I had looked in my office -- I have so many books -- to find the book that has the results from my first one. But it changed. The point of me saying it is, so 2013 I take it, I start to discover all this stuff about myself. And it really was kind of my North Star for a while, with thinking about, where do I want to take my career, my life, my relationships? So then I took it again when I was Certified as a Strengths Coach. So that had to be 2021. And they changed. Some of them were still the same, but I think at least two or three changed. And that shocked me too. Now, of course we know, especially for me as a researcher, certain things especially about temperament, certain tools, if something changes with it, then that's a point of introspection. Because you're like, wait a minute, hold on, you know, what's going on with me? But I realized again, it was this North Star, of how much I had come into my own in the world. And so now to know, OK, my Top 5, the Strategic and Achiever alone, it's like, yeah, that tracks to my life. I do get tons of pieces of information, and I'm always thinking of how to put it together.

Kalyn Romaine 9:58
And what it has done for me is it made me dismiss things in my life that did not fit that, because I realized it didn't fit me, and seek out experiences that did. Now how does this relate to emotion? That was the long way around to that. If I had had a coach, a strengths coach, at that time, they probably, in 2013, when I first took the assessment, they would have been confused. Because instead of it triggering, like, just overwhelming joy, it actually was a little bit of sadness, because it made me assess how far my life was from who I was. And then some things about me, I was like, well, why am I showing up like that? And that's where the emotions come in, especially the ones we perceive as negative. Because if you take, for example, and we talked about this, if you're a neurodivergent professional who org, let's say, even, let's put title level in -- if you're a neurodivergent executive, and so you're expected to have, like, all of these, like, hard-core deadlines, and you have to respond at this time. And so you're fighting every day, right, you're fighting with your brain to conform.

Kalyn Romaine 11:16
And let's say you take the strengths assessment, and in your Top 5, for example, is Woo^®. But every day, you have to be so dismissive, right, of being able to truly connect with people and really project who you are, just so that you can focus, that might not drum up positive emotions for you, because you don't get a chance to be who you are. And so as a coach, it's important to really recognize that every emotional response to the strengths profile, and to the 34 report in particular, is valid. Because in some cases, you are quite literally, people are quite literally upending who they thought they were their entire lives. And that might not actually be it.

Coaching People Who Fight Their Assessment Results

Jim Collison 12:05
I grew up in a culture of "I can"; some cultures are cultures of "I can't," right, the difference in thinking of that. As we think about that discovery process in whatever that culture is, whatever we come from, as a coach, how do you think, what kind of advice can you give to our Certified Coaches who maybe, like me, who came from a culture of "I can" and are assuming everybody's going to take this assessment and be like, Oh, this is the best thing ever, and fight it. You know, they come, they bring it and fight it. What, what kind of, what would you say there? How would you help me in that?

Kalyn Romaine 12:44
Yeah, you know, so you know I created a framework, Jim, around the dimensions of identity. And there are over 50. And so a lot of times, especially in DEI and HR work, we think of like the Big 8: that's race and gender and sexual orientation, disability status, etc. It's like a, just a few. But there are all these other parts to ourselves. And a part of that is understanding the power of language. So when you say words like, "I can," versus "I can't," they're very definitive. So "I can" is expansive, meaning like it could happen. So immediately, it triggers thoughts of, Well, what should I be doing to get myself ready to make it happen? When you say, "I can't," that is a finality that says, even if I tried, even if I had some resources, I can't do it. That language matters. And I remember in my strengths coach cohort, we talked about the language of even naming the strengths and how that can be a trigger for some people.

Kalyn Romaine 13:52
So if you think about, even the category, so the Influencing themes, so in my Top 5, I don't have any Influencing or Relationship Building strengths until, I think, like, No. 8 or something. All of mine are Strategic Thinking and Executing. But in a lot of my jobs, Relationship Building and Influencing was such a big part of it. And I would wonder why I didn't feel like they were a fit or why I wasn't good enough. But it wasn't that; I just had a different way of being able to show up that could have been equally effective if I had leaned into who I actually am. And I think, for a lot of people, folks are just mismatched a lot of times with their careers.

Kalyn Romaine 14:40
Like if you think about, a lot of people take the jobs that they can get or that they've been prescribed to take because of culture or family expectations. And so when you present strengths to people, it can be triggering to hear things like, Oh no! One of my strengths is Achiever, but I've been told all my life that I couldn't do something. One of my strengths is Focus. But I've been told my whole life that I'm flighty, when really, it was just that I am what I call a "multipotentialite" -- I have several different things that I'm interested in. And if I'm not, my sweet spot is three to seven projects or aspirations at a time. I'm working on three to, if I'm working on less than three things, I'm ineffective because I have too much free time. And if it's more than seven, I'm too overwhelmed. And so what feels completely chaotic to other people, that's me juggling. Because again, I like that cross-pollination. But for somebody who has never been able to affirm that, it's so overwhelming, it's so overwhelming at times.

Jim Collison 15:45
What, what's your advice -- when we get in those situations where an individual may be triggered from some of these, or they've had a very negative experience? I love your Achiever idea of I've always wanted to do things, but I've been told I can't. And on the surface, that's, it sounds like, well just get past it! Like, just go, but the emotions run so deep in that individual that, I mean, there's been hurt there, right, in that. What, what advice, what do you have in the response to that trigger, right, you're, they're having a negative emotion at the moment of this discovery. You might be expecting, This is great! You have Achiever. And then they're like, I hate this. And I hear that's, those are terms I hear from our coaches who say, "No." Because I get these, I get this feedback via Facebook, when a coach will come in and say, I did this discovery session. This person didn't, it did not sit well with them.

Kalyn Romaine 16:45
Yeah, they wanted this other one, right. They wanted Achiever, not Positivity^®. And it was like --

Jim Collison 16:49
It's a gentle way of saying they hated it, right? They hated this, right? What, how do we, what, what's, how do we respond? Give, give me some, give me some feedback on what's that look like in real time as that's happening?

Kalyn Romaine 17:01
Absolutely. The first thing I always ask my clients after they take their assessment is, "What comes up for you when you see your report?" So this has given me an opportunity for them to introduce their triggers, their emotional state to me. So sometimes, I have clients say, "I'm surprised," or "This sounds like me," or "I don't like this. I need to do something different." And then I'll start to explore, to say, "Well, tell me, what surprised you, if anything?" And they might say, "Oh, nothing surprised me," or they'll say, "This whole thing surprised me, because I didn't expect that." And then I'll say, "OK, tell me what you find the most joy in or tell me what you feel good about." If they're not able to say anything, or if they say, "Well, I feel good about this one, but I wanted these others," then I take that language, pull a word, and I'll say, "Well, why did you want the others? Tell me what comes up for you when you think about the others that aren't in your Top 5 or your Top 10?" Because, and I found that a lot, especially with male coaching clients.

Kalyn Romaine 18:12
So when they have a lot of those, like, Relationship Building and Influencing themes in their Top 10 and 5, it can feel really uncomfortable, because we don't celebrate those traits in men. Right. And for a lot of my women clients, they'll feel kind of out of place, if they have, especially a lot of the Strategic Thinking themes in their Top 5 and 10. Executing not so much, because there's so much research that shows that women are often given, like, admin or housekeeping tasks on a team, regardless of their title level. So they're planning the birthday parties and making sure that we send out the calendar invites. It's like, Well, why? You're a VP. Like, can we assign this to the coordinator in the room? But it's just natural, right, for us to gender those tasks. And so when you have women show up, and it's like, no Strategic is your No. 1, you can almost see the inner turmoil on their face. Because it's like, Oh, I was told when I did that, that I was too bossy. Or when men show up with Belief^®, for example, in their Top 5, and it was like, Oh, no, that just feels too woo-woo. Like we need you to, again, we need you to just focus. And it can be overwhelming. So again, by starting with just asking, "What's coming up for you?" I can start to get those initial reactions and initial thoughts, and then play off that to take them deeper.

Cultural Differences in Applying Strengths

Jim Collison 19:41
Do you think in, when we think of, when we think about diversity, do you think those roles, those ideal roles, you know, I thought for the longest time I was supposed to be a project manager or a manager, right? And I come to find out I'm not very good at all those task-oriented, keeping it long periods of time, you know, planning, strategic. I mean, I have all Influencing and all Relationship Building themes up front, right? I am really best at what I'm doing right now, which is tip of the spear, helping customers. Every day is different. Firefighting, think, being out front, right? It was a, for me in my 40s, it was a relief when I, when I found that out. I had this up, I had this idea, this mental idea that I was supposed to be project manager; turned out I needed to be more of a media influencer guy, right, finding that out. When we think about that culturally, do, are there other assumptions? I think sometimes coming from the White culture, we, we have some assumptions that every culture is that way. But tell, tell me a little bit. Maybe it's different in that sense.

Kalyn Romaine 20:45
Yeah. So this is I think where intersectionality becomes such an important part of the conversation, because you're a veteran, right?

Jim Collison 20:51
Yes.

Kalyn Romaine 20:52
And so if you think about military experience, I don't care how you feel about it; these are the directions. And in fact, it could be quite literally life or death if you're not following orders. So we don't care about Relationship Building or Influencing as much in that way. That's where the Strategic Thinking and Executing is important, because it's, Go here now. At, you know, 0800, you got to be standing here with this. And so for you to find out, first of all, it's not uncommon for many veterans to come out and immediately go to project management. That's you, and it's unfortunate, because a lot of recruiters even focus on that. That's like their pipeline.

Jim Collison 21:33
You're speaking my language here.

Kalyn Romaine 21:34
It's a lot. And people don't realize, yeah, I might be a veteran; that is one dimension of my identity. But I also have all these other parts too. And then that starts to intersect with gender. Because male veteran, right, then White male veteran. White male veteran from a certain generation, right? So you're talking about Gen X and Boomers, that's a, that mentality, we're still kind of coming off of what is known as the military-industrial complex. That's a very different way that we're socialized to think about work and how you show up in work. Versus, if you were talking to perhaps a Gen Z or a millennial veteran, they might have a totally different perspective. So see how all of those layers, it gets more and more complex. And that's why as coaches, we can't afford to step so hard in the fixer mode, because we think we know what's going on. And I struggle with that as a Strategic person, but also with Achiever, because I'm like, I gotta get to the answer; I gotta get to the answer. The answer is whatever the client says the answer is, and the answer is progress.

Sidebar: Packaging Your Coaching With Intentionality

Kalyn Romaine 22:48
So -- this is a sidebar, as far as a business-development piece for the coaches on the call -- this is where you have to be very careful about the contracting phase of each individual session, and then of the engagement at large. But also, as a coach, you need to be thoughtful about how you package your coaching sessions and coaching offerings. Because I know for me, because I know that Strategic and Achiever kicks in, and I'll be so focused on getting to the end of the problem, I very rarely do single coaching sessions. So most of the time, I offer coaching impacts of minimum 3 sessions, but really, sometimes it's 4 and all the way up to 10, depending on what the service is. And that makes me play the long game. It stops me from rushing the client through their own phase. Because it's like, we got time, you know, we got 5 more sessions, or we got 10 more sessions or 9 more sessions; we're good. And then I structured it so that the first session, where I actually do the intro call and goal-setting with them, that doesn't count toward it. So when I'm hearing them talk about what they want to get out of the experience, and I'm hearing them talk about what's going on, they're explaining it, I don't feel pressure to get to any outcomes in that initial call. It's literally just figuring out what's going on with them.

Kalyn Romaine 24:08
So, I guess, to sum up my answer, it would be three things. One, recognizing in the session that you are a co-creator with your client, with the client in the driver's seat. And they determine what progress and achievement looks like. The second thing is to be very careful in the contracting phase when you start an engagement with the client, whether that is the first 5 minutes of a single coaching session, or a 20- to 30-minute discovery call at the beginning of a 6-session package that you can give time to just hear and listen and absorb and understand what the client needs. And then finally, in structuring your business as a coach, hack your own, I call it "hacking your own dysfunction" to understand, Do you, are you a person who likes to dawdle and take the long way, and you don't all always focus on achieving progress? Or are you the opposite, like me, where it's like, I gotta get to the end. Gotta get to the end. I need to get to some type of, you know, achievement. And so you'll rush the client unnecessarily.

Jim Collison 25:14
Couple comments and a question coming in from chat. Beverly says, she says, I found that to be true (as we were talking about the, these layers) when I have a session with law enforcement, and they are probation officers with Positivity and Empathy^®. In other words, that idea of a stereotypical themes fall into certain roles, or I think cultural expectations for those roles is what, as you're defining it. Military, White project manager, right, when we begin. And what's crazy is I never felt that pressure from the culture. I think that's just what I learned -- like, it was so embedded in all the things that I was doing. I was just thinking, Yeah, of course, this is what I would do, right. And so interesting how that plays in. Lisa asks a good question. She says, How do you ask people to prepare -- this is you, so Kalyn, this is for you -- how do you ask people to prepare for Strengths Discovery Sessions? Do you have an intake form? Do you give them questions in advance? Can you talk a little bit about your process?

Kalyn Romaine 26:11
Yeah. So because, obviously, as a Certified Coach, when I send them the code, I get to see their results. So I usually give people about 2 weeks to take the assessment. I also never go over their strengths. And I don't even send them the code in our first session, because again, the way I have my business set up, I always have multiple sessions with people. So we have our initial session, just to figure out what they want to get out of the experience. Then we have the official first coaching session, and then I send them the link to the assessment and trigger that in the system. Now I understand them a little bit more -- the cadence of how they speak, what's happening, a little bit more about their work, their career. And so they have about 2 weeks, because I only, I don't see my clients any sooner than biweekly. Because people get busy, then, you know, just in case you were busy this week, you got a whole other week to do your homework.

Kalyn Romaine 27:10
And then the only thing I ask them to do is please take the assessment, and I let them know, you know, it's better if you take it in one sitting, because it's pretty much just stream of consciousness, what comes up first, the answers, and keep going; don't dwell too much on any one assessment item. And then I tell them, Hey, just think about what comes up for you. Make sure you read through the report. I never give people just the Top 5 one, in part, because the type of coaching that I do, it's actually helpful to me as a coach for them to see not only what does come up in their Top 5, but what doesn't. That, to me is a journey. And I need them to go on their own journey -- on that journey with themselves first. Then, when we get to the session, I start my little diagnostic questions -- Hey, what came up for you? What, if anything, surprised you? What, if anything, made you feel good? What might have triggered some joy? And from there, I can start to understand. But again, by that time, I kind of know the client a little bit, because we've talked a couple times. They understand me.

Kalyn Romaine 28:14
And really building that trust, I think, is important with navigating the emotional piece too. Because they feel comfortable expressing their emotions. When people are suppressing emotions, you, you can't even support that journey, because you don't know where to go. And so by waiting a little bit further in the process, it helps quite a bit. I will make, let me make another note about that too. Because I, I have my almost like B to C coaching services where any person could just come and book a session. But then I also have a lot of, and a lot of my coaching is this way, it's B to B. So clients that I'm already working with on an organizational development consulting engagement, or an HR consulting engagement or some DEI work, and I sell my coaching hours in packs of 6 and 12. So a lot of times, people will get the pack either as a part of their other pack of services or buy a standalone pack, and they could split it among the employees, the leaders and executives. So I say that to say they already know me, because they've seen me do things across the company. And I think that helps to kind of lower some of those barriers to connection. Because like, Oh I was just sitting in a training course with Kalyn. Or Kalyn was just at the all-hands meeting talking about the survey results from when we did the employee engagement survey. Or, you know, I was just talking to Kalyn about a performance review, because I have operational support hours and advisory hours. So people can come talk to me about other issues that they're having related to people and culture.

Kalyn Romaine 29:45
So folks have seen my name buzzing around. And so again, I think that kind of deals with thinking about the business development side and especially if you can look at trends over time to say Hey, is my strengths coaching more effective when it's layered in with some other services? Are my B2B strengths sessions a little bit easier to navigate as a coach than the B to C strengths, right? Like, ask yourself these questions as a coach, because I think that will help you to get the best out of it. But just general preparation, again, I don't give it to them in the first session or the first time that we meet; I send it to them and give them at least 2 weeks total to both take the assessment and then kind of review it for themselves. And the only homework I ask them to do is to just think about what comes up for you.

Jim Collison 30:36
Do you find, from a success stand, like for you, like, what's success for you on that? Because some, I hear from a lot of coaches, again, I hear from them via Facebook, people aren't doing the prework they're giving them, or they're, they're not -- what, what do you find is happening? Have they looked at the report? I mean, generally speaking, what does that success look like on that?

Kalyn Romaine 31:00
Yeah, they generally have looked at the report, to be honest, because again, I prep them for it. Like we've already, some of this is almost playing a cheerleader to hype them up to get ready to do it, because the assessment is kind of long, right? So this is the researcher hat in me. You know, survey fatigue is real. And sometimes, the assessment can feel like a survey, where it's like, I got some more questions? Like, I'm on 62! Right. And so Gallup has done a good job of hacking that fatigue a little bit, because I think, if I remember, right, they had a progress bar, so you could see how much further they have to go. I think it triggers if you wait too long on an item or something like that.

Jim Collison 31:40
20 seconds.

Kalyn Romaine 31:40
So there are -- exactly -- so there are a bunch of ways that they have set up the assessment to kind of get into what some of the issues are. But then I also prep folks and tell them Hey, it's long so, you know, if you need to take it at night, when the kids go to bed or when you're done with stuff for the day, do that. If you want to take it early in the morning, but block off, like, at least 30 minutes to an hour, power through it, I could see your results, but just review it. Understanding that that is an emotional response too, if it's avoidance. So if you think about, again, words trigger people. So even sometimes hearing the word strengths, if somebody is at a point in their career, let's say they were laid off for a while, which now, I mean, we might be experiencing folks who have been laid off almost a year, Jim. They don't know who they are. They're trying to rebound. Some people recently started companies. They're feeling like a fish out of water. And so people might not want to hear anything about strengths. That alone might feel intimidating, like, I'm not strong in anything, I don't have anything. People's mindsets are really there. You look at LinkedIn, like the, you know, the tea that's bubbling around LinkedIn, it's not good, a lot of times. And so --

Jim Collison 32:54
Did you say, "the tea that's bubbling around LinkedIn"?

Kalyn Romaine 32:56
Yes. The tea that's bubbling around LinkedIn. But it is, I mean, it's, it's, it's kind of messed up. And we, and also, see, this is, where I'm sitting as a coach, like, you have to understand the macro-environment, too. Because time of year matters. Am I gonna really get a whole bunch of people to sit down and take a 125-item assessment in the middle of July, when the kids are out of school and irritating the heck out of people around the living room? No. If it's holiday time -- we in between Thanksgiving and all of the December holidays, so basically from November to New Year? Probably not. You know what I mean? So you have to kind of work that in; not saying you avoid clients then. But again, you set up your business, you set up your sessions, to understand where people are with that, because it's not, it's not always going to be the same.

Avoiding the "Fixer Trap"

Jim Collison 33:46
Yeah, yeah, no. It's good, it's good advice. For those, I'm seeing a lot of comments coming in via YouTube. If you're watching us on LinkedIn, and you have a question, you can throw that in the comments section in the chat there, and we'll get to those as well. You, you said two words that are kind of interesting. You said the "fixer trap." And when you and I were prepping for this, I said to you, oftentimes I think one of the motivations for coaches is to fix things, because it's a dopamine hit. Right? It feels good. But you said "trap." So explain that. I mean, how is that trapping us? What do you want to caution folks on?

Kalyn Romaine 34:24
Oh, so many things. So, you know, we have to understand the personality types that are driven toward coaching, right? The personality types that tend to thrive in coaching as a business or even as a practitioner, there are some commonalities sometimes in that. So, again, just spill my little tea -- thanks, Sam! -- just spill my little tea real quick. You know, I come from an emotionally abusive family dynamic as a kid, and so people pleasing was just a regular part of my experience. And you and I, we were talking about the dopamine hit from feeling like, Yes! I did a good thing. I helped somebody. But dopamine doesn't always mean that we did a good thing. You can get dopamine from some pretty nefarious activities too, right. And so I feel great when I martyr myself, and oh, I just put it all on the line. And it's just so self-sacrificial, because that's what I grew up in. And I have had to work hard through my adult years to get out of that.

Kalyn Romaine 35:32
And so, for me, the fixer trap is, I'm not prescribing my coaching clients' emotions. I'm not prescribing their behaviors, not prescribing their path forward. I am facilitating, really, a conversation with themselves about what needs to happen next. And so that means that I might feel really uncomfortable because I didn't fix anything. But if I feel uncomfortable, I probably did what was right; that means I listened, mirrored back to them. And I'm gonna give you an example of how this can play out in practice for coaches who are working on this. When I was doing mentor coaching to get my ICF credential, I loved my mentor coach. She was, like, not playing with me. I purposely picked someone who was very different from me culturally. So she was based in Asia, in South Asia. The time-zone difference was crazy. I mean, we would have sessions at, like, 2 a.m. sometimes, 7 a.m. It was ridiculous. But it was good, because it pulled me out of my comfort zone. And she had me doing exercise, but she kept telling me, "You're talking too much in your session." "You're talking too much in your session." I'm like, "What do you mean?" But it was me kind of playing consulting. So when she would have me do the transcripts, I could count and see, because again, when you do stuff like I was using Otter at that time, so you could see the blocks where you were talking, and she said, "As a coach, you shouldn't speak more than 25% of a session, inclusive of whatever the intro is." I was like, "What?" And then she was showing me, "See how you spoke 5 sentences there. How could you have said that much more briefly?" And I was like, "Well, I could have just asked, 'What do you think?'" She said, "Exactly." And I was like, "Oh!"

Kalyn Romaine 37:14
So I use that 75/25 rule in a coaching session. When I feel like I am getting into the fixer trap, it's probably connected to me talking too much. So then I'll just say, "Well, what do you think?" "Well, tell me what bla-bla-bla word means for you?" So if a client says, "I felt so angry," "What, what does angry look like for you?" Instead of saying, "Well, why were you angry?" and da-da-da, nope. "What does angry look like for you? What common themes come up when you're angry?" Now they're doing all the talking, and you can back out of that fixer trap. Because understand and know that as a coach, when you step into "fixer mode," you are fixing it according to what you would do, not what they would do. When I say, "I'm gonna fix something, and you should do this," that is based off of Kalyn's mind, Kalyn's experience, Kalyn's background, Kalyn's desires, Kalyn's dreams. It's not my client. If Jim is my client, Jim got a whole bunch of stuff that's happening that I don't even know yet, because I just started coaching with him. Which is why you need the client to be in the driver's seat.

Jim Collison 38:22
Yeah, yeah, it's a good, it's, the, I had the same issue here doing interviews. And I would go back and critique, like, OK, how much did I talk, and how much did the guest talk? Otter is incredibly --

Kalyn Romaine 38:38
Isn't it though?

Jim Collison 38:38
Yeah. Now, they give you the percentage up top. It'll say, Speaker 1, Speaker 2 (you could put the names in, right, if you want to do voice discovery and stuff like that). And, like, I've been interviewing someone, and it said, Jim 55%, and you're like, Oh!

Kalyn Romaine 38:52
Yeah. Literally more than half the time, I was the person leading it. And it's like, and, and again, I want to caution with this too, Jim. Because if that's how you want to show up as a coach, that's cool. But if it's not, that's when you need to coach yourself to say, OK, how am I showing up? And how can I do it differently? And where does it come from to feel like I need to do that again? This is everything from parentification to being responsible for managing everyone's emotions in the house. I mean, there were points in my childhood, where I literally had to be the parent. Like, I am refereeing my parents and checking in with them -- "Did you do this? Did you file?" It's like, "What?" So of course, when I come into a coaching relationship, I'm going to carry those same things, and depending on who my client is. So because I grew up with a really tumultuous relationship with my mother in particular, I have to really watch myself when I'm coaching women, and in particular women who are older than me. Because there's a certain dynamic that, like, almost automatically gets activated. And I gotta check myself. It's not the client. It is not the client. It's you; it's me as a coach saying, OK, I can see what's going on here: I'm overly leaning into fixing, because I feel like I'm talking to my mom. It's not my mom; it's my client. OK, let's back it up. Let's reel it in. And I have to talk to myself. This is another reason why I do multiple sessions, because sometimes I have to self-correct to make sure that I'm showing up for my client in the way that is not only best for the relationship, but also is the most ethical, because we don't do clients -- we do a disservice to our clients, I'll put it like that, when we show up in ways that undermine their own growth process and their own power to facilitate their growth.

Jim Collison 40:54
Yeah. Well, you got me thinking about my dad, and my relationship to my dad and the way, if I'm, if I'm working with older men, and I would brush him, I didn't -- I mean, I had a good relationship, but not a great relationship. It's, I would brush him aside, say things just to kind of, just to, you know, OK, so you'll stop -- type deal.

Kalyn Romaine 41:19
Placate? You just, it's like, yes. And that's so interesting, because, you know, I have some peers in DEI, because I do, I have a particular service called DEI Coaching. And I have some peers who are like, I don't coach White men -- for, and it's for a number of reasons, because it could feel really triggering. And I'm like, I actually find a lot of connection with my White male clients. And I can empathize with them even more so than some other groups, because I understand some of the social experiences that they've had.

Kalyn Romaine 41:54
So I mentioned earlier, I'm a native Detroiter. So I know what it's like to grow up in a largely homogenous community, where the power and influence dynamic is with your people. Right? It was like all Black in Detroit. So I, I didn't know what it was like to be the "minority" until I went to college in Michigan, and I was shocked. I mean, it was like, you talking about culture shock; it was bad. Like, it almost triggered a little bit of a mental health crisis, because I was like, What do you mean, it's only 5 of us here, like, where's everybody, where y'all at? You know, and so I can empathize with some of the fears that they have, with the changes that come along with doing DEI work, right, and being effective in DEI work. But then I also empathize with them because, again, those early experiences with parentification and emotional abuse and gaslighting, I understand what it's like where you have to completely suppress your emotions to survive.

Kalyn Romaine 42:52
So when you talk to, especially a lot of White, cisgender male executives, there are no emotions. You make dollars and cents, get your numbers, and you get your promotion, period. There is no, I want to take time off to spend time with my kids and go to the recital, to the soccer game. No, you need to be, you know, in Europe tomorrow. Oh well, junior will have another violin recital next month, hopefully. And so what happens is that suppression compounds over time, and then you get in these coaching sessions, and you're asking men things like, "How do you feel?" "I don't feel anything. I've conditioned myself not to feel anything. My survival was dependent upon me not feeling anything." So you have to start to break that down.

Kalyn Romaine 43:45
Quick example: I had a client -- I always use this example, because this was like mind-blowing to me. And it was for a company that does a lot of work in an environment that is, again, almost all logic. And this particular person was an executive who worked in a department related to sciences, so everything from research and all of that stuff. And he was talking about how, for his team, he was like, "Hey, I have a lot of millennials and Gen Z folks working on my team. And I love my work. I love this company. And I really want them to be able to love their work too. Like, I want them to feel the same joy in their careers that I do." And I was like, "Well, first of all, wow! That's amazing, because you don't always hear that." And I said, "Well, tell me what you mean by that. Let's, let's explore more about what joy" -- he was, he mentioned the word pleasure. He was like, "You know, my work is so pleasing to me." I said, "OK, well, pleasure. Let's explore that." And I usually do my coaching sessions audio only. We talked about this; we're neutralizing ... . So I can't see him at all. I could feel the discomfort when I said the word pleasure. It was like, so palpable. And I said, Well, I hit on something. So I let the pause sit there, was quiet for like a good 5 to 7 seconds, Jim. And then he was like, "Well, what do you mean by that?" And I said, "Well," I said, "it seems like you felt a little uncomfortable when I said the word pleasure. What's coming up for you?" And he was like, "Well, I've never thought about it as pleasure. Like, I don't know how I feel about it." I said, "OK." I said, "Well, your homework" -- because by that time, we were pretty much at the end of the session -- I said, "Your homework is going to be to think about what pleasure means for you in a professional sense." I said, "Just whatever comes up, just sit with it. I don't want you to make any judgments. Don't assign any values to it. Just note what comes up, and we'll talk about it next time."

Kalyn Romaine 45:52
When we had the next session, he was like, That was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. He said, I actually ended up talking to my wife about it, because I was like, why am I uncomfortable with this word pleasure, like what is going on? And what he realized is that, as a person working in the sciences, as a man, as a person, you know, from the boomer generation, that was not at all acceptable to think about work being pleasurable. And that lack of acceptance of work as a pleasure experience was actually one of the biggest barriers for him to create that experience for his team. He wanted to, but being unable to language things, again, it was like a blocker for him. So we talked more about what pleasure could mean. And really, it boiled down to, Hey, I like talking to my coworkers; that's a form of pleasure. I like when I get a chance to get my work right, and my results are accurate in my reports. So it's not anything nasty or dirty, or -- all of those are experiences of pleasure. But the gender, race, the type of work the industry, the generation, this is all playing into this block. And us just exploring words, and those triggers and the emotions that they bring up, that opened up a whole new world for this person.

Overcoming Past Experiences Relating to Own Your Strengths

Jim Collison 47:12
That's a great story. Yeah, that is a great story. So along those lines, as we think about this, to, you know, expressing these, you know, the, expressing the behavioral aspects of these strengths, right? How, for, and I'm gonna use, you wrote this out so well. It says, How clients from marginalized groups may be uncomfortable in owning their strengths or may need to unpack past rejections. We've talked some about this. But I want to ask you, What else do you have to say in this? Because I think this is an area we can't stop talking about. Right? Because it varies so much in the experience, right? It's not a, it's not a 2-culture thing; it's a 1,000 culture; it's, right, thing, as we think about that. How do we, did, how, anything you didn't cover in that area? Anything else we want to say, as we think about that, bringing that behavioral expression of strengths out in people who may be hesitant to do it because of past experiences, family, culture, work? Hey, let's, for a second, let's just admit a past work experience may be a problem, right? Yeah.

Kalyn Romaine 48:29
So I have an exercise that I do. And one of my, it's, I do it with my coaching clients, but then I also do it in a particular training that I have, and it is helping them to rewrite their career narratives. It's called the Pivotal Moments Exercise, and it's a two-parter. And the Pivotal Moments Exercise is where they choose the most pivotal experiences of their career. And it could go back to when they started kindergarten, right, because our professional experience, it really starts with family, like, even watching your parents go to work or not work; school, how you're socialized in school to follow directions or not follow directions or be creative. And then it goes to our first jobs. Like my first job was when I was 13. For some people, their first job was when they were in college. So I have people name those moments. How old were you? Who were the main characters of the story? And then I have them start to pick apart, What did that experience tell you about yourself? Right?

Kalyn Romaine 49:36
So, for example, I'm going to keep spilling my own tea. I ain't gonna tell on other people the whole fat. One of my first work experiences was a family friend who ran a, she's a florist. And my aunt goes, "Hey, go work with her for the day." And at first I was like, "No," because she and I had a contentious relationship at times because of some stuff related to her and my mother, right? So there's all these layers of craziness. And my aunt is like, "Well, why? You don't want to make money, you don't want to make money." So I'm like, OK, let me just go, because I don't want to hear it from everybody. So I go, do the work for the day, and I was supposed to get paid $20. And we go get something to eat. Anybody on the call who listens to this who's from Detroit, you know about the diner chain around Detroit called Coney Island. Love, still love Coney Island to this day, right? So it's just like quintessential diner food.

Kalyn Romaine 50:29
So Coney Island is known for these chili cheese fries; it's, like, a Detroit mainstay. So I wanted a bacon cheeseburger and chili cheese fries. I'm like, This is good. Eat my little food, I get a treat for the day. Boom, that's it. Because she felt that the food that I got cost too much, she docked it from my pay. But she never told me that. So she said, Well, since you got the bacon cheeseburger and the chili cheese fries, instead of paying you $20, I'm only going to pay you -- I think she paid me, like, either, either she took $12 off and only paid me like $8, or she took $8 off and only paid me $12;I can't remember. But she docked it significantly. And I was like, "Well, you never told me I had to pay for my own food, because I wouldn't have gotten anything. I would have just waited till I got home, asked my grandmother to make me dinner." And she was like, "Well, no, I would have paid for it, but you got too much." And I remember being so mad. Like, it was like, I hated, the food was nasty to me at that point. I'm like, I can't even enjoy my lunch.

Kalyn Romaine 51:28
And I tried to tell my aunt about it, and she like snapped on me, like, "Well, why did you order that food?" So there was no advocacy there. I told my mother, and she just kind of dismissed it and was like, whatever, just don't go over there and work with her anymore. What that taught me was that, No. 1, my desires and the things that make me happy aren't as important as the limitations that other people want to put on me. It also taught me that no matter how hard you might want to fight for yourself with something that's unfair, you're not going to have any advocates, right? People in power aren't going to stick up for you. And then finally, it taught me that the easiest way to be able to just survive and get my just due is to just not question things and get the, and expect the bare minimum.

Kalyn Romaine 52:18
Now when that happened, Jim, I probably was like 10 or 11. Like, I was very young. And that mentality carried with me well until, like, my early 30s. I'm 38 now. If you would ask me, Did I remember it? For years, I would have said, "No," because I just kind of suppressed it, right? But when I started to design this exercise for clients, I started to -- any exercise I do on my trainers, my coaching sessions, I do it on myself first, because I want to test it, see what comes up. And I remembered this core memory. And I was like, Oh, that's why I never ask for a raise. That's why, when I've experienced, you know, everything from financial abuse, verbal abuse from supervisors who are name-calling in meetings, I just don't say anything. I don't report things to HR, because I'm used to thinking that the powers that be will never support me; there's not even a point in self-advocating. So in the exercise, I have people do that same thing. And then I just have them sit with that. So they write this down; it's actually a worksheet. They fill it out, then they sit with it until the next time we meet again. And then we work on part 2. And the homework between parts 1 and 2 is to think about whether or not they want to keep that narrative.

Kalyn Romaine 53:39
So if the narrative is that, you know what? There's no point in self-advocating, because people with power won't support me. There's no point in asking for more. I should expect the bare minimum -- don't want anything, don't want to spend your money how you want to spend it. If that is a narrative you want to keep, cool. Let's rock with that. But if it's something you want to change, let's think about how to rewrite that. What did it really say about you versus what it said about that other person? Because what I realized is that, first of all, you a little kid; that's an adult. She should have just told you, Hey, Kalyn, my budget for getting y'all lunch -- because it was like four of us that were there getting -- my budget for each of y'all is only 5 bucks. Pick something that's a little bit cheaper. That would have solved the problem at the root, and then we could have just moved on. It also could have been she really didn't want to pay me that much. And so that was her way of getting, right, it's like all these things that I may never know. But the point is, it didn't reflect on me poorly. And it didn't mean that I don't self-advocate; it doesn't mean that I'll never have people who are more powerful or more influential to stand up for me.

Kalyn Romaine 54:43
And so then part 2 of the exercise is for them to rewrite quick summary of the story. How old were you? Who were the main characters? And the final field, right, the column, is, What do you want to keep from that story? And so then people now have to think about, What are the actual nuggets of wisdom? Well, the nugget of wisdom is, Get clear on your pay and what is included, right? It's like all of these practical behavioral changes. And then the final, final piece is to rename, Who were you in that story? Tell me who you were. And so they almost have to rename themselves. When I tell you, Jim, people are bawling a lot of times, by the time we get to the end of part 2, because, like I said, these stories could have been from when people were 5, 15, 25, last month, but they are fundamentally shaping the way people see themselves, and they don't even know it. And it brings up so much.

Kalyn Romaine 55:48
And so when we connect it to something like strengths, to say, Hey, you have a way that you show up in the world that is awesome. The world deserves to see this. What would it look like for you to be able to stand in this? How can we rewrite your career story? How can we rename your career and professional brand? That's another exercise I do with people: Give yourself a name. Like, what's your superpower name? What's your superhero name? Rename that and frame it from what you know you can add value to the world by doing. And for a lot of people, they've never had the experience of being able to do that. And that's really the heart of coaching. The heart of coaching is, like, how can you create a space that is so equally expansive and safe that people could feel free to reimagine their entire lives in 30 minutes or in an hour? Right, or in four 1-hour sessions? That is incredible, because they might not have any other space where they get to do that in their lives.

Jim Collison 56:57
In just the few minutes we have left, I want to ask you that question. So that story -- I can almost smell the chili, the chili cheese, like, like, I'm thinking, man, I'm going to Detroit!

Kalyn Romaine 57:09
Yes, you got it. I'll tell you the exact Coney Island to go to too. Because all of them are great, but there are like three or four in particular that I love.

Jim Collison 57:17
I have a buddy there; he, he'd show up with me for sure. But as you think about that story for you, which of your, you know, your Top 5 again: Strategic, Achiever, Futuristic, Focus, Ideation. Which, that story initially, would it, of those Top 5 -- and maybe it's farther down, but let's just use those 5 as an example -- which one does that butt up against that may cause, for you, as you think about just that story in isolation, may cause, may bump up against that? And then, on the flip side of that, how can you turn that story and, and to, to, to accelerate or be an accelerant for your superpowers? I don't know. Can you, is that an exercise we can do in the next few minutes here?

Kalyn Romaine 58:00
Absolutely. I'm so happy you said that! I'm gonna go back. Hold on, I might have to give you like a finder's fee or something, Jim. Come on, man. Because I'm gonna add that to this exercise. Because yes, and for this, I'm gonna bring in my Top 10, because remember, I told you I don't have any Influencing or Relationship Building themes until, like, later in my Top 10. In my Top 10, in 6 through 10, I have Learner^®, Command^®, and -- I always get this name wrong -- Self-Assurance^®; it's not Self-Assurance. What is that one?

Jim Collison 58:37
Significance.

Kalyn Romaine 58:38
It's not Significance. It's the one that says "Self-." Hold on. I can't --

Jim Collison 58:42
Self-Assurance.

Kalyn Romaine 58:43
Self-Assurance There we go. OK, so I should have had them listed.

Jim Collison 58:47
No worries.

Giving Clients "Space for the Swirl"

Kalyn Romaine 58:48
So anyway, that butted up against the Command and Self-Assurance. Because it was like, No, like, I wanted that. And this brings in Achiever and Learner, because I had never worked with flowers before. And it was really exciting. Like, she was teaching me how to mess with, like, the little foam rectangles, and she used, like, milk or something like, because she had been a florist for years, beautiful at her job, amazing. And she was teaching me how like some flowers prefer different types of food and this and that. And I was like having a blast learning how to do this, because I love learning. I love doing new stuff. And then we put together these floral arrangements for whatever. So I was feeling good. I'm like, I did a whole day's work. This is like my first little job. I'm geeked. And for me, the food was almost like a reward. Because it was like, I just worked. And I can have my own money. Right? I grew up in poverty. So it was like, No, most of the time, you can't afford to get things like that. But it's like, I just did work for the day. I'm getting paid, and my boss is gonna buy me lunch. Like, I'm geeked. And the way that just deflated my ability to feel joy in those things -- in that Achiever, in that Learner in particular, right, in that Futuristic. Because now I'm thinking, like, Well, I want to keep doing things with flowers.

Kalyn Romaine 1:00:11
I realize now, because I love flowers again, I didn't mess with plants or flowers period again until I think I was in like my mid-30s. Wow, that is just coming up for me. And I think, in part, it was connected to me not wanting to touch anything related to that experience. And so for it to have deflated my joy in that moment of things that felt good to me, the impact was wide-reaching. And so I think, you know, and maybe this might be one of our closing thoughts, when you think about that, as a coach, here I am, a 38-year-old woman, still discovering things in the layers of that one story. I know, as coaches, we focus very much on the future, right; that's the design of our work, versus, let's say, a therapy. I always tell people, to me, therapy is like past-present, more so than coaching which is like present-future, right. And so when we're taught to coach, we're taught, like, you know, we're not circling around stuff that happened when we were 5. Like, it's like, Get clear on what's happening now; get clear on where they're trying to go.

Kalyn Romaine 1:01:20
But I do think we should appreciate, as practitioners, the need sometimes for the swirl. Because there are layers to experiences that people are constantly discovering. And so when you are in session, manage your time in such a way that you can give people enough space for the swirl. I also call it emptying out; that's how it was first explained to me is like you let somebody empty out. And so it's like, stuff comes up and then they'll swirl, and then something else comes up. And when you're ready to move on, that's cool, because you do need to get to, like, next steps, behavioral change, action items, but give people enough space to have that swirl, building your coaching packages, your offerings in such a way that people can have the appropriate balance for them of swirl versus change, because people need that.

Jim Collison 1:02:18
Yeah, I think that's a good place to, to kind of, to drop it off for now. We could probably go on for another couple of hours.

Kalyn Romaine 1:02:24
You know me and you, Jim, that, like, all of our meetings always go overtime.

Jim Collison 1:02:27
At the Summit when we were talking, we were like, OK, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta move on here. We could do this for a while. Kalyn, thank you for taking the hour today to be a part of this. I think some really helpful things have come out of this. Hopefully, those folks that are listening, I mean, I know I'm helped by it. It's just, I have the best job in the world -- I get to ask whatever questions I want of anybody I want, and they have to answer me. It's super great. People don't realize that. That's my superpower. So if folks wanted to get in contact with you or find your stuff, what's the easiest way to do that?

Kalyn Romaine 1:03:02
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm always bumping around on LinkedIn; it's Kalyn Romaine. And so I also have like a base website -- it's called kalynromaine.com. And you can find out all of the cool stuff that I'm doing to change the world for good there. And if anybody is based in Atlanta, you will probably see me bumping around someplace, going to hang out, so --

Jim Collison 1:03:22
We'll have some of that information below on the podcast and all those kinds of things. K-a-l-y-n and then, last name, R-o-m-a-i-n-e, if you want to track her down and, and get that done Kalyn, thank you for being a part of this. Can you hang out for one second while I close things up here? OK, hang out for one second. We, we do want to remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we do have available in Gallup Access. Check that out: my.gallup.com. For coaching, master coaching, or if you want to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach like Kalyn is, you can do that. Send us an email: coaching@gallup.com; we'll get some information back to you for that. Find us on, find us on any social network just by searching "CliftonStrengths^®." And we want to thank you for joining us live today. If you're listening to the podcast, make sure you stay subscribed, so you never miss an episode. Thanks for coming out today, and it's good to see everyone in the chat room. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Kalyn Romaine's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Strategic, Achiever, Futuristic, Focus and Ideation.

Gallup^®, CliftonStrengths^® and each of the 34 CliftonStrengths theme names are trademarks of Gallup. Copyright © 2000 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.