With Cheri Honeycutt, a personal performance coach, trainer and facilitator for over 20 years. She’s a steadfast question asker, a gracious “but” kicker and a seer of possibility. She’s passionate about appreciating the dark and the light of life. She’s a “where the rubber meets the road” visionary who helps folks stop spinning out of control or getting lost in the weeds. It’s her belief that we all can have the life (or team or business) we truly want when we purposefully choose our thoughts, purposefully use our feelings as guides and purposefully take actions that align with what we desire. She likes to say it this way . . . you can live your ideal life when you Live On Purpose!

Join us for this fabulous episode where you will hear Cheri share some extraordinarily difficult times on her own path as a mom, and entrepreneur, how things shifted for her, and the joy she gets now out of living an extraordinary life that she loves. You will love Cheri’s real talk, her fabulous sense of humor, and her tremendous insights that will help you in re-evaluating your own journey and attitude. You will fall in love with Cheri, just like I did!

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• What does it mean to lean into the darkness?
• Feelings aren’t facts.
• “The way you can lean into the feeling is first, feel it, but then bring into it a spirit of curiosity.”
• More happy, less crappy.
• “One of the things I am pretty good at is, if I need it, I go figure it out.”

“We don’t accidentally create the life we’ve always wanted. It just doesn’t happen by accident. It only happens when we live with intention and take responsibility for creating the life we want.”

-Cheri Honeycutt

Check out these highlights:

• 05:15 What Cheri sees with her clients
• 15:28 Cheri shares how she got into the line of work that she’s currently doing.
• 26:38 Making it through one of her toughest moments.
• 30:50 How to see the little lifelines that are showing up.
• 44:00 The best part of what she does.

How to get in touch with Cheri:

On social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cheri.g.honeycutt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cheri.honeycutt/

YouTube: https://bit.ly/2AaIeGj

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherihoneycutt/

Learn more about Cheri, by visiting her website here. You may also listen to her podcasts: Spotify or Apple podcast

Special offer to the listeners: Get a free 90-day Absolute Yes List: a tool to help you set inspired and doable 90 day goals here. You may also get a copy of Get Unstuck: a robust set of questions to ask yourself when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Cheri Honeycutt  00:04

I think some folks have to be remembering I say this a lot with my clients. This is a phrase that you have to remember that feelings aren’t facts. That the fact you’re having the feeling, but the feeling that Oh, I will be abandoned, or no one loves me or I’m a piece of shi*. You know, it feels true, but it’s not. But if you can sit in that and be curious, and I think that’s the skill set that I’ve been really playing with the last year or two Heather is that the way you can lean in to the feeling is first feel it but then bring into it a spirit of curiosity. Because Heather, try this, if you’re truly curious, you can’t be much of anything else.

GGGB Intro  01:00

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:33

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, supporting entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. We are here today with Cheri Honeycutt. Welcome Cheri.

Cheri Honeycutt  01:56

Hey, I’m so glad to be here, Heather. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:58

Oh my gosh, so good to see you. So I’ll give the official introduction to Cheri here in a moment. But Cheri and I crossed paths. What was it? A year ago in May? Yeah, been a while and had a lovely Kenyan remember how many days it was four or five or five days, it was a good chunk. But yeah, together at a retreat down in Arizona, and that was such a special time for me. I think back on that. That experience, it was called the journey to stillness and how I felt not only in the event, but coming home from the event. Anyways, really transformational. And so Cheri and I crossed paths there. And Cheri, you are one of my absolute favorites, like your energy, your humor, the way that you see life, and I just really loved our time together. So I’m super excited to have you here live. For those of you that don’t know Cheri. Cheri is a coach, trainer and facilitator for over 20 years. She’s a steadfast question asker, a gracious “but” kicker and a seer of possibility. She’s passionate about appreciating the dark and the light of life. She’s a “where the rubber meet the road” visionary who helps folks stop spinning out of control or getting lost in the weeds. It’s her belief that we all can have the life (or team or business) we truly want when we purposefully chose our thoughts, purposefully use our feelings as guides and purposefully take actions that align with what we desire. She like to say it this way . . . you can live your ideal life when you Live On Purpose! Hallelujah. Well, Cheri.

Cheri Honeycutt  04:00

Thank you. That was a lot and typos taboo. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:01

You’re welcome. That’s okay. I’m an editor. Right. We get to re say it and yeah, again, so…

Cheri Honeycutt  04:03

Yeah. Okay, good.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:12

No worries. Well, so good to have you here. A lot probably has happened in a year. Yeah. You and I have been together, right?

Cheri Honeycutt  04:22

Yeah, it has. Lots has happened. You know, I think we were just barely coming out of the pandemic. We weren’t even out of the pandemic.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:30

We were smack in the middle.

Cheri Honeycutt  04:32

But we all bravely or silly you stupidly or whatever. We, in the middle of a pandemic, went on retreat. But the world has changed man, you know, we were all different. And they’re a recalibration and I was, I’m right in there with most of the other people in the world going, Wow, I want to and I’m really doing what I want to be doing. How am I spending my time where do I want to be? All questions we had before but I think they’re on like 11 D for now. You’re all up here going, asking the right questions about is this the way is this what we want? So?

Heather Pearce Campbell  05:06

Well, I was gonna say in your line of work, what have you seen during COVID. And coming out of COVID, I’d be really curious what you’re seeing with your clients?

Cheri Honeycutt  05:15

What I’m seeing with my clients? I’m seeing, first of all, I do a lot of work in healthcare. And I saw a lot of folks obviously, be burned out, but they left and are leaving. And so folks who are working in healthcare, are predicting a huge exits as people who people who could have left and those who needed a little more time under their belt are leaving, that I’m also seeing a whole lot of folks decide that I want my life to be configured in a different way, I want to live in a different city, I want to do my work-life balance in a different way I want my home environment to change, which is one of the things that I end up working with a lot of my clients with, about their physical space where you spend two years in your physical space, people now get, oh, my space matters. And so there’s all these new awarenesses there’s stuff happening on the business end, but probably what I’m most struck by Heather is what it’s done to individuals, or what it’s broken open for some individuals, and not necessarily smooth and beautiful. And you’re shaking your head, right, you know, it’s like we get laid wide open. And like my introduction said, I’m not particularly  afraid of that stuff. That’s where the good stuff is, that’s the fertile ground for change. So I guess in some ways, it’s a coach’s dream are more coachable than ever more ready? Now that not everybody? You know, they’re there that sort of, you know, there are a whole lot of folks who want to go right back to sleep, and that sounds that sounded judgy. But who were like we’ll do this little blip, but we won’t go back to business as usual. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:07

Right. The autopilot I prefer to be over here on autopilot, more comfortable.

Cheri Honeycutt  07:12

Yeah, I call it living by default, or they want to go back to the factory settings and not challenge it. But then I think there’s a growing number of people who got knocked off their game and went Oh, and I survived. Yeah, what else could I do differently? Yeah, that reason, Heather, it’s an exciting time.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:30

Right? I’m seeing friends, like pick up and leave their home countries and move across the world. I’m seeing Yeah, you know, friends that have left, like what they thought was their dream job, you know, just saying, Nope, after these last two years, I’m done with that. I’m gonna go try something else.

Cheri Honeycutt  07:50

I’ve got friends living in a camper going across the world. You know, I can work remotely let me live here for a while. And we do here. You know, when we sell my stuff and downsize let me just fill in the blank. Right. We’ve all heard the stories and then there’s those of us who did make major changes, but I think there’s internal sort of, what do they call those tectonic plates under the earth? You know, do these big things got shaken up? And folks are some are really rising to the occasion to reconfigure their life like I call it to designing their life. Intentionally.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:28

Yes, it’s just the goal. The goal well, even that phrase, you know, broken open. One of my favorite books, it’s by Elizabeth Lessor. It’s called Broken Open.

Cheri Honeycutt  08:41

Right over there. Yes, blue.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:43

Color coded. We were just talking about Cheri, if you’re not on video, Cheri is standing in front of a bookshelf that has all of the color coded books in the right order. Yellow, orange, red, right? And I was laughing asking her Do you have to remember the color of the books? You can find it?

Cheri Honeycutt  09:01

Yeah. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:02

But it always looks great, right. It’s one of those like, Oh, is that a fake bag? Yeah. I love it. And she said that she’s got a closet to match.

Cheri Honeycutt  09:13

Up book. You’re right. Elizabeth Lessor continued. You’re right. It’s a great book. Yes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:18

It’s a great book. And it is just such a great example of how the various ways that we break open, change us and help us grow. And, you know, you even mentioning like it’s not really like a beautiful process. I don’t know anybody that is really truly broken open and felt like it was a graceful, easy process, right? That’s not usually how breaking authors.

Cheri Honeycutt  09:43

It’s messy. And it’s the dark night of the soul. Somebody would say depends on how big you know how big you’re broken open. I just finished rereading the way of integrity with Martha Beck and talks about revealing. You know, when life breaks you open, it really brings you to a new, it sets the tone a different way, Glenn and Doyle the same way you’ll hear these stories after stories. And I’ll just share with you, I had a huge moment about three months ago where my life just broke open again, in a very strange way. I hope it’s okay to share. But I also woke up one day and there was this huge, my face was swollen, and I had to do a recording. And within days, I’m in the hospital with this huge face. And this is gross listeners, but there was just full of pus. And there was this moment. And what happened Heather, I just I took that whole week and just said, My body’s getting rid of stuff. There’s a – I’m shifting inside and stuff has to shift. And there was this cathartic moment both physically. And I tell you, and I decided and people joke Monday. So don’t you think it’s just a big zit? No, I think it was a huge, big shift in my body, as I’m recalibrating to the new way to be, or which is a better story. Right? I’m going with that story. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:10

I liked that story. Well, it’s, you know, it is so fascinating, this whole issue of like, you know, the physical symptoms that we face, right, all of us have journeys in these physical bodies. And, you know, so many of us can face trauma and difficulty and challenges, you know, dealing with the physical aspect of living. And, you know, I think everybody at some point faces their own healing journey in regards to their physical self. Right?

Cheri Honeycutt  11:42

And I think, you know, I say, I think they do at least the folks in my orbit, you know, and what I’ve seen, and the reason I brought up that grossing about knee is that it’s just rarely pretty. And sometimes it’s a physical thing that’s full of pain, sometimes it’s an emotional pain that you would rather it be physical, because that can be equally as hard. But on the other side of those things, when you ride that wave, and I’m not a psychiatrist, or psychologist, but my own life experiences have said, If I lean into that darkness, I get through to the light much quicker than if I try to outrun the dark. And try that. But it’s just easier.

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:26

Look at it and wait. And when you say, right, yeah, well, it’s the whole, like, What you resist persists, right? Or the, you know, we try to avoid things. And by doing that, we make it a bigger problem. Share with me what it means to lean in to the darkness. 

Cheri Honeycutt  12:42

Well, I guess it means two things. First, if it’s your tendency to run away, then it means just to stay there, you know. So you might not even have to lean in if your MO is to really bolt, or distract, or go feed it or shopping, or sex it or gamble it or whatever that is, or do a spiritual bypass and say, you know, other people have it worse, I’m fine. But to stay in that and name it, and feel it, literally feel it. And I don’t want to poopoo this, that can be really hard. For some folks, we’re not all wired to take it, you know, our personalities are different. But in the feeling of it. I think some folks have to be remembered, I say this a lot with my clients, this is a phrase is that you have to remember that feelings aren’t facts. That it’s a factor having the feeling, but the feeling that Oh, I will be abandoned, or no one loves me or I’m a piece of shi*. You know, it feels true, but it’s not. But if you can sit in that right and be curious. And I think that’s the skill set that I’ve been really playing with the last year or two Heather is that the way you can lean in to the feeling is first feel it, but then bring into it a spirit of curiosity. Because Heather, try this, if you’re truly curious, you can’t be much of anything else. Right? You know, you go into a spooky scary house in your neighborhood and all of a sudden you’re like, Ah, I’ve heard the horror stories or there might be a dead body and or whatever. If you’re just curious. You’re less scared. Does that make sense?

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:36

Yeah, it’s hard to hold on to the fear or the anger. 

Cheri Honeycutt  14:39

I’m sure you’ve heard all this stuff before. But I think it’s worth repeating for listeners who’ve heard it because those feelings can hijack us. But it’s my personal experience. And of course my experience with clients is that avoiding them doesn’t really get you anywhere. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:02

Yeah. Well, and I think modern life makes it so easy to avoid, you know, we can go for years being distracted by children and jobs and, you know, real life issues real real life, things that are keeping us occupied, but keep us from really, truly waking up to the stuff that matters the most. I want to backtrack a little bit, how did you get into the line of work that you’re doing?

Cheri Honeycutt  15:28

So I started out in public health, and got a master’s in public health. And I did and actually still have a branch of my company where I still do this, working in HIV in the 80s. So I did a lot of work in sexuality education did a lot of work in HIV in the 80s. And in fact, I still have another company called Whetstone Consultations, where I train educators, counselors, and doctors about how to HIV. But then I am discovered along the way, I did a lot of counseling I did a lot of I mean, I’ve probably told 350 people that have HIV back in the 90s, I did a lot of partner notification out in the community doing that kind of stuff. And then real. So I did a lot of one on one work. And then I started doing training, teaching sexuality and education and training and decided and notice, I loved that. And so then that moved into motivational speaking and moved into coaching and moved into the, you know, we just follow the breadcrumbs. Heather, I do not have a straight path in my business.

Heather Pearce Campbell  16:45

Right? Well, even even hearing your start, you know, doing educating and service work around aids, like, talk about that side of the soul and right and facing that time facing,

Cheri Honeycutt  17:00

It was terrifying for most.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:03

It was like it was a death sentence.

Cheri Honeycutt  17:05

It was and that was huge. Still is, but the stigma around that time and the lack of resources, and there was no medication. So I dealt. I learned how to give bad and how to give hard information. I learned how to have hard conversations, I learned how to sit in and and be witnessed to someone’s sadness and discomfort and feel it but not take it on.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:36

And that’s a real skill as well. I think that’s really hard for a lot of people, especially those that really, you know, tend to be quite empathetic.

Cheri Honeycutt  17:45

Yeah, yeah. And you won’t last long if you haven’t, you know, so. But that skill is transferrable. Not only it’s helped me, it helped me as a parent, it helped me as a parent when my kid would mess up and, you know, fall and hurt themselves or lose something. And I could just sit there and I know, that must be hard. Because that’s life and not something as drastic as is being diagnosed with something that’s fatal. Those are really tough things. But they prepare you for a life that nobody gets out. Yeah, got free of trauma and hardship and challenge, but I think that two things I learned back in those days. Number one, I learned that nobody knows everybody’s story. I knew that I talked to so many people about their private lives that if you were to meet them anywhere else, you wouldn’t have known any clue what’s going on behind those curtains. That’s a powerful realization. But then I also realized when I would work with people who were frankly, this didn’t want to be there, they were burned out. And I remember saying, Gosh, life is a do us all a favor and quit. Go find another job right? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:28

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Heather Pearce Campbell  21:47

You mentioned several things that I feel like are a real challenge, I think for people to learn, which is one how to have the hard conversations and face the things right. And so many of us end up needing to do that hard work. It is always interesting. It’s you know, I remember, and this was years ago, but I remember, I think it was actually at my sister’s funeral. Having a conversation with one of my dad’s cousins who you know, at the time, they probably would have been in their 50s or 60s They’d flown up from California. And, you know, they were mentioning just how much hardship my dad had in his life. And just how in their life, they were like, We don’t know, really one person, you know, maybe aside from parents or grandparents that had passed, and you know, and that was just in relation to loved ones. But it is interesting how drastically different life can be. I think some people end up facing some of the dark nights much later in life than others. Yep. Right. And some people face it from the beginning. Yeah. How? How do you where do you fit, like the fact that you jumped into a career where you were helping people through that process? Have you always been able to go there?

Cheri Honeycutt  23:13

Yeah, and I was mislabeled. I was labeled correctly, but judged for being sensitive. I was told I was too sensitive. And I felt pretty judged by that. But reality that’s my superpower. You know, but I felt bad about it for a long time, because I was really sensitive. But I’ve always been a champion of the downtrodden, if you would, you know, like, that’s not fair. I remember, I left my church of origin over my dissatisfaction with the way that church viewed others than white and middle class or, you know, straight and those were, before I had the the world was doing that on a bigger scale. And I didn’t even have language around it. But I knew it didn’t, it was out of alignment with who I was. Then I chose to teach sexuality education, which was very much my family was like, whoa, whoa. So and then I’m working in HIV. And then I had my kids and that my kids both had turned out to have special needs. So I had two special needs children who had two very different kinds of special needs. And so navigating those years Heather, I’ll just be straight up and honest with you. I was like, Do I have a big ol X on my head? Do I have because I was watching my friends and colleagues not have to my perception as many of the hard challenges that I was having right in those main years when I was divorced. My husband left me divorce to special needs kids. I’m trying to run my own business as a motivational speaker. And I tell everybody, all I really wanted to do was eat Oreos, you know, but I was scrambling and I had a bit of burnout before I had my kids and then through those 10 plus years of doing the entrepreneurial thing at the same time when my house home life was so frickin frack and hard. Now, I’m on the other side of some of that from a little more grounded place, but I will tell you those years were grueling. They were grueling. And now it’s when I learned the most what I’m here now, in my work, I get it. And I even knew back then that this was teaching me something. Hmm. That didn’t. That didn’t know, in the moment. Not right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:58

Right. Oh, you know, I think about the journey of parenting. And I realized like, it can be tough for a lot of parents. And I’ve also come to realize there is a distinct difference between children’s spending time with other families. Like you see kids where you’re like, I get that their days might be hard sometimes. But there is a difference between certain children and then you add special needs or high needs on top of that it you know, how did you how did you make it through? How did you make it through?

Cheri Honeycutt  26:38

I was gonna just call it a gift, one of the things I am pretty good at is, if I need it, I go figure it out. Hmm. And so I surrounded myself with a few people and I kind of joked I’m like, if your friends if your kids not sucking on their shirt in class, and we can’t be friends, I mean, like you we need the shirts like and children and Auntie parents who are dealing with therapy appointments and get it their issues. And so I created or allowed or formed or was part of Oh, and take full credit of it. But I was instrumental in creating myself a beautiful container, where we picked and held each other up. And we talked about the truth. And we and that’s another thing I would say is that I did is I did sort of sugarcoat it to folks who were not quite in my circle just because…

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:31

Safety circle. 

Cheri Honeycutt  27:32

That’s right. It’s very important. But when it came to, but I wasn’t I didn’t lie to myself to the extent that I could control that I tried to be really clear with myself like this sucks. And this is hard, or they’ve got this issue or I wish it weren’t so but XYZ is true. Yeah. And that truth telling. And then this is, I hope it’s okay, I’ll kind of add this to it. Fast forward. I’m sitting in the home I’m in now with the love of my life who just popped into my life, apparently and I’m sitting on my back porch ready to come back into coaching because I had taken a bit of sabbatical it was so hard. And I went how in the hell did I get here? In this beautiful home with this beautiful love with this beautiful? And I’m like, How do you, how did I create that when most of my time was spent swirling in fear and negativity and being chased by unhappy children and and I realized all along the way, Heather I’ve ever really literally reverse engineered this in my head all along the way. There was some part of me that was crafting the life I wanted in my imagination. And I didn’t I wouldn’t have told you that I was doing that at the time. I would have said yeah, I would I was rolling my eyes while I would make a vision board or scrape together, you know, $50 to go to a spiritual retreat and all of it seems so namby pamby and, you know, throwing silly little things, doing silly little things just to make myself feel better in the moment. I’m here to tell you, Snake it’s what changed my life. Does that make sense either?

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:16

Yeah. And I’m curious like even what you said before this about your ability to be honest with yourself. Do you think that’s what allowed you to watch for those things that seemed like momentary either like in the moment little Lifesaver or retreat or get away or whatever, right? Whatever the experience was?

Cheri Honeycutt  29:39

Absolutely, because I would in snotty nose tears or in some kind of fit, you know, over a cup of coffee in the morning, you know, crying over breakfast with my with, you know, after I’d had a horrible night and then I would say but what I really need is this, you know, and then then I would see it, and it would show up so it wasn’t linear. It wasn’t all pretty unpackaged in bows, and it wasn’t always romantic that I just, you know, Oh, I know, I want this and it showed up and there was the money. Right? There was sort of something on an intuitive level that I knew. And I don’t know if it was hope. I don’t know if it was something divine, that just was a blast. I don’t know. And I don’t even really need to know.

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:29

I don’t care. Right. What I think is interesting is that, you know, I think it can be really hard in those moments where we’re really facing the struggle to actually even see the ways that little lifelines are showing up. How do you think that you were able to see those?

Cheri Honeycutt  30:50

Because I was always asking myself, What do I want? I was always asking myself, and it would often start with, I don’t want this thing I’m having right here. I don’t want this, you know, but I totally you know, in my introduction, I call myself a question asker because what do I want? And most of the times, I don’t know, but I know it’s not this. And then I’d go but okay, what I do want is fill in the blank, I want to laugh more, you know, I want and I say I want a man who adores me, is witty and found a love and a level of love and made this whole long list. And I got all of that I did put that he would be six, four, he is five, eight. He is shorter than me to God and the Goddess has a sense of humor. I don’t know. But I would say those things. And I didn’t even really say him in some woowoo way that I knew they were coming. I was just sort of. But I’m, as I’m working in now. And that bringing this into my work now. And I’m saying, Folks, when they’re in the throes of despair, take 1% of your time and play it in your head what you want instead 1% more 2% more, you know, find some way to have a gal remember I had a client years and years and years ago, she said when I had XYZ amount of business success, she was a business woman. She said I’m gonna buy this whole set of Italian glassware. And I’m like, No, buy one now. Buy one now, you know, and, and so that and I don’t always walk this talk either don’t write, don’t don’t don’t pretend I got this damn. But that’s the key, right? Is, is knowing what you want. Of course, I’ve figured out later you then you kind of really have to know why you want it. No. And then there’s the courage to actually declare it. All that came over time? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:50

Well, that’s the piece that I you know, when I heard you say that, I’d actually say like, that, in my own experience has been key, the willingness to say it out loud, write it down, say it to your friend, your sister, whatever. I think that when we stopped short of that, we’re not really fully owning the car or the desire. Yeah.

Cheri Honeycutt  33:13

Well, and we’re losing out on the fuel. You know, I say, okay, you know, what you want, then the why is kind of like the firewood. You know, why do you want it, but the fuel is to declare it to the world, like I say, to unapologetically declare it. And that’s kind of like that little blower of air. You know, it’s still in there, if you don’t tell anybody, but it ain’t going anywhere. And you need other like, in business, or in dating or in parenting, we need the tribe of little tentacles all over the world to help us sell what we need. Nobody can work on their behalf. Is it not the truth. So the sharing is literally helps it come to us because people can bring it to us. So and that’s been my experience over and over and over again. And then of course, the more you build it, the more you say it, you have to you live into it. You live into it, and all those things like, act and you know, what are they? I can’t even think of them. But you know, I’ve gone blank, but you know, act and it’ll show up or whatever. Yep. There’s truth in that. There’s truth in that. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:28

Is there as you stand here today, and I’m so glad to hear that you’ve got some things that have fallen into exactly the right place for you. But is there something that you wish you know, given that I assume you’re probably a person that trust in divine timing, but also, is there something that you wish you knew or understood more fully earlier on your path?

Cheri Honeycutt  34:54

Yeah, I think I wish I understood all of what we just talked about, you know, The real breadth of it and I had senses of it back then. But I wish I really knew the power, my friend would say, we would head out on a garage sale and she’d say, Okay, I’m gonna find seven boys jeans and attempt for four and some clipboards. And we’d find it every every time. But why we didn’t aim for bigger. It’s not, you know, Pecan Sandies. On sale, I wish I’d really leaned into that’s true on whatever level has ever been, and I wish I had. And probably the biggest thing, and I’m sure men will, this might resonate with some men, but I think it will really resonate with women. I did a whole lot of, of insecurities around body and who I am and how do I fit? And can I stand up on a stage? And do I compare to that other speaker? And are they prettier? And oh, my gosh, video, and that, that held me back Heather. So much. And I would just say I don’t have nice with my actual language back then I’m like, I don’t have the internal strength to show up and do that next phase back when video was first becoming popular as a speaker. And I wish I knew now. I mean, I wish I knew then what I knew now, yeah, you know, but that’s also the process of learning.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:23

Well, it is. I was gonna say, I think so many I certainly know so many women can relate to what you’ve just said, Right? We’re gonna cultural culture and society where there’s just no denying that we have influences from a very young age around all that stuff. But I just think there are some things you can’t learn without just walking through the fire.

Cheri Honeycutt  36:47

It’s exactly right. It’s one of the reasons I try really hard to not give advice to young parents unless they ask, because first of all, you can’t hear it anyway. You got to know I do now as now, I do believe you can’t in business. I think we’re wise when we realize that we don’t have all the answers. But there’s some lessons out there that you just can’t fast forward through. And frankly, you don’t want to miss them. You know, it’s one of my values with my own kids. I didn’t want to shortchange them out of the hard lessons. Yeah. But that self competence that I lacked for reasons that were just societal or even self imposed. I wish I could have dialed that back a little bit.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:33

Yeah, I think so many of us are with you on that. Right? Yeah. 

Cheri Honeycutt  37:37

Yeah, it starts young. And I’ll stem almost 60. And it’s still there. You know, what I’ve got? I’ve got tools right now. You know, yeah, I can pretty soon I’ll call myself a crown, and I’ll just own it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:53

Yeah. Right. Well, each new decade, I think there comes like an additional layer of freedom around things. All right. Absolutely. Yes, I remember sitting in an audience one time, and it was a panel of women up on stage. It was actually hosted by the Riveter, which is a local, co working company that was built by a local founder here. And anyways, I’ve watched their journey and they hosted tons of local events. And so they were talking with other female founders. And I remember one of the women said, if you think you’re out of EFS, to give in your 40s, just wait till you’re 60.

Cheri Honeycutt  38:34

I know, it’s really true, Heather, it’s really true. And it’s so freeing. But all of that is accessible to us earlier, it’s actually one of the things I really love. And what I see in the younger folks that don’t have the baggage, or at least don’t appeared, they may have different baggage, but they don’t have baggage. But I did. It makes me very hopeful. It makes me…

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:58

Well, I think, you know, each generation is here to heal something. And I feel like our generation is really, you know, learning about trauma about the journey and the body about healing from generational issues and things. And I agree some of the younger generations I love, even like, you know, and there’s a lot of talk and I hear people put down millennials, and it makes me sad, you know, because I’m like, I think they’re brilliant. They’re not willing to tolerate things that the rest of us just thought we had to tolerate. Exactly. You know, they make more mindful choices when it comes to what they consume. They, you know, they are just doing things differently. And I hope they do and I hope they continue to and I hope that other generations continue to shake it up because I feel like so much needs changing.

Cheri Honeycutt  39:52

Oh my gosh, and I love the way you said that. In fact you made it go down another layer for me. It’s like yes, I tolerated a lot. I I was told I had to tolerate a lot. I had a I’m great at tolerating. And that’s not something to brag about. I mean, you know, it has its place. It has its place in moments, but yeah, that, that sense that it can be better. And so, so who, you know, our listeners, I think as you listen to this is that if you’re more in my age and the 50s I don’t know you’re in your 30s or 40s, or you’re in your mid 40s You know, wherever you are, you’re you’re on that progression, but that we can take that lesson is that if we’re sitting and feeling the heaviness of toleration, some to look at a million years ago, the very one of the very first coaches was Cheryl Richardson. And she was on Oprah a million years ago she wrote one of the first coaching books and she had an activity she said write down 10 things you’re tolerating I wrote down I still have the list Heather I wrote down 89 things 89 things.

Heather Pearce Campbell  40:57

First of all, I love that your numbers 89 I use like randomly like you know to exaggerate the nine blah blah blah any name of this Yeah, it’s actually…

Cheri Honeycutt  41:08

From the button had fallen off my favorite pants to I needed to build a website to I can’t find my blah blah blah papers but this long list and of course it will you and toleration in two different ways but there was just sense of burden of putting up with and I think that is something I’d love all of us to you know and that’s an I come back to my own work that’s what I’m trying to help people understand. They don’t have to just live in me or they don’t have to live in in crappy I’ll say often you need want more happy less crappy. That really means you’ve got to just not tolerate.

Heather Pearce Campbell  41:46

One of the things I love you for Cheri is your use of words. Oh my gosh, I love that more happy less crappy. That’s so perfect.

Cheri Honeycutt  41:57

But you bet I think you’re right. I’ve loved that word. You know, we’re just stopped tolerating the BS. Yeah, offense.

Heather Pearce Campbell  42:04

Well, it’s like and you really can look in every area of your life and see those things like what am I tolerating around my house? What am I tolerating in my relationship? What am I tolerating at work with my clients or co workers or wherever you are that I shouldn’t be tolerating?

Cheri Honeycutt  42:20

Absolutely, and in sometimes I call those energy leaks because they’re little things you can actually fix. And then some of those are bigger issues around the way you’ve related and set it up patterns and those are harder. But if you’re having to step over a pile of shoes every time you come in the house and you want to bring your children’s next you can fix that. You know, I remember I kept talking I kept frustrated with that parent group I was telling you about I’d come in I’d say he did it again he sort of all the all of my shaving cream out the window of the shower. And then I’d come in the next week I’m like he sorted all the shaving cream out the window. And after about the third time my friends are like why do you keep putting the can of shaving cream in the shower? Oh all right. This is why you need friends. This is a man yes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:06

And if you ever wonder what maybe should be put away around your house just get a dog get a dog there you get a dog like oh should recycling actually go here? No, no, it should it should our shoes go here. No, they should.

Cheri Honeycutt  43:20

That’s beautiful. That’s a great example. But you know but that frustration I would have and realize that no, I can fix some of those things. And then some are you can’t fix and you truly have to learn how to tolerate and live through it but most and being right yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:40

What you know in all this work because there’s a lot of there’s just so much in life that we get to uncover and look under that rock and under that rock right so many things. What do you love most about what you do?

Cheri Honeycutt  43:55

Oh god so many answers came to my head. One is I love it when I am helpful and having someone’s like go on what I mean as you can see and I know you’ve witnessed this most everybody can when all of a sudden something clicks and they go oh you know and they’ve gotten an insight and awareness and and I’m a pretty good synthesizers of other people’s brilliant so I take I read all those books and I pull it out and I popped some wisdom on somebody I didn’t come up with it. But when I can facilitate that and then they go oh, I now am able to do this thing or I had this hard conversation or I was able to shift that. That is like catnip to me. That is

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:50

Give me more give me more give me more. Right? 

Cheri Honeycutt  44:52

Yeah, well, I know that. I know for me, that’s how I’m I really simply saying it’s from my own light bulb moment and so when I know that other people can put the pieces together they’re healing in some way and we want a world full of healing people.

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:15

Yes we do. underscore that one. We want a world full of healing people. 

Cheri Honeycutt  45:21

Yes. I don’t think they have to be healed.

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:24

No it’s a process right? It’s not a switch right? We wish it was a switch right?

Cheri Honeycutt  45:31

Yeah, don’t trust it somebody tells you they have to switch run away.

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:35

Right, oh my gosh, I feel like we could go on and on. I’ve loved this series we’re just out of respect for your time and the listeners time. Where do you like for people to connect with you online? For folks that are like you know what? I think I’ve got some tolerations okay night or somewhere else where I need to move from crappy to happy in this area. Yeah, where would you direct them to?

Cheri Honeycutt  46:03

I would direct them first my website cherihoneycutt.com. And it’s spelled it’s your scene in the show notes, Cheri with a C and Honeycutt and I’ve got a couple of giveaways. There are some few things that you might find helpful, how to set goals, how to get unstuck. I’m also on Facebook but I’d love to drop me an email, give me a phone call. I mean I’m really accessible on my website, you can set up a time just forced to have a conversation. And I’m really cool with that I don’t see every conversation is so we’re going to turn this into just be Hey, heard on the podcast, let’s chat.

Heather Pearce Campbell  46:41

Love that. Well, we will share your contact information, your email your website, your two giveaways, right? You’ve got the 90-day absolute, yes. List of tool to help you set inspired and doable. 90-Day goals and love that, as well as get unstuck. A robust set of questions to ask yourself when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do. Folks, you can find those at the show notes page, which is legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, along with Cheri’s other links. Will link to your social media and stuff. Cheri, it’s such a joy to be here today. I love that we finally were able to connect. What final thoughts or takeaway would you like to leave the audience with?

Cheri Honeycutt  47:27

I want to leave you with this is that at least to where I said, we don’t accidentally create the life we’ve always wanted. It just doesn’t happen by accident. It only happens when we live with intention and take taking responsibility for creating the life we want. And it’s not as hard as it sounds. But you do have to show up.

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:51

Yeah. Love it. Cheri, I adore you. I’m so grateful to know you. I hope that we crossed paths in person again. It would be lovely. Thank you for being here. 

Cheri Honeycutt  48:05

You’re welcome, Heather. Thank you.

GGGB Outro  48:10

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.