Mindset and Leadership Coach Coach Cindy Ames

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. This is going to be a good one. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast speaker, coach, trainer and mindset strategist, Cindy Ames. How are you?

Cindy Ames: I am so fine. How are you today, Stone?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. Really been looking forward to this conversation and I think a great place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners mission. Purpose. What is it that, uh, that you’re really out there trying to do for folks, Cindy?

Cindy Ames: Yeah, absolutely. So I think my mission is really and I don’t think it, I believe it. It’s really empowering others to live their life with kindness so that they can achieve the results that they want in life. And how do we do that is by observing and creating awareness for our current mindset, so that we can determine if it’s actually giving us what we want in life.

Stone Payton: Sounds like very rewarding work if you can get it. How in the world did you find yourself in this profession?

Cindy Ames: Oh, that’s a good question. So I have been in the corporate world for about ten, 12 years, and Covid happened and I was laid off, as many of us were, and my work was in the senior living industry, and I was centered in learning and development, and I loved it. I created trainings mainly for sales, but I also created trainings for operations and memory care and compliance and so forth. And I love being able also to deliver those trainings. And when Covid happened, I was in the process of becoming an executive coach for my company. I was in the original coach and help out in that way. And so I got laid off and I realized that I really wanted to pursue coaching because that was something I was passionate about at first and foremost, because all the learning that I gained from listening to coaches and experiencing being coached myself, and I saw such value in that, I wanted to share it with others. So I went ahead and graduated from my class. I was certified through the International Coaching Federation and I created my own business and in it I offer mindset coaching, I offer training, development, facilitation and I’m hired as a motivational speaker at conferences, workshops and so forth. And so it’s it’s not what I had expected. I had expected that I would work for the same company and do what I was passionate about doing until I was going to retire. And so for me, this was a big shift going into my own business and being an entrepreneur. And I can’t say that I regret it. In fact, I gained so much from having my own business that I’m rather pleased that this is the way that my career is going to come to a close eventually.

Stone Payton: I have a lot of questions about this business of mindset, but before we go there, I want to hear more about this transition because I would think that is quite the the leap. Was it a little intimidating? A little? A little scary in the early going. Getting your own business up and running?

Cindy Ames: Yeah, absolutely. It was. I experienced a lot of uncertainty. That was how fear manifested in my brain with uncertainty. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do this. It was, um, so many things that were new for me. You know, when you work in a corporate setting, all the things are done for you. Marketing stunt, accounting stunt, all of that getting clients is done. And so I had to learn how to do all of that. And so one of the things that I learned early on was I talked to my brain. And when my brain would throw up uncertainty and those feelings and you could feel it in your in my body, I could feel it. I would say, oh, wait, wait, wait, hey, I see, I see that you’re feeling uncertain that you, you’re kind of scared about what’s going to happen. It’s okay. We’ve got this I have resources. My daughter had a business. She was a great resource and I learned Google and ChatGPT and YouTube. They’re all my friends, you know. And so I would go to those resources and that would help me. So my my point is, I reassured my brain that it was going to be okay. And I told it how it was going to be okay. And then I don’t know if you’ve seen the show Ted Lasso, but it’s a great show, right? It’s one of my favorite. And so one of the things I did was I created a believe sign and I put it above my door, just like they have in the show. And I have a rock on my desk that says believe. And it was just a reminder to believe in myself. I have the capacity, as do others, to to choose things that are challenging What gets us through it, I believe, are two things. One, it’s our mindset and it’s being kind to ourselves along the way. That’s what helps us.

Stone Payton: So you mentioned being formally credentialed, going through a certification process. What compelled you to take that route, and what’s your recommendation for other people maybe wanting to enter the field, or are you glad you did that?

Cindy Ames: Oh, I’m so glad I did it. It for me, coaching is extremely, extremely rewarding in that I get to be a partner with somebody and when they are going through a process of discovery and getting that aha moment, that epiphany where they realize, oh, I could think this other way. And in doing so, I get so much more in my life than what I had before. That’s a truly, I think, sacred and beautiful thing to be a part of. And so it brings me a lot of joy to be that partner and I if if a person is a has a, I call it a servant minded spirit. If if that comes naturally to them. I think that coaching is a great thing. The thing about coaching that a lot of people understand is it’s not my job to solve the other person’s problem. It’s not my job to have the answers. My job is to be their partner and asking them questions to create awareness in their own brain for what or how they’re looking at something. We have certain patterns of of looking at things, certain perspectives, certain lenses.

Cindy Ames: And those lenses cause us to look at something a certain way. And in doing so, we tend to come to the realization that that’s the truth. And it is. It’s a truth for us. However, that truth or that belief might no longer be working well for us. For us. And so what I can do is I can shine a light on that truth that’s holding them back and say, hey, would you like to talk about that? And we talk about it. And because they’re adults, they get to choose something new, right? As children, we are often given our rules. We’re given beliefs from our family, our parents, and so on. And and we tend to follow those because we don’t know any different. As adults, we get to make our own decision. We get to say, oh yeah, that particular rule, it no longer works or serves me. I can create a new one in its place that’s going to better push me forward or propel me forward to get the results in life that I want.

Stone Payton: So say a little bit more about this certification process, because I’m operating under the impression, at least with ICF, that’s a pretty Any rigorous, uh, curriculum, isn’t it?

Cindy Ames: Yeah it is. So with ICF, you go through a a organization that is specific for coach training and I use six seconds. They are their niche, if you will, is an emphasis on emotional intelligence. And I really like that a lot. They also had a mindset tool that I use a lot with my clients. And that was something that was really important to me to have in the curriculum. And it’s based on behavioral cognitive therapy. And so I chose that school and I went through that curriculum. And then I took a I had 100 hours of coaching I had to experience before I could take the first test. Wow. I took it, I passed. Well done. And then I had 500 hours to accumulate. And then I took my second test. And then I’m a Professional coach. Certified coach is what it’s called PCC, and that’s the level of accreditation I have through the International Coaching Federation. I felt it was really important to have that certification because I my brain, how my brain works is it likes structure and it does like rules. And so I wanted to make sure that I was following the rules I wanted.

Cindy Ames: I wanted a layout of ethics. I have, of course, my own ethics, but I wanted to go beyond what I knew to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything. So that was a really important component that ICF provided for me was their ethics and their standards. And they recently changed their testing. And the second go round was very was very challenging. But I passed and that’s all that matters. And so I, I find that especially because I was going to start with Corporate, um. Corporate coaching. I thought that it would be good to have ICS certification because SHRM, which is an HR organization, um, is connected with their partners with ICF. I want you to know that anybody can call themself a coach. The coaching industry is not legalized in any way. There’s no, uh, regulations or anything like that. And so for me, I thought it added legitimacy that I was educated in coaching, that I was certified by a body such as ICF. For me, that was important for other people. It’s not, um, that I wanted to serve what was best for myself. And so that’s why I did that.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career, uh, at this stage of your practice, and you touched on a little bit, but I’d like to hear more. What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it these days for you?

Cindy Ames: I think it’s the collaboration that I have with the client. Uh, again, I get to see an insight into their brain, and you don’t often get to do that. I also love being able to create that neutral space for them, so there’s no judgment. They can say whatever they need to say. It’s not my job to, uh, to judge in any way that my job is just to create awareness for how they’re thinking so that they can see if it’s effective for them or if it’s not effective for them. You know, we have we have so many beliefs, and oftentimes we move through life unconscious of those beliefs. We just do them, follow them naturally. And it’s probably when we get pushed up against a wall or when we’re, we’re stumbling in some way is when we it brings attention to us that we’re like, you know, this just isn’t really working. What might I change? And being a part of that change and seeing it firsthand, I think is really, really exciting for me.

Stone Payton: Okay, so let’s do let’s dive into the work a little bit all the way to I want to make sure we’re, we’re singing off the same hymn sheet as my daddy would say and defining mindset and yeah, talk to us about the mechanism for the the work and how and walk us through the a primer around mindset in the first place.

Cindy Ames: Sure. So mindset is simply your beliefs, the things that you think about yourself and all the things around you which are your circumstances. And I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase a positive mindset, a negative mindset, or or maybe even, um, Carol Dweck has created a growth mindset. All of those mindsets are just ways that we believe and the ways we think. And so somebody who has a positive mindset is thinking, for the most part along positive lines. When we do that, it impacts our life experience. So oftentimes people will say, well, I really believe and I really think this is the way it is. It’s okay. Great. How is that impacting you? What life experience are you experiencing with that type of thought? And that’s the point I want to bring to people’s attention. So if you’re adamant about believing something and it’s holding you back, it’s limiting you or it’s causing negativity in your life, well, then that’s a really good time for an opportunity to look at it and and evaluate, is that really going to work for me or not? And so when we do our sessions, my job is is simply to listen and ask questions based on what the individual has shared. Sometimes I’ll also bring in tools as appropriate for whatever the topic of conversation is. For example, the mindset tool that I use is we look at everything outside of us and we have a thought about it. So if you let’s just use a person, let’s say it’s our boss, we have a thought about our boss and it could be positive, it could be negative, whatever. And in this particular instance we usually start with negative. So I have a thought about my boss.

Cindy Ames: And that thought leads to emotion. Emotions drive our behaviors. So we have some sort of action we take and that action leads to result. If I’m not getting the results I want, maybe in the interaction I’m having with my boss, I need to look at my thoughts. Once I do that, I can make the tie between my thoughts and my result, and then I can say, okay, you know what? I don’t like those Results. I want to shift to another way of thinking that’s going to allow me to get better results. I can also give you the example of if we thought, I can’t, I can’t do this. What does that lead? Leads to? It leads to feeling, um, unsure. And when I’m unsure, what do I do? Well, what do I do? Is I sit back. I don’t do anything. What are my results? I’m not going to get any results because I’m not doing anything. So then I need to look at the opposite, which is I can when I think I can, I feel empowered. That’s like a great feeling. The empowerment motivates me. It causes me to want to go and to explore, to try different things, see what happens. And then I get results because I’m trying things. I’m realizing, oh, this is working. This isn’t working. Okay, let’s follow the line of what is working, and I’m going to double down on that or I’m going to expand it, that type of thing. So the mindset tool is a way that people can take a tangible thing, if you will. I’ll call it a tangible thing. You can take that as a structure to evaluate your thoughts and how they’re either helping you or they’re hindering you.

Stone Payton: Boy, do I wish I had your skills and background and experience because I will share with you there’s someone in my circle right now that genuinely believes that it’s hard to help people and make money at the same time. Um, or maybe it’s more on the money side. They just think it’s hard to make money, but it sounds like with your process, like you could disrupt that pattern and get them out of that long enough to to achieve a little direction, maybe.

Cindy Ames: Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Money is we have lots and lots of thoughts about money. A lot of it we inherit from our families. So if we have the thought, it’s hard to make money. Guess what? It’s hard for you to make money. It’s a struggle to make money. You’re conscious about it. You put in a lot of effort and you don’t get a lot of results. So what we can do is oftentimes our brains won’t change quickly from it’s hard to make money to it’s easy to make money. The brain is like, nah, we have all this evidence that it’s hard to make money. We know this to be a truth with a capital T, this is a fact. And so what we can do is we can move from it’s hard to make money to. It’s easy to make money. We can we can make that move in our brain by offering it rich thoughts. And you know what? Bridge is simply a way for us to get from one place to another. Place where there is a gap in between. So a bridge that helps us to close that gap between it’s hard and it’s easy. So we could say it’s hard to make money. And I’m not so sure about that. It’s hard to make money. And maybe I’m wrong about that. It’s hard to make money, and I might figure out a way. It could be easy. So see how I’m moving closer and closer to the idea of it’s easy to make money.

Cindy Ames: And then once I get to the point where I’m believing it’s easy to make money, then I start asking my brain how. And our brain has the reticular activating system inside of it. And what that does is it is a filter. We have so much data coming to us at any given time that the brain uses filters to help us to, to survive. And so when we say, how can I do something, then what happens? And we keep that thought in our mind, keep it in our mind. Then we’re reading an article and pop it pops up. How I can do something. We’re talking with a friend and it pops up. All of a sudden we get all these different ways on how to do it. And if you ever want to test it out, this is one of my favorite things to do. If you’re driving down the street all of a sudden, think in your head, where are all the white cars? Then all of a sudden, all you see are white cars where you’ve never really noticed them before and you’ve got white cars coming, you’ve got white birds going. You look down the street, there’s white cars, you look the other way. There’s white cars. It’s so fascinating. I love that thing. So that’s a that’s one way to do it.

Stone Payton: And your work is it largely one on one. Is it groups. And you also mentioned speaking which I actually want to ask a few more questions about. But what’s the mechanism. Is most of it one on one groups a little bit of all of that.

Cindy Ames: So if it’s coaching it’s typically one on one. So I do two. There’s similar but different. I do two different types of coaching one an individual hire. Hire me to coach them on specific topics. It could be personal. It could be business. It’s just basically what’s going on in their life that they’re having a challenge with. I also do executive coaching, so I’ll have a company hire me, and then they have different people in their organization that I work with, and I coach them based on what I think needs a lot of that is centered around what’s going on in their company or in their role, and I help them navigate it. And in that job, it’s kind of like a coaching slash consulting, because sometimes it’s a matter of how do I talk to this person? And what we do is we brainstorm. Well, what do you think about talking about it this way, or what do you think? Have you said that? How might that work? What is it? Does that feel? Does it resonate with you? Does that feel like how you would express yourself? Right. And so we work through that together. Sometimes we practice it, sometimes they just take notes. And then we come back and talk about how that worked for them. So Coaching is mainly one on one. What I also do are workshops or I do training and those are group settings. I do a mindset training. It’s called managing your mindset and that’s done in a group training. I just had a company hire me yesterday and I’m going to be doing one for their HR team in April on that. It’s like an hour and a half webinar. I also get hired to go do trainings. I’m going to do a half day training in September in Chicago. So there’s just different ways depending on what the, uh, the client wants to have happen.

Stone Payton: Well, I’m glad I asked, because I was trying to envision myself in an authentic exchange with you about, you know, my belief systems. And I love this idea of bridge thoughts and and the idea of this. Uh Self-kindness. Right. And how I talked to to to myself. But I was also thinking, you know, if I were in a room with other people who ran an organization and had some of the same leadership pressures and that kind of thing as I do, and I watched them participate in this exchange. I just it seems like you could you could learn a lot from each other in that environment. It seems like there would be plenty to be gained in both of those environments.

Cindy Ames: Yeah, there are there are coaches that will have group sessions, and you do learn a lot from what somebody else is being coached on, because you can usually take just about anything and apply it to your own life in some way. Right. You. Yeah. You look at it and say, how does this apply to me? And you can benefit from it. So absolutely.

Stone Payton: Now there’s some honest to goodness real science behind. So much of what you’re talking about is, I mean, we have some data that suggests, yes, this is how the the brain works, right?

Cindy Ames: Absolutely. So neuroscience has done a lot to uncover how the brain works. And and you know what happens. And one of the things that I think is really exciting is the brain, the concept of neuroplasticity, which means the brain is able to rewire itself. So we have thoughts and thoughts are just you think something in a neural pathway in your brain is lit up and and when you pay that thought enough attention, it becomes more solidified. And so what happens for us when we have that thought? It becomes a belief because we just thought that thing for so long. Mm. The trick is when we want to have a new thought. So if we go to our chant and our can example from before, if I have a thought, I fought long enough, I can’t. That’s pretty hard wired into my brain. But the cool thing is again neuroplasticity. We can rewire our brain. So then I bring in the new thought, and I bridge my way over to I can. And then I start thinking that thought again and again and again. It’s not a one and done. It’s work. There is a work to this practice. And so I think it long enough to where I begin believing it, I begin to see how it’s true. And I make that superhighway, if you will, stronger. However, one of the things we have to remember is that sometimes that old thought will come back in and we’ve experienced that, you know, oh no, you can’t or oh, do you remember so-and-so said this and you really believe that about yourself? They’ll pop up. That’s our opportunity. That’s our opportunity to say, hey, no, I don’t think that way anymore.

Cindy Ames: I now believe I can do it, And we have to be firm. This is just our brain throwing stuff at us. Just because our brain thinks it doesn’t actually mean it has to be true. And I. I liken our brains to a toddler. A toddler is going to throw things at you. Toddler is going to say, I want it to be done my way, but you’re in charge of your brain, and you can take that power away from your brain by just saying, no, we don’t think that way anymore. I mean, there’s sometimes I’ll wake up and I I’ve had depression since I was 16 and so I’ve not had I don’t really have it anymore because I’ve managed it and I’ve done a lot of work on myself, but I my body remembers it. And so sometimes I’ll wake up and I’ll have those the, the feeling in my body of the depression and I will tell myself it’s okay, nothing’s gone wrong, everything is fine. And I just repeat that mantra over and over again, and then my body calms down and then it. And then I’m, I’m just it’s in every it’s an every day. It’s just a regular day. I don’t have depression. My body just remembers. And so I think it’s important for us to remember that we’re in charge of our thoughts. And you can think anything you want to. I think to me, that’s one of my taglines. You can think anything you want to. So if something isn’t working for you, let’s get you a new thought.

Stone Payton: Well, it’s an inspiring tagline tagline. And I got to confess, Cindy, I’m finding one of the most empowering aspects of this conversation for me personally, is I’m walking away telling myself, my brain works for me.

Cindy Ames: Yeah, your brain works for you, not the other way around.

Stone Payton: No, I think that’s marvelous. Uh, I’m going to switch gears on you for a minute, if I might, and ask you about hobbies, interests, pursuits, passions outside the scope of your coaching and speaking and facilitation work. Anything you nerd out about, that’s not this.

Cindy Ames: Oh, that’s a fun question. Um, so I’m a I’m a voracious reader. I read 240 books last year. Um, yeah. I think the most I read, I think it was like around Covid time was 350 books. Um, and they’re they’re not deep philosophical books. They’re just they’re fun books. And I just, I love reading. I have ever since I was a little kid, I was one of those kids who go to the library and come back with, you know, ten books, read them all in a week. And so I love reading. I have four grandkids, loves spending time with my grandkids, my son, my son for Christmas bought me a Oculus, which is a VR headset. And so I’m having a lot of Burn playing Beat Saber every evening before I watch TV, and it’s just, uh, it’s just an online game that’s, you know, the six year old woman is playing Beat Saber. I just think it’s kind of amusing. So. And then I love traveling. My husband and I enjoy traveling, and I. I love experiencing other cultures, understanding people. Uh, seeing how I think the coolest thing about people and the understanding of them is that. Based on their experience where they live, the, the temperature, whatever, they’ve created certain things and things that I have no idea that that’s there or that they would think that way, but it makes sense that they do based on their circumstances. And I find that to be really fascinating. And so my husband and I like to travel and and experience that. And I love to see. I love to see the beauty in our world. And that’s a that’s a big pleasure for me to see that beauty. So I enjoy that both in what, um, the creation of the Earth as well as as what man humans, I should say, humans have created. Both are very fascinating to me.

Stone Payton: What a marvelous laboratory. Or maybe observatory is. A is a better word for it to travel and experience other cultures and and engage with and observe these, these folks. So especially with your unique lens, I bet that is a great deal of fun to do that.

Cindy Ames: And absolutely is.

Stone Payton: So what’s next for you? Uh, are you going to kind of just stay in your groove, keep doing what you’re doing? Do you have plans? Is there a book in you, or are we going to replicate the the Cindy Ames Method. What’s on the horizon?

Cindy Ames: You think a book would always be fun, but I don’t actually have an outline for a book written. But I think it’s going to stay an outline and that’s okay. I think that, you know, I’m looking for four years or so or six years and then retiring. And so I love what I do. I find so much pleasure in what I do that I am so content where I’m at now. I’m just open to clients reaching out for to work with me as either a coach or a trainer and doing a workshop facilitating, uh, or, excuse me, speaking at a conference. That’s kind of my jam right now. So I’m having fun with that, and I’m hoping that I will retire from doing this because it is bringing so much joy to my life now I just. And who knows, maybe I won’t retire. Maybe I’ll just keep on doing this. No, I can’t do it anymore. You know, that would be fun, too.

Stone Payton: Well, the only thing I’ve even been a little bit skeptical about during the entire course of this conversation is the idea that you would fully retire from this work? I don’t know, I think you’re too invested in and living your best life through it, so we’ll just have to see.

Cindy Ames: You’re probably right. You’re probably right.

Stone Payton: Hey, listen, before we wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners with a pro tip. And look, gang, the the best pro tip if any of this conversation. And it certainly has had to, um, stimulate and challenge your thinking, the best pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Cindy. But, uh, let’s leave them with a pro tip for producing better results in less time or getting their arms around some of these topics we’ve talked about.

Cindy Ames: Yeah, absolutely. So producing better results in less time. Less time. Microchip would be. Treat yourself with kindness. What happens is when we have negative thoughts coming into ourselves about ourselves, it’s like having mud that you have to move through as you’re trying to achieve your goal. And it makes trying to achieve your goal so much harder. So if you shifted to bringing in kind thoughts, meaning, I can do this. I’m intelligent. I’ve got this. You’re doing great. I’m so proud of you talking to myself right when we say that those times, or even if it’s okay, I messed up. No big deal. I’m a human being. Human beings. Not sad. Let’s see what we want to do next. Let’s see how we’re going to fix it. We have that positivity toward ourselves. Then we’re not. We’re not slogging through the mud to get to the goal. And so that makes your pace in achieving that goal much quicker, and you have a beautiful life experience along the way. So self-kindness, that’s that’s the thing. That’s the key right there.

Stone Payton: Well, I think that is terrific. Counsel. What’s the best way for our listeners to continue to tap into your work, maybe get connected with you, maybe have that conversation with you? Let’s leave them with some coordinates.

Cindy Ames: Yeah, absolutely. So my website is w ww dot Cindy Ehnes a m e s Coaching.com. And I still send you the traditional way. Cindy. And you can also follow me on Instagram. And that’s Cindy Ehnes coach. So those are the two places to connect with me and to get a peek into who I am and and what what I can offer.

Stone Payton: So Cindy, it has been an absolute delight visiting with you this afternoon. It’s been an inspiring and invigorating conversation. I have personally benefited a great deal and you are clearly doing some tremendous work in serving others. Keep up the good work and thank you so much for investing your your time and energy with us this afternoon.

Cindy Ames: I appreciate it, Stone. Thank you for having me on your show.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. Alright, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Cindy Ames and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.