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

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Heather Vickery and she’s the transformation coach with Vickery and Co. Welcome.

Heather Vickery: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well I am so excited to learn more about what you’re doing. Tell us a little bit about Vickery and Co. How are you serving folks.

Heather Vickery: Thank you so much for asking. So I my daughter says mommy, nobody knows what a transformation coach is, but it really is exactly what it says. I hope people go from where they are to where they want to be. And I mainly do that by helping them learn to lead from embodied joy, by knowing, liking, and trusting themselves. And I use human design as a great resource for that. And then I am a board certified NLP practitioner. So we do subconscious reprograming to rewire all the nonsense that’s been put on people from society in a world that was built for other people, but doesn’t exactly fit you. I believe that we all have the right to to start with joy, to lead with joy, and it changes the way we interact with people. It changes the results that we get and the impact that we’re able to have on the world. So I do it in a lot of different ways, but that’s what we’re doing over at Rinko.

Lee Kantor: Well tell us. Let’s dig into, if you don’t mind a little bit about this embodied joy and human design. How is is that? It sounds like this is about me, and I gotta get. I gotta kind of serve me first before I can serve anybody else. But can you explain what that means? Uh, in.

Heather Vickery: Yeah. You kind of nailed it. That’s not the language that I use, but that is what it is. I in fact, my website says it’s not selfish, it’s self first. It’s a little bit like the oxygen mask effect. But the language that I use is it’s learning to take a radical responsibility for ourselves. The world is messy. Life is messy. Things are complicated. And yet, I think you can still find things to be grateful for. You can find excitement and hope and joy and momentum. But you have to look for it. And that requires us to do the self-reflection to say, okay, X, Y, and Z is happening over here. Who do I want to be in this moment? How do I want to react? How do I want to feel? How do I want to respond? What intentional action do I want to take in this moment so that I can be in charge of my life? Because the only thing we can control is what we.

Lee Kantor: Ourselves.

Heather Vickery: Ourselves. That’s right.

Lee Kantor: Is that the right answer? I thought it.

Heather Vickery: Was because you got the right answer. It was not a hard question, so I’m really glad you did. The only thing we can control is ourselves now. You know, I work with a ton of type A people pleaser, leaders who think they can control all kinds of things, and they get really bummed when I go. You don’t have any control over anything except yourself. So? So how do you control yourself? What do you want to do? How do you want to feel? What choices do you want to make that are in line with your integrity? That will lead to your being part of the betterment of the world, to having more joy, to having a life you’re actually excited to wake up for every day.

Lee Kantor: So how do you kind of inoculate yourself from narcissism, selfishness, some of the not so great kind of characteristics of somebody who might be perceived as looking out for themselves?

Heather Vickery: Absolutely. You know, there are lots of ways to solve a problem. And there are also lots of ways to practice self-care and caring for yourself first. You could say, oh, I can’t do that for you. I have to take care of myself. That’s kind of sucky. Those are not nice people. You could say, I would love to do this for you. I can’t do it right now. I’m taking care of something else. Let’s find another time. Right. There are ways to communicate anything and prioritize yourself. And I will say this. We live in a world where almost nobody ever asks a man that question. I’m just going to go ahead and go there. That’s a that’s a question people ask women. Well, how can you take care of yourself and still not be perceived as sort of a nagging narcissist who doesn’t care about other people? But it’s all in how you present it.

Lee Kantor: Well, I agree that probably men aren’t asked that, but I would disagree in the sense that maybe they should be asked that.

Heather Vickery: Um, yes, perhaps that’s perhaps, um, because in general, women are really what we are programed, and I do a lot of subconscious reprograming work with women to, you know, sacrifice yourself all the time to be a good parent or to be a good spouse. You have to always give or to be a good employee or whatever. You can’t ever take care of yourself and it’s just not true. It also doesn’t work. Li like if you break, how can you be a good caregiver to the people that you love, or to your clients, or to your bosses or whatever, right? If you burn yourself out all the time trying to be everything for everyone except for yourself, there’s nothing left for you to actually give to the people you want to care for. And I really, truly stand firm on. We are better providers when we also take care of ourselves.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I don’t I’m not disagreeing with the premise. I think that I think people should take care of themselves first. It’s just that in society, especially today, there’s a lot of folks that are all about themselves. And, you know, a, you know, tough luck for everybody else. And it’s it’s, you know, kind of my way of the highway. And it’s, uh, you know, the golden rule of he who has the gold rules and, um, you know, we’re living in a at least a period where that seems to be kind of the tone and, um, and I agree when you’re saying that a lot of women have this issue where they’re kind of the martyrs and they’re the ones sacrificing for everybody else. So, uh, it’s probably a good idea for them to lean the opposite way. But being a guy and seeing a lot of males not behaving, you know, in a self-actualized manner. Yeah.

Heather Vickery: I appreciate that perspective. I don’t work certainly exclusively with women. I do work a lot with women. And the men that I work with tend to not be straight white men. Right. Because you’re, it’s you’re right that it’s a different conversation. And certainly leaders, uh, right now are not emulating the care for everyone approach or do something that’s for the greater good. And my work, I’m very, very zeroed in on community care and, you know, taking care of one another. All of those things are super, super important, and I stand firmly on the fact that they can be done in parallel. We can care for ourselves and others, and in fact, we have more. Um, you know, I don’t I don’t know what you want to get into this, but I do a lot of activism work. Right. And in order to do that and not burn out, I have to take time for myself. But also it is in integrity. It’s in the integrity that we bring forward and our actions surrounding this that take us from being like controlling narcissists, you know, people in charge of everybody, freaks like, you know, if you have the golden rule, you’re in charge. Um, my favorite thing about, about human design is that it has taught me how different we all are. So it’s actually the opposite of that in every possible way, because now I go, oh man, we are really all uniquely created. And what works for me isn’t going to be what works for everybody else. So I set more boundaries. I have more clear communication, I ask more questions, I listen more, and that’s all part of my taking care of myself routine.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I’m with you. Believe me, I am on your team on this. I agree 100% with what you’re saying. I just know that some people who hear this, you’re giving them permission to misbehave. Or at least my definition of misbehaving is that they’re looking at it as well. It’s all about me. So then, you know, I really don’t care how it impacts anybody else or the planet or anything like that, because it’s it’s about me. But I think that the truth.

Heather Vickery: I can’t control those people.

Lee Kantor: Exactly, exactly. No, 100%. You can only control what you control. And I believe that teaching more people to do that and behave in that manner is going to be a net positive for the universe. 100% not. Not even a little bit. But I think that, um, there is a subset that this is um, they’re going to they’re not going to take the responsibility part of it because just like the the oxygen mask on you first. Um, ultimately it’s to help your kid. That’s why you’re doing it.

Heather Vickery: That’s it.

Lee Kantor: You’re exactly right.

Heather Vickery: So put it on yourself.

Lee Kantor: It’s not for you to live. And then let everybody else suffocate. Like that’s not the reason you’re doing it.

Heather Vickery: So, yes, I mean, there has to be a responsibility and an integrity piece component. Uh, and, and there are shitty people out there. Can I say that on your.

Lee Kantor: Absolutely right there.

Heather Vickery: There are people out there who just are not kind and good people. Uh, they don’t usually find me that just to be super transparent because, um, I wave all my flags really, really loudly and then and I love my block button on social media. Um, but, you know, we can only do what we can do and speak to the people who want to be part of a.

Lee Kantor: Exactly. Be part of your community. And the people you serve are the people that are attracted to what you’re you know, and.

Heather Vickery: They do care. They care about the environment. When I say, hey guys, we shouldn’t do we shouldn’t do everything on AI because it’s terrible for the environment. But I love AI, so just use it with integrity. They go, oh, what do you mean? Teach me more, right? Instead of I don’t care that every single search on on AI uses a gallon of water.

Lee Kantor: Right.

Heather Vickery: We should.

Lee Kantor: That’s not in the brochure.

Heather Vickery: It’s not.

Lee Kantor: In.

Heather Vickery: The brochure. And I and I use AI. I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t, but I am cautious about how I use it.

Lee Kantor: Right. And, uh. And it’s interesting. Uh, I think I’m a kind of a not a believer, but I’m a fan of Seth Godin. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. He’s a marketer. Author. Um, but he has a thing where he’s like, you know, find your people. And, um, and those are your people, and then work with your people. Like, you don’t have to. You know. That’s right. You know. Be everybody’s friend. You can talk to your people and then build community around your people, and then let the impact of that be the impact of that. You don’t have to kind of twist yourself in knots to be everybody’s friend. I mean, I think.

Heather Vickery: Well, and it doesn’t work. You know, not only do you not have to. You kind of can’t. We can’t serve everybody. We can’t please everybody. And, you know, I think I have a lot of great ideas. I built a business for 25 years on it, but I don’t know everything. And I don’t know everything for you. I don’t know everything. That’s going to be a good fit for you. There’s a lot of exploration and play and. Yeah, people, you know, people I always see people either love me or hate me.

Lee Kantor: But I think that when you go into this, uh, type of thinking of, uh, prioritizing yourself, you’re prioritizing yourself, but you’re aware that the world is not you. And it’s not only you. So you have to listen to other people, and you have to learn and be open and all that good stuff to in order to prioritize yourself because it’s giving you.

Heather Vickery: I’m working with people. That’s something we spend a lot of time on, is how do we integrate this into our real life world so that we can we can live with these other people in harmony and joy and support people.

Lee Kantor: Now let’s talk a little bit about that. So how would that come about in like your work. Like how do you kind of actually, you know, create action around that kind of theory?

Heather Vickery: Absolutely. So, you know, I serve and support people in a number of different ways. But as I mentioned before, I’m a certified NLP practitioner. So we do hypnotherapy and all sorts of subconscious reprograming. But I have clients come in and we really peel back all the layers of what most people find me, because what’s happening, whatever that is, is no longer acceptable. But they don’t know what’s next. They don’t know how to fix it. They don’t know how to solve it. They don’t know what they want. Instead, they just don’t like. Quote unquote. This and it’s this is different for everybody. And so we do a lot of content. I’m sorry. Um, conscious inquiry, compassionate inquiry to sort of discover what’s not working. And always from a lens of taking radical responsibility for yourself. And that does include making sure you’re kind and thoughtful towards other people. It does include how your choices and actions and behavior can impact other people. So how do we do that while still getting our own needs met and taking care of ourselves? Sometimes we’ll use subconscious reprograming to shift patterns of beliefs or negative attachments to things. Um, and then I also host retreats all over the world. I have one coming up in Costa Rica in January. So if people are looking for, um, a bigger way to to spend some quality time with themselves to actually slow down.

Heather Vickery: We live in this hectic, busy, worldly where we very rarely take the time to ask ourselves questions and listen for the answers, and be still and be slow so that we can be better parts of the community of our global world, which is so important right now. And also sometimes we just as a rest, right? Sometimes we just get to rest because we, you know, you don’t have to earn rest. We are allowed to rest. Uh, and so we bring in all these components. So I do private coaching, I have a membership, we do the retreats and I like to support people wherever they are. I do a live show every Thursday. I just got off of it Thursday, 12 p.m. on several different platforms I open. I host open office hours. If people are just curious, like, I don’t know how this what you’re talking about could actually apply to me, anyone’s welcome, but I promise that people who feel that that their life is not working, that they don’t get to have joy, that they’re not worthy of taking time for themselves. We can shift that in a really healthy way. That brings them closer to the people they care about, closer and more thoughtful about who they work with. All of that good stuff.

Lee Kantor: So how does it present itself? Like you talk about being stuck and people are frustrated. Maybe. But what how is it actually presenting itself to somebody right before they call you? Like, what are some of the symptoms or signs or signals that, hey, something is amiss and there might be a way out of this here if you just connect with Heather. Um, what are what does that look like to an individual who’s out there just kind of frustrated and stuck?

Heather Vickery: Sure. I think a lot of people, it’s going to be different for everybody, but a lot of people feel so tense and so stressed and maybe a little bit hopeless, like stuck. Uh, I like to remind people you are not stuck unless you choose to be, but that is a really hard thing to recognize when you’re in the middle of stuck, when everything just feels too hard. Um, you are hard to find motivation. You’re finding communication with people you care about a little bit challenging. You can tell that you’re diminishing yourself. You’re sort of playing small. Maybe even physically being small. You might, um, you know, curl your body up a lot instead of standing up confidently. You may avoid certain situations where there could be conflict that you don’t want to deal with. Uh, we’re very in those situations where our nervous system is just going crazy. And the nervous system is interesting because it it is designed to protect us, but often we it’s protecting us in ways that aren’t serving us anymore. Which is where when I do subconscious reprograming work, we’re stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, right? So we’re releasing the kind of nervous energy that doesn’t serve us and bringing in something that’s different and actually supports us. But yeah, things just feel off, feel, um, maybe overwhelming. Uh, we’re maybe we’re short tempered. We’re angry with people all the time. We don’t trust ourselves. We can’t make decisions if you’re sitting in indecision all the time, come and see me, because this is something I can help you with.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, there are so many people, like even just saying, where do you want to go to? Lunch is like, you know, that’s 30 minutes of our day now. Uh, they can be.

Heather Vickery: Yeah. And and that does not. I promise anybody who’s listening, it does not have to be like that. I can help you.

Lee Kantor: What about my Netflix? It takes me a long time to make a choice there. Do you help with that as well?

Heather Vickery: I can help a little. My guess is I would be happy to pull your human design charts, but my guess is you have a defined sacral in your human design chart, and you’re better off asking yourself a yes or no question. So if you look at a people who have a defined sacral, if you look at a plethora of options, you can’t pick one. But if you say, do I want to watch this show, you’ll know, like, oh no, I don’t want this one. Give it a try and then come back to me later and be like, oh, those yes or no questions really helped.

Lee Kantor: So, so how much of of of of angst and anxiety can be Uh, serve just by learning how to reframe things.

Heather Vickery: An awful lot of it. An awful lot of it. Because perspective creates reality. What you believe is true certainly becomes true. And the lens with which you look at something becomes your truth. And so when you shift your perspective and you shift your mindset and approach to something, there’s a lot more room for possibility.

Lee Kantor: Now in your work, you use the word set point, especially in and around Joy. Can you talk a little bit about what a set point is, number one and and how joy is connected to it?

Heather Vickery: Yeah, I mean, your set point is sort of your, your, your base foundation. It’s where you start from. It’s where you launch. And joy happens to be one of those things. It was funny. Um, I. It’s hard to sell Joy. That sounds crazy. Like people are like, oh, no. What? That’s it’s frivolous. It’s. And I just I’m on this mission to prove that it is not frivolous. It’s necessary. It’s required. And so many people think that you have to check off all of these boxes and hustle hard enough, and be successful by enough of other people’s terms in order to be joyful. And I want to flip that script because because I know for myself and hundreds of people that I’ve worked with, that if you can create joy as your set point, so your initial default, it shifts the way you engage, it shifts the way you show up, the way you think. Your your perspective completely changes. And you look at things from a different viewpoint. And that’s all of these different things that that we’ve talked about help you shift so that you can start with joy, look for what’s working, look for what’s feeling good. If you’re doing something that feels awful and it’s not something you have to do, perhaps you can stop doing it because it is something you have to do. Maybe there’s a different way to do it.

Lee Kantor: It’s so funny when you say things like that. It seems like. Yeah. No kidding. Don’t. It hurts. Stop. Okay. Yeah. Thank people. I need a coach to tell me that, you know, like. But it’s it’s we’ve been sold a bill of goods of, you know. Oh, I worked I only had two hours sleep, you know, I’m killing it or. Oh, I, I didn’t exercise at all or I didn’t, you know, eat. Right because I was so busy, like, we’re we’re kind of rewarding all these things that aren’t healthy. Absolutely. And and we got to reframe it to be proud of. Hey, I got in my workout today or, hey, I got my seven hours of sleep. You know, I killed it. High fives. You know, high fives.

Heather Vickery: Sure. I mean, that’s a, you know, I, um, I’m certified in positive psychology. I’ve written a couple of gratitude journals, actually, and that’s what you’re talking about is scientifically proven to be true. If you can find things to be grateful for and you have a regular gratitude practice, it’s scientifically Tied to increasing overall happiness, joy, and well-being while decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression. And so if if you know that sleeping well is going to make you a happier person, and you’re grateful for that, and then you start to prioritize that, the more you have to be grateful for, the more there is to be grateful for. It begets itself.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s so funny because every day things are going to happen, good and bad and indifferent. But if you’re only focused on the bad, then that’s how you’re going to see the world. But if you focus on the good things instead of the bad and ignore the bad, every the world’s great. I mean, it’s the reframing necessarily.

Heather Vickery: You know the answer either, I suppose. I’m not a big fan of toxic positivity, where we just pretend that there’s nothing icky.

Lee Kantor: Um, no. But I’m not saying to invent things that are positive, but every day there’s going to be positive things that have happened to you. I guarantee you you cannot escape this universe without something good happening. Whether you’re not paying attention to it or not, that’s on you. But yeah, it’s definitely somebody did something nice or something nice happen to you and just don’t ignore it.

Heather Vickery: Some mornings or some days are really hard. And the thing on my gratitude list is I’m really glad I have legs that work. But you know what? I’m really glad I have legs that work because some people don’t. So you can always find something to be grateful for. Um, and it’s beautiful, you know, when you can go. Yeah. This part is hard. This part’s not working. I don’t like that. And yet I got to see the sunshine this morning. My neighbor has these beautiful new sunflowers that are blooming, and they just. They make me smile when I see them. They bring me joy. My. My daughter hugged me, and I didn’t expect it because teenagers never hugged me anymore. Like, whatever it is, uh, it just sort of shifts you out of a state of hopelessness and into a possibility of of hope and more, and it will shift your your energy really quickly.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And if things are hard and you’re, you’re like, and hey, I can do hard things. Guess what. That’s a good thing.

Heather Vickery: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We are almost always the thing holding ourselves back. And and mindset is important. Shifting your mindset is really important. It’s a really good starting place. But if mindset alone could get everybody where they wanted to go, we’d all be there by now. So there’s got to be action. There’s got to be other things that we can do. And that’s what some of these tools and resources that I bring to the table help with. But, um, everybody’s got to find for themselves what the thing is, what the what the things are that help you feel joyful and feel balanced and feel connected so that you can be the the person that you want to be and the caregiver that you want to be. And, and all of these wonderful things that we have available to us that we get so we tunnel visioned on, um, that we’re not finding the best ways to serve.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And you mentioned earlier, like, a gratitude journal and just kind of noting what you’re grateful for on a regular basis, that there’s a bunch of benefits around that. Or is there some other kind of low hanging fruit that a person could do right now from listening to this today, or, you know, in the next five minutes that would have a positive impact, or there are some exercises or some activities that they can kind of quickly, uh, do right now in order to facilitate some sort of positive change in their day.

Heather Vickery: Yeah, absolutely. Gratitude practice is the very first thing I would always recommend, 3 to 5 things you’re grateful for and why every day. But the other thing that is just a quick, simple transformation is doing a very, very short breathwork exercise. That is a it’s called, um, a five, seven, eight breathing in through your nose for a count of five, holding at the top for a count of seven and releasing through your mouth for a count of eight. Doing three reps of that, it doesn’t even take a full minute. Um, will absolutely just sort of shift you out of one state of being and into another state of being. Uh, and then get up, get up from what you’re doing and walk away. Go somewhere else, move your body just a little bit, and that will help as well. If you just sit there and push through, you’re never going to get where you want to go.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s I think we forget that humans kind of were meant to be moving. Uh, we were not designed to be sedentary, but, uh.

Heather Vickery: But that quick breathwork helps tremendously.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s it’s so funny you mentioned some of these things that are so simple to really do on a regular basis. And if you would just do a half a dozen of these things every single day, your life would be literally transformed.

Heather Vickery: It would be. And I would say, even if you do just one of them once a day, it’s the compound effect. You’ll start doing them once a day and you’ll think, I kind of like that. Maybe I’ll do it twice a day, right? Like we build off of that. So don’t not start because you don’t think you have enough time to do it repeatedly. Just do what you can in this moment. I had somebody tell me once. I just was so profound. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. If you brush your teeth 10% of the time, it’s definitely better than never brushing your teeth. And that’s a beautiful perspective shift. Like, okay, just get started.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. It’s somebody mentioned to me something that made a lot of sense. It’s like instead of framing things as, you know, like, um, succeeding or failing, it’s used instead of failing. It’s learning. And if you reframe failing to learning, you never fail, number one. And then you you were mindful of, okay, what went wrong and how can I fix it for next time. And you have now kind of an action plan for the next time so that you are going to get that continuous improvement in that life. Lifelong learning that a lot of us are thriving for.

Heather Vickery: Absolutely. I say that all the time. I never fail, I make all kinds of mistakes. I make mistakes multiple times a day, but I always learn something and get something valuable from it. And so as far as I’m concerned, that I can’t fail. As long as I don’t quit.

Lee Kantor: Right, I don’t fail. And that’s it’s having that kind of beginner’s mindset that you’re always learning, that there’s always an opportunity to learn and experiment rather than having stakes associated with things.

Heather Vickery: Yeah, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: So, uh, tell me, are you still doing the podcast now?

Heather Vickery: I am my podcast is called Was It chance? I co-hosted it with my friend Alan Seales, and it’s a podcast about taking intentional risk for creative success. So we interview highly successful creatives on, um, sort of their risk taking, their embracing opportunity moments that led them to wherever they are. And we have a blast on the show.

Lee Kantor: And then how did that come about? Was just personal interest or what.

Heather Vickery: A great question. So I hosted a podcast, a solo podcast called The Brave Files for a long, long time. And I interviewed people who had stepped out of fear and into bravery in every possible way in life. And I had over 250 incredible conversations, and I was at a podcasting conference, I guess maybe four years ago now. And I sat at the table with this guy who I didn’t know, who’s now my best friend, Alan, and we just hit it off right away. He lives in New York, he and his wife and his family, and he is the founder of a podcast network called the Broadway Podcast Network. And we just started chatting and we kind of became good buddies. And at the end of the conference, I said, you know, I’ve always had this idea for this podcast that I want to do. And he was like, yeah, we should do it. And I’m like, seriously? And he’s like, yeah. And then a month later we had a podcast.

Lee Kantor: There you go. You took action. You took action. You made a decision and took action. Wow. You actually lived the things you talk about.

Heather Vickery: Absolutely. I do my very best. I do my very best to do that. And, you know, it brings me tremendous joy. I don’t make any money off of that podcast. And we put a lot of heart and effort into it, but it is one of the favorite things I do all the time. And I get to talk to really cool people, and I get to spend time with one of my favorite people in the world. And joy can can look like a lot of different things.

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. So if somebody wants to learn more, connect with you. Um, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Heather Vickery: Yeah. If you go to Vickery and Co so it’s Vickery and dco.com. You can find all the ways to connect with me for my free live show. Um, the retreats, if you want to work together, you want to find the podcast. All the good stuff is right there.

Lee Kantor: Well, Heather, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Heather Vickery: Thank you. Lee. I appreciate you too.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.