Day 199: Louise Goeckel

April 17, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I think creativity happens in every single moment, and we have lots of choices at every single moment.  And if I keep remembering that I have choice, then I don’t get burdened by the downside of exploring, and I get inspired by the excitement and the adventure and the unknown.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Louise, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Louise Goeckel: Sure.  My name is Louise Goeckel, and I live in Alameda, California.  I am a career consultant and coach.  I also work with people who are small business owners.  The name of my business is called Let’s Go Forward!  I help people who are feeling stuck get unstuck, and the thrill of my job is helping people find their life purpose, remembering who they are, and then moving forward.

Toni: Well thank you, Louise, and thank you for being here.  And Louise, when you think about that word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?

Louise: I inspire people through my work.  I meet with people on a one-to-one basis or in small groups and by offering them attentive care, unconditional support, and a real interest in finding out who they are and helping them remember who they are, I can help people feel their own inspiration, and so that’s how the inspiration occurs.  It’s pretty much me offering them the safe place and the encouragement and the affirmation that they are exactly who they want to be.

Toni: And how do you then help people to explore their potential when they go through this process with you or they’re in your presence – does that happen?  Do you help people then to explore their own potential?

Louise: Absolutely.  People come to me who have either lost a job or they’re between jobs or they’re on the job and they’re not happy or they own a business and it’s not working, and we spend time to remember what their top values are or outline their top values if they’ve never thought about it before, and using those values remember their abilities.  And then when they’re remembering their abilities, their successes, their beliefs, their truth, their genius, then we start creatively playing with that so they get in touch with it again in a very immediate way.  And the creating of a new way of thinking about themselves and being of themselves is individual for each person.

Toni: How does it help … you said you do career transition work, and so if I’m coming to you and I find that working with you I am inspired by you, and if you’re asking me that question about what my top values are, can you give us an example of what that means?  Why is that important to know what my top values are when I’m in a transition?

Louise: Yeah.  Well, all of us make decisions based on our values whether we’re aware of it or not, and when we are confused, we’ve often stopped remembering what is most important to us.  And so if we take some time to outline what are our top values regardless of the immediate situation we’re in, regardless of what we are seeing as the immediate future or what just happened, what is it that’s constant for me and what is it that’s really most important?  Where am I putting my attention?  Where am I putting all my energy right now?

When we look at those things that are supportive and helpful in terms of growing and evolving, then we get some breathing room to really get into our growing and evolving more, and we get to pay attention to things that maybe have been calling at us and we’ve not seen them as valuable.  And we get to know “Oh yeah, I can see how this fits.  “Oh yeah, this is exactly what I want to learn.  “Oh yeah, this makes sense for me.”

Toni: Okay…

Louise: “Oh yeah, that’s the language I needed.”

Toni: Thank you so much for clarifying that.  I think it’s really important because not … I think what you said was right on earlier that a lot of people don’t think about that, you know?  You don’t really realize how that has to align, and so it’s really important to understand that.  So Louise, what inspires you?

Louise: I’m inspired by people who are great at their work, so I love to see anyone who is just doing their work well who is well matched for the job and who is loving it, who has their passion come out, who has … who you can see that their contribution is really being made.  It can be, you know, the bagger at the grocery store.  It can be the mail person who delivers the mail.  It can be, you know, the lecturer on circuit.  It can be the guy who owns the tire shop down the street.  I just … I get inspired by that.  That gives me tremendous satisfaction, tremendous hope, and that’s what I help people with is finding their search for their own meaning and their own hope.  And so when I see it living and through live examples in my life that I just bump into, I am thrilled.  I am totally inspired.

And I get inspired by nature.  I get inspired by serendipity.  I get inspired by the great things that are all around us at every minute.  I get inspired by truth.

Toni: That’s pretty powerful …

Louise: Yeah.

Toni: … to be inspired by the truth.  I have to agree with you as well, I am as well inspired by the truth.  You know, Louise, do you ever wake up on any given day and go “Gosh, you know, I could really use a little inspiration today.”  And if you do and when you do wake up that way, do you find yourself reaching for certain tools or resources on a consistent basis?

Louise: Yeah, I want to connect with the people I love on those days, and I want to … and these are not people who it’s a casual love, these are people that I know that there’s real love between us, that I love them greatly and they love me greatly back.  And so touching … touching them in terms of, you know, connecting on the phone or email or, you know, getting together for lunch or coffee, that’s very helpful to me.

Taking time to be with myself in a positive way, not destructively eating four ice cream cones in a row but, you know, looking at a journal entry I may have done, or going for a walk along the water, or reading an inspirational book or quote, listening to very positive music, listening to a tape of an inspirational speaker.  Those things help me.

And then the third thing is probably when I just pick up my best hobbies.  For me, painting is a lovely escape, doing vision boards with cut out pieces of paper from magazines, and watching my absolute favorite movies that affirm the character traits and the values that help me.

Toni: It’s amazing isn’t it, that it’s just sometimes just the simplest of things that energize us?

Louise: Yeah – oh yeah.  Thank goodness.

Toni: Absolutely, absolutely.  So watching our favorite movies, or painting or, you know, the vision board in there, I think that that’s … it’s so … and positive music.  I like the way that you said that, “positive music.”  I might step into that just a bit and ask you can you give us an example of what you consider positive music?

Louise: Well, I’m learning more and more about how we’re all energy and that there is a beat to the earth and the earth emotes a hum of notes all the time that we’re not even aware of, so some … whatever music for an individual gets the person feeling better, and so it’s different music for me at different times.  It can be, you know, The Temptations from the 70s.  It can be choir music.  It could be chanting, Gregorian chant.  It can be, oh, somebody just had his birthday yesterday, I forget who it was … Rachmaninoff.  His music really inspires me.  Different things different times, but it’s music that when I’m flipping around in terms of choices I have, it’s … my body says yes, my soul says yes, my heart says yes, this is it.

Toni: Thank you for that.  And Louise what do you do to continuously explore your own potential so you can keep doing what you love to do?

Louise: This is a really good question, because I think I balk at it.

Toni: What do you mean?

Louise: Well, just … the reason I’m helping people, you know, help themselves go forward is because I need to go forward myself.  And so, yeah, I sometimes drag my feet.  I don’t want to do the hard stuff.  I’d rather ignore.  I’d rather fall into the trap of the comfortable even if it’s unpleasant.

So what do I need to explore my own potential?  I think I need to keep remembering my values, to keep remembering what does bring me joy.  That I do have freedom to choose.  That freedom to choose is all about, for me, creativity.  I think creativity happens in every single moment, and we have lots of choices at every single moment.  And if I keep remembering that I have choice, then I don’t get burdened by the downside of exploring, and I get inspired by the excitement and the adventure and the unknown.

Toni: That is a great way to position that for yourself and to be that honest that sometimes it isn’t easy to keep walking down that path, but in order to avoid the downside you’ve got to go and visit the upside, and I think that that was really well put.

Louise: Thank you.

Toni: Yeah, that’s pretty cool because, you know, we all have bad days where we just don’t want to keep doing it, and it sounds like, you know, you can relate to your clients because you yourself have probably been in their shoes.

Louise: Absolutely.  And will be in their shoes, you know, more than I’d like to admit.  We’re all just evolving.  It’s all about, you know, developmentally adding on new talents, new skills, new awareness, new understanding, new consciousness.  It doesn’t end.

Toni: Louise, thank you so much for taking your time today to be part of the Get Inspired! Project and the work that you’re doing to help people who particularly in today’s times to transition and to think differently, to think differently so that they can, you know … maybe the next part of their life will be filled with purpose if it wasn’t what they just left, and I think that’s a pretty cool thing to do for a living.  So we thank you so very much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project today.

Louise: Thank you.  Well thank you for that very lovely closing.  It was inspiring to me.  Your work is inspiring to me as well.  Keep it up.

Toni: Thank you.  Take care Louise.

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For more information about Louise Goeckel:  www.letsgoforward.biz

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