[00:00:00] Speaker A: We are talking about lighting up the season, okay? We are talking about lighting up this season because this season is yours.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to coaching cocktails and conversations with Lolita E. Walker, the podcast that coaches.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: You up while meeting you exactly where you are.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Grab your water teeth or something stronger and allow this podcast to help you.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Feel the power in your pause.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Come on in and join the conversation. Let's go.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: So let me go back. I am Lolita E. Walker. I'm a certified life leadership and executive coach. I'm a power speaker, motivator, mommy, author, podcaster, you name it. We are doing the thing. I'm in school. I'm also an educator. You know, we're making change happen every single day. One of the things that I wanted to leave you all with today is ten things to think about when you're lighting up this season. Now, why am I talking about this? Because it's so applicable to each and every one of us. I'm talking about this because yesterday I lit my grill for the first time this season. Who else is a griller? Does anybody else love to grill? I'm a charcoal type of girl. I'm a charcoal type of girl. Has to be charcoal for me. Now, gas goes fast. However, there is nothing like the smell and the tastiness of the flavors that erupted from charcoal, according to Lolita E. Walker and everyone who's off the grill. Okay, over here, we are having charcoal. So whether it's chicken or vegetarian food or veggies or turkey burger, as I was grilling, I was thinking about today, and I was thinking about how I'm going to bring you all a message in a creative type of way so that you can grab all of these nuggets to light up your season. This is your season to thrive. And I want to leave you with that amazingness today. So grab your Cc and see journals, coaching cocktails and conversations journals. And we are going to write down one through ten because I want to leave you with ten considerations using, guess what, the metaphor of lighting up this grill. And once you get the flavor and once you get the smell of charcoal for the season, there's no stopping you. There's no stopping you. I'll cook breakfast on the charcoal, charcoal grill because there's no stopping it. I like to put eggs on my turkey burgers. And so, of course, I had a skillet out there and made some eggs for us to put on our turkey burgers yesterday. Absolutely. Because you can make all things, all things are possible on a charcoal grill. So today I want to apply this to your life. Sandra's on LinkedIn and says, I'm already hungry. Well, grab these nuggets. And so I like to bring a half an hour of power every week. Now, these ten, I'm going to take you through right now. These ten tips, tricks, hacks, considerations are using and leveraging the metaphor of this charcoal grill that I am just dreaming about right now. The first thing you got to do for all my grillers out there is that you have to arrange the coals, okay? Now, there's a lot of prep things you do. Now, when you arrange these coals, you got to already know in my mind that it's not, we not going to put the coals right on right away. We're going to give it about 30 minutes. But this is about arranging the coals. And when I decipher that to what I want you to take away today, it's about planning. Okay? Step one is about planning. And what I have here, if you're looking at me on YouTube or Facebook or LinkedIn, what it is, is about arranging the coals. This is about planning. So just as you carefully arrange the coals at the bottom of the grill right there, and you put them in a perfect formation, I want you to think about the fact that this is our summer planning we're doing right there. This is 90 days of pure power. This is us planning for at the end of this summer, at the end of August. What are we going to have done? What is it that we want to accomplish? This is about the juiciness of what it is that's coming off the grill. This is about the juiciness of what it is that you are going to have actually done by the end of these three months. And so I want you to think about the fact that when we're arranging this formation of these coals, okay, when you're arranging it, what are you arranging? Are doing what? These are the essential components at the planning phase right here that are going to set us up for success. This is setting us up for success. This is getting that little mountain of coals and making sure that on the outsides of things, that, for instance, that's where your hot dogs are going to go. That's where these things on the outside are not going to get as hot as the inside. But we're shaping it. We're forming it. We're surrounding ourselves with the right people. We are planning. We're in that phase of absolutely planning. Where is it that we see ourselves? What is it that we want to do? We're arranging this culture because we know we're looking at the amount of chicken and food we have to go on there, and we're looking and saying, okay, we need about this much coal in there in order to not waste our coal at the end, but also to make sure that we're setting ourselves up to make sure we have enough right there for it. Okay? So the first thing we want to do as we think about how we're lighting up this season in our lives is that we want to arrange our coals. We want to begin with the planning phase.
Now, step two is all about lighting the grill. It's all about pouring on a lighter fluid. It's all about lighting the grill and getting this thing sparked. This is where I'm talking about taking action. We've already planned, and now it's about taking action. You say, lolita, guess what? We are already taking action. Yeah. We're jumping right into it. We're pouring on a lighter fluid. We're lighting the coals. This represents the action of us doing the things. Similarly with this, this is implementing your plans. It's taking that first step toward where it is that you're going. That book you want to write, finishing that summer paper, Lolita, that you need to do, finishing the prep work for that, getting ourselves right in Sandra's case of thinking about taking the time for me, what does that look like?
What does it look like for you in these 30 days? Are you applying to school for the fall?
Are you starting a podcast? Are you starting to write that book? Are you starting to look at the next position that it is that you want and getting yourself some informational interviews with some folks during this time so that you can really decide where is it that I'm going to go? Remember, in the planning phase, as we're arranging our calls, we got to get really clear on by the end of these three months, what is it that we're going to be doing? How is it that we're going to feel? What is it that we're going to be celebrating? And now we're taking the action. Now, here's the thing. You got to be patient during this phase right now, okay? When you light the grill, you got to be patient. Why? Because it's got to sit for some time. It's got to sit for a little bit of time until it's at the ready state to put the food on the grill. So this time is perfect for feeling the power in your pause. This time of taking action could be the pause that it is that you need in order to ensure you are at the right place and you're going to get it right to the right temperature for you to be able to jump right in just as the flames, you know, they gradually spread across across these coals, especially inside of your charcoal grill. Is that progress? Takes time. So I want you all to stay focused, stay committed, stay consistent inside of this phase. It'll take a little while. We have three whole months. We got 90 whole days. You don't have to do all of the things right now. It's a ten step process according to Lolita E. Walker.
Next, what we want to do, because I know you're going on this journey with me, I hope your mind is shifting and turning and doing all of the things. The third thing we're doing is we're waiting for the coals to turn white. This is our persistence phase. So we have lit the grill and we are waiting for our coals to turn white. And typically it takes about 2030 minutes. But then that's how, you know, this is your patience, what we just talked about. This is your reflection, this is your time to really think. So on this journey there's going to be some times where you got to wait for some results.
Some I remember, you know, people were talking about and I've experienced it too. When you start your business and you launch, let's say, your first webinar or you launch your first conference, you know, I had eleven women's weekend renewal retreats before I had to take the step and finally say Lolita. It's not a failure to say we're going to pause while you're on this doctoral journey. And while I'm on this journey, I have to make choices. And so I'm going to pause. And in this pause, while I'm waiting for my coals to turn white again, in this pause, which for me is two and a half years, two and a half more years that I have two years down, two and a half more to go. But with that right there, while I wait for my colds to be perfectly ready for me to leap into my next phase, it's okay to have to make choices inside of that space while I'm staying focused, while I'm trusting the process, while I'm working diligently, I know, I trust and believe that I had to make the choice to put that after number eleven of my women's weekend renewal retreat, which I absolutely love and will come back to, I had to press pause because something has got to give.
If I can't give it all of my excellence. Then we got to make choices on where it is that we go. And this is why we're focusing this discussion right here on your 30 days. But this could be done in 90 days. This could be done at a year. You can look at the course of a five year overall plan and how you're going to get there. Next on step number four, what we're doing is we are placing the grates because now the coals are white. We've done the prep work. We know where it is that we're going. We already lit the fire. We got the charcoal on there. It's turned white. We're ready. And so we're placing the grates back on because now we're setting up to be able to put our food on there. And as we do that, the grates, in this instance, they represent setting our boundaries.
Now, I love that Doctor Janie earlier said, you know, this word boundaries is thrown out all of the time. But if you really think about it, and it's not the easiest thing to do, but the reason why we think about placing these grates there is because just like with the charcoal, we're setting the boundary so our food doesn't just dip right into the charcoal. We need some grates right there. We want the fire to be able to come up and not. There's a separation right there. Just as in life, we've got to create those. And those are the hardest things to do, is to own your yes and respect your no. One of the hardest things to do is the own. The word no is to respect it, but to own the yeses that are coming our way. Sometimes you say yes to things, but saying yes to those things means saying no to a couple of other things. Yet saying no to some things. Saying no to my women's weekend renewal retreat will allow me to say more yes to the research and the papers that I have to do will allow me to say yes to spending a little more time with my son. So, because now that time is really limited, I want you to think about where do you need to place your grades in this season, in this summer season, to get to where we just plan to.
Where is it that you need to place your grades? And if you're writing it down, if you've been in any one of my coaching groups or coaching one on one, then, you know, we would be drawn a pictorial. In the pictorial, we will be drawing it so that, you know, you trust and believe that these greats, we're putting some names to. We're putting some things to. We're putting some tasks to because there's some things that's going to fit in your grape, meaning there's some things that's going to fit on your grill. And then there's some things that's not going to be able to come to the party this time. It's going to have to wait its turn and know that that's okay.
I was telling my son yesterday that, listen, this barbecue that we're having right now, guess what? This is for a limited number of people. We're not feeding the whole neighborhood. Now, we might want to feed the whole neighborhood when we plan for that, but right here, we've planned for x number of people, and that's who we're going to feed. Now, if we have one or two things that we can give out to the neighbor, then absolutely. But you're not going to go outside and tell the basketball court that your mama is grilling over here because we haven't planned for all of the people. And sometimes we have to own our yes and respect our nos and our no sometimes needs to be. I'm not going to go out here and tell the whole neighborhood that we're having a barbecue. One. They can smell it because it smells so good. But we've got a plan for those things.
Remember, this metaphor is really your life. You, too, can set boundaries and have these things up. The greats hold the foods in place. We can help prioritize our self care. We can know our limits. We can protect our well being. We can protect our space so that we actually get the time to do the research for me. Research for you. It might be starting your podcast for you, it might be time to do this power presentation that, you know, you've been procrastinating on whatever it is that you need to make sure that you do. Placing these grates and these boundaries are going to help you do that. We want to avoid the over commitment or spreading ourselves too thin.
We want to avoid the food falling into the coals. We want to avoid the failure that is okay to fail. But if we already know them, we're going to already set ourselves up for success. Success.
We're going to already set ourselves up for success of what we can already see might be issues or stumbling blocks as we're going on to light this grill to light up our season. This is our season to be lit up. So those boundaries, those grates are going to be so important. So whether you're closing your eyes and you're thinking about the charcoal grill that might be on your back deck or at somebody's house or just the pictorial that you've seen because you've never had a charcoal grill. I want you to walk with me and think about the grill and the grates and the boundaries that you're creating.
Next, we want to talk about the strategic placement of the food. The strategic placement of the food is really talking about our adaptability right here. When I think about adaptability, when I think about arranging your food on a grill, you know that different food cooks, specifically batter in certain places. So the most of your temperature is going to be at the height of the mountain of coals that you were. So you're not going to put your hot dogs right there in the middle?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: No.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: You're going to put them on the side so that they could. So that they can cook just a little bit slowly. You're going to put your vegetables in a certain place that's not on a direct. That the direct, direct heat that is there. So this is about understanding first that you're arranging your life by recognizing where it is you thrive.
I'm a pause right there. This is about you arranging your life in your next steps on where it is that you thrive. It's about knowing your strengths. It's about knowing your weaknesses. It's about knowing where opportunities exist. It's about placing your effort where they yield the most impact.
That is what we're doing when we're thinking about adaptability, it is you thinking about, how am I going to strategically place myself so that I am impacting the most, not only for others, but also for myself. I want you to think about strategically placing your food, but really strategically placing yourself. It's about adapting. How many times have you been grilling and realize that, oh, my gosh, that chicken is cooking a little bit too, too quickly. I'm going to need to alter the vent, right? Maybe you are allowing too much air inside, and so you got to close the vent just a little bit more. Maybe it is that you need to move the chicken from right off the middle, but move it to the side because it's just cooking a little bit too fast. It's about adaptability. It's about seeing where things aren't really working out very well and leveraging your strengths, leveraging your goals, leveraging what's necessary in order to make sure that you are in the right place. This is about you. This is about you and your placement.
This is about amazingness. I love that Lydia said, I feel energetic work on inner alignment is more important than positioning and visibility. I love that it is. Inner work is important, not as important as positioning, invisibility. But sometimes we need to make sure that we are positioned in the right place, properly planning, by positioning ourselves in the right place so we could do the inner work. Sometimes it's too much noise and sometimes it's too much distraction of where it is that everything is that we need to remove ourselves and properly place ourselves in the right places so that those that need visibility to us, sometimes we are what other people are looking at. Sometimes you, Lydia, or myself might be what people are looking at. And so we need to place ourselves in those spaces so that people could see it. And sometimes we need to place ourselves in positions. You ready for us to see ourselves? So, yes, this is not for show for all of the other people. This is for show for us and for whoever needs to draw off that energy so that they can get themselves together, too. This is sometimes about us sitting inside of the moment and positioning ourselves. So we're leveraging our strengths, we see our opportunities. It might be the opportunity for us to see our opportunities. Lolita E. Walker. Sometimes we got to see where we need to do our inner work, and that is because there's so much noise and we haven't properly created the boundaries that we absolutely need. So I love that you added that in. Thank you so much. Now, when we go to six, okay, we're already on six. When we go to step six, I got covering the food. So now you place the stuff on the food. Now you're covering the food. And this is about balancing risk and safety. This is about balancing your risk, balancing your safety, and balancing your mindset. Because, Lydia, I love that you said that and bringing that into the conversation. It's about covering the grill while leaving some of the vents open, which balances everything. It balances your safety, your mental well being. Where is it that you are taking calculated risks in your pursuit to not only find the inner you, but also to perform effectively in your outer you?
Sometimes the work needs to be simultaneous. I go to work every day. I'm a power player in my. In my space. And so if you're going to work, you're at a senior level position inside of your company. You got to deliver day upon day. If you are a podcaster in your space, if you are whatever it is, you're the expert inside of your space. You still got to deliver while you're doing this work. So I want you to deliver inside. Sometimes that means that you need to balance the risk and the safety of where it is. I am mentally because you properly prepared and because, you know, because you now are aware and you got to figure out the owning your yes and respecting your no. You got to figure out protecting your dreams while allowing yourself to grow while allowing yourself that space to grow. And then adapt is needed. Adapt is needed. The fan that you need on to shift on your charcoal grillenne sometimes you got to do that. I'm so glad that you all are getting inspired because I love this. Too true, too real. Say I'm about to light up my grill. Done, done and done. Light it up right now. We're together right now. Light it up. We're already at number six and that was covering your food. We're talking about that. Balancing the risk and the safety and we're already moving on to chapter seven. No. Well, it could be chapter seven in your book, but it's number seven because we're lighting up the grill already. Number seven, you ready? Because the food is now cooking. Number seven is about flipping the food.
What is that all about? Adjusting your strategies. Sometimes the first strategy didn't work, but remember, we're giving it time, you guys. Sometimes you don't see instant, instant gratification, instant results. Now, sometimes you hear the feedback right away, like here, because we're having this interactive discussion. Sometimes you get the feedback right away and you can choose if you're going to shift inside of this moment because if it's continuous feedback and it's the same thing, then you kind of recognize that. Guess what? Either I'm going to take this strength that everybody's telling me because I'm going to believe it, I'm going to believe it, or you're going to take what they're saying is an opportunity because this is how you show up and you're going to say, you know what? How can I show up differently now? Sometimes you got to decide, you know what? I'm showing up authentically like that. And just because they take it as such, I might shift the way that I say it, the tone that I say it, but the what I'm saying isn't going to change. And no, that that's okay.
Know that that's okay. Adjusting your strategies is flipping the food. Flipping the food ensures that it's even cooking. In life, there'll be times we got to shift so that we can be evened out. If something isn't working, then you just flip it. Try a different approach. Learn from your setbacks. Adapt. Done and done. Make the choice and then just do it. It sounds so easy, right? Just do it. I was talking to somebody the other day. They asked me, what are all the things you do? Can you just list all the things you do?
And as I was listing it, as I was listing it out, sometimes it can scare yourself.
But the amazingness on the other side of that is, wow.
It's sitting in the power of the pause of your impact is sitting in the power of the pause of what it is that you're doing, yet it still allows you to see if you're doing too much so you can make strategic choices on how you're going to flip your food, how you are going to adjust your strategies, how you are going to win. You are going to take it off the grill. Sometimes people like their burgers a certain type of way. There's some burgers that's going to come off way earlier than some other burgers. If I like it well done, mine is staying on for a really long time until it's cooked all the way through, done and done.
And some people like theirs rare or medium well. But know that everybody's strategy isn't going to align to yours. And that there, guys, is absolutely. Okay, let's get to number eight.
Number eight is all about.
Oh, that. We're going to check the food. We're going to do a self assessment. This is when we're doing our self assessment. Okay. You know, when we do that, we want to use metrics like temperature checks or intuition to evaluate your journey. But the point is that we are adjusting as necessary. Are you on track? Are you satisfied?
Sometimes it's the journey to the goal. Sometimes the goal that you thought you wanted. You've learned along the journey that you've adjusted and taken five steps to the right. But that is good for you. That is great for you. That is great for you. Because sometimes we realize that what we said that goal was going to do, we've achieved the same thing done differently. It's not how you thought it was going to be. It's not how you thought the journey was going to be. But you met some other coles along the way. You met some other grillers along the way. They've actually shown you a new marinade. They've actually shown you a new technique. Yesterday, I used these apple wood chips on top of my grill. The charcoal once they got white, because I wanted the smokiness and this apple flavor. It was so super cool. I'd never used the apple flavor before. And oh, my gosh, so good. Yes. I'll be doing it again. I adjusted my strategy of what my norm was and know that that's okay. So number nine is about plating the food. Guys, guess what that is? It's about celebrating. Oh, my gosh. All of your work. We cannot forget the celebration.
Oftentimes, we forget to celebrate our small wins and your achievements. No, plating the food is your final touch. It's about celebrating these achievements, no matter how small they are. I talk to you guys about my small wins board all the time. It's about celebrating those things. It's about recognizing that. Guess what? I just stood here for hours and we gonna sit down and we gonna relax, we gonna chat, we're gonna eat.
I added my sweet heat pickles. I added a little bit of mayo. I added some barbecue sauce. I put the skillet on there so I could fry an egg and put it on top of my burger. I mean, it was good. I had some vegan cheese.
The things that you do in order to celebrate that first bite, I want you to know that you are worth the celebration.
Everybody doesn't need to be in on a grilling. Everybody doesn't need to be in it. It might just be a solo dolo type of deal. I've lit the grill for myself before and know that that's okay, too.
It's okay. And I want you to know that doing that inner work, doing that outer work is so important. And it can be done solo. I remember doctor Janie earlier. I forget exactly what she said, but she said something to the effect of sometimes we are with people and are attracted to people and stay with them because of the potential of now, I surmise that, but summarize that is with the potential of people. Show you who they are right there. Show yourself who you are and know that you don't have to be all the things to all the people and how they treat you.
You can choose right there. Are you plating food for everyone? Are you playing plating food for yourself? The celebration is for you and the choices that you have made. And then our number ten today is about cooling down and cleaning up. It's about reflection and closure.
Let the colds cool down. Clean up. Reflect on your journey. Celebrate the winds. Learn from the losses. Maybe one of your hot dogs fell all the way down into the coals and you can't even get it.
It's all right, guys. It's all right. Throw another one on there.
And some people I've seen figure it out. Get the tongs. All the way down and figure it out. Get it out, rinse it off, put it back on. Whatever it is you got to do to do the things that you want to do. Then I want to encourage you today that this is the season for lighting yourself on fire, lighting yourself up. This is your season, guys. This is your season. Umar said he's saving the food.
I love it. I love it, I love it.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: We have concluded yet another episode of coaching, cocktails and conversations, the podcast with Lolita E. Walker. Connect with
[email protected] for speaking, coaching and my books. The intersection of you and change. And can we talk letters and poems.
[00:26:28] Speaker A: To reclaim a boulder?
[00:26:30] Speaker B: You listen. Have you already grabbed your CCNC garb?
Yes, we are coming with tumblers, stimulus glasses, a journal, a hoodie and don't forget t shirt.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: We are leaning all the way in.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: We also know that coaching, cocktails and conversations is a movement. Not only is it paraphernalia, not only is it this powerful podcast that you have right here in this right now, but it is a Zoom cast. It is a coaching community.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: It is a Facebook group.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: It is a clubhouse group. Go ahead and lean into lolitawalker.com to see all things coaching, cocktails and conversations. And next time bring a friend. Invite them to like, to share and to give that five star review. Cheers. I cannot wait to see you back around my kitchen table for coaching, cocktails and conversations, the podcast with Lolita E. Walker.
