I’m thrilled to share with you our latest episode of the Customer’s First Podcast, where we had the incredible opportunity to dive deep into the power of having an anchoring word to guide your year and why our Special Guest Angie Robinson, a certified life and leadership coach and Customers First Regular Contributor, and I, both choose one. It can transform your life and your business. Angie shares her background in human resources and how she transitioned into starting her own business focused on leadership and life coaching. We express gratitude for Angie’s impact on our own life and discuss the energy and excitement of the new year. We both discuss how we prefer living with intention rather than making New Year’s resolutions. We discussed the concept of choosing a word of the year and expressed our interest in discussing Angie’s process for selecting a word. Angie introduces a handout called “10 impactful coaching questions to help with self-reflection and goal-setting” on her website. (link below)
Angie emphasizes the importance of understanding the why behind our goals. We discuss the need to go deeper and ask multiple whys to determine our motivations and desires. She suggested asking ourselves what success looks like and what we wish was different in our current situation, as well as the importance of understanding the risks and obstacles that may arise and planning ahead for how to overcome them. She mentions the concept of commitment and recommends rating our commitment level on a scale of one to ten and then identifying what it would take to go from that rating to a ten, as well as the importance of not using this rating against ourselves and staying grounded in our goals and desires throughout the year despite any challenges or setbacks.
She shares that she started doing this about 12 years ago and highlights its power in helping us push through the year and facilitating transformation when we look back at the chosen words. We talk about the significant role emotions play in this process and how understanding the concept of creating desired feelings can shape our thoughts and actions, explaining that once we have established the end result, we can move on to choosing the word. We outline our process, which involves asking ourselves questions about what we want the next year to bring, what we want to celebrate, and what we need more or less of in our lives. She mentioned keeping a list of potential words on her phone and periodically evaluating them, sometimes seeking assistance from Google or AI models to narrow down the options. We describe it as an organic process that eventually leads us to the perfect word for the year. We even share Angie’s word for 2024, which is “limitless,” revealing that “limitless” represents her desire to let go of limiting beliefs and barriers that hold us back and her intention to make decisions in alignment with being limitless.
Angie discusses how, throughout the year, she uses prompts from a project called “One Little Word” to keep her word alive, explaining that she reflects on how the word shows up in her life and even takes pictures that reflect the word. She mentions holding a clipboard with examples of how the word is making a difference and using sticky notes or a vision board to keep the word visible and stay accountable and focused. We mention the importance of checking in with ourselves and having an accountability partner to keep on track.
We then shifted the conversation to a more personal note, to our “Spill the Tea” session, where we shared our experience working at McDonald’s as our first management job and how it shaped who we are today. We talk about learning leadership and discovering our love for helping people. Angie describes her passion for Disney, photography, and scrapbooking, acknowledging that she has been too busy to scrapbook in recent years, but she still engages in digital scrapbooking and makes school books for her kids during school years. We discuss her future plans, including travelling to Italy and Germany and potentially working with the Disney Institute. She expresses her love for travel and shares her final thoughts for the new year, encouraging listeners to dream big and be intentional about their goals.
Timestamps:
0:03:10 Setting Goals and Reflecting on the New Year
0:10:35 Identifying Blind Spots and Overcoming Obstacles
0:12:03 Commitment: Scale of 1 to 10
0:14:41 Choosing a Word of the Year: The End Result and Emotions
0:20:27 Choosing a word for the year: limitless
0:23:54 Practices to stay accountable and focused on the word
Angie’s Contact Information:
Website: www.angie-robinson.com
Instagram: @angierobinsoncoaching
LinkedIn: @angiekrobinson
Handout: https://www.angie-robinson.com/coaching-resources/#free-resources
Tacey’s Contact Information:
https://linktr.ee/taceyatkinson
Until next time,
Remember:
Customer-Centric Cultures Create Magical Customer Experiences.
Now Go, Create the Magic!