Mother's Day

Something that my mom always instilled in me was just you show up when it matters...you don't have to do it perfectly...It's about just showing up and being present.

Kristin Moore, on lessons she's learned from her mom, Meg

In this Mother's Day episode of Dominate Your Day, Dana Williams speaks with mother-daughter duo, Kristin Moore and Meg Hinkley, about their individual strengths and their relationship.

Dominate Your Day Podcast

Welcome to the third episode of the Dominate Your Day Podcast! This podcast is for any professional or business owner who wants to live intentionally and dominate their day. Dana Williams and her guests will bring you practical advice about how to create a productive life through tools and experiences from guests who have designed the life they love.

At Dana Williams Consulting, we teach you everything you need to know about how to live intentionally and Dominate your Day based on your unique talents.  We have also created some great tools like The Strengths Journal™. The Strengths Journal is a daily companion guide to the CliftonStrengths assessment.

Episode 4 ft. Kristin Moore and Meg Hinkley

Kristin Moore is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and is currently earning her Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (graduating December 2022). Prior to pursuing her dream of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Kristin served in various roles within Communications at Southwest Airlines. Her experience includes corporate communication, executive administration, project management, and employee engagement and development. Kristin designed a Strengths program for her department at Southwest and partnered with leaders to develop their leadership style and improve team engagement. She loves the connection between knowing your Strengths and achieving strong mental health. Her passion is partnering with individuals to discover and leverage their innate talents for transformation.

Kristin's top 5 CliftonStrengths: Empathy, Individualization, Developer, Adaptability, Maximizer

Meg Hinkley, owner of Athena’s Strategies, has taught women to separate fact from fiction as it relates to their safety for more than 20 years. Thousands of women have changed how they think about safety and their ability to protect themselves. More importantly, many seminar participants have avoided attacks or successfully fought their way to safety. As a survivor of sexual assault, Meg is passionate about sharing her knowledge and empowering women. Prior to forming Athena’s Strategies, Meg worked as a client executive for IBM. She earned her black belt in karate in 1988 and worked for several years with experts in martial arts and psychology to design Athena’s Strategies unique and relevant seminars. Her program is currently required for all graduates of The Hockaday School in Dallas and is being taught at other schools and universities throughout the United States.

Meg's top 5 CliftonStrengths: Empathy, Adaptability, Communication, Woo, Positivity

Below is a full transcript of the conversation, including timestamps. To subscribe to Dominate Your Day on Apple Podcasts, click here.

Getting to sit with leaders as they process through [their strengths], and learn more about themselves, and achieve their goals, and just start to approach life differently was so energizing.

Kristin Moore, on why she loves CliftonStrengths

Podcast Transcript

Narrator: [00:00:00] Welcome to Dominate Your Day where Dana Williams shares real conversations with leaders, coaches, and visionaries from all facets of life. She talks about all that goes into leading life with intention and dominating your day. In this special Mother's Day inspired episode, she speaks with Kristin Moore and Meg Hinkley, a mother-daughter pair of ambitious and inspiring women who share stories about their lives and careers.

Dana Williams: [00:00:29] Well, I'd like to welcome everybody to Dominate Your Day podcast. And we have the most amazing mother daughter team today, which I'm thrilled about because we're celebrating mother's day this month. And I'd like to introduce Kristin. And her mother, Meg and Kristen and I met at Southwest. Gosh, how long ago?

Couple years ago. And I got to really watch Kristin bloom from being an executive assistant to going into to now becoming a counselor, working on her counseling degree. And then I got to meet her mom and I was like, okay, we have got to have you both on the podcast. So. Dominate Your Day podcast is about people that are making a difference every day through using their strengths and their life.

And when I heard not only the story that you're doing with your life, Kristin, but your mom's story, I was like, okay, it's time we got to have y'all on. So why don't you say hello, Kristin, say hello to everybody. Tell us your top five strengths and then introduce your mom.

Kristin Moore: [00:01:29] Yeah. Well, thank you for the nice intro.

And we did meet when I was in EA, but you left out that you were a huge mentor to me. That really helped me when I first became a strengths coach. And I was like, wait, now what, what do I do? And you were like, I'm going to help you. I'm here to help you. So you've been very instrumental in my life, but My top five, we'll start with my top five.

So my top five are Empathy, Individualization, Developer, Adaptability, and Maximizer always have to kick off with that. So Dana mentioned it, but I am currently a full-time student. I'm getting my Master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling right now. So I left my job at Southwest in very end of October to pursue that more full-time and I'm getting to keep working with Dana on The Strengths Journal and all that we're doing there, which is really exciting.

And I'll introduce my mom to, cause I'm so excited that she's joining us today and that we get to do this mother's day episode together. But my mom, Meg Hinckley she'll go into her career journey, but today she is a self-defense expert. Women's self-defense she leads classes and seminars for women teaching them how to defend themselves and really empowers them to take control of their safety.

And she teaches full time at the Hockaday School in Dallas. So if you're listening and you're in the Texas area, you'll be familiar with that. So she does that all the senior girls have to take her class before they graduate, which is really cool. And so mom, I'll kick it over to you to share your top five too.

And a little more about you. Okay.

Meg Hinkley: [00:03:03] Thank you, Kristin. And thank you, Dana, for having me this is really  such a treat. My top five strengths are Empathy, Adaptability, Communicator, Woo, and Positivity.

Dana Williams: [00:03:18] Wow. And don't y'all have some similar didn't  I hear that last time we met.

Kristin Moore: [00:03:22] Yeah. So both have number one, Empathy.

And then we actually have eight of the same top 10 strengths. So out of the same order, but eight of the top 10 are the same, which is pretty mind blowing to me. I feel like I, in my time doing some strengths coaching, I haven't seen that much similarity. Yeah. Across two reports before. So.

Dana Williams: [00:03:43] Even with my, my daughter and my mom, I haven't seen that much.

So that's pretty powerful. So Meg, when did you get, did I guess Kristin helped you with get your strengths when she became a coach? Or was it before that?

Meg Hinkley: [00:03:55] It was before that I actually did it just out of my own. Self-interest probably. 12 years ago . Working on myself and in my business and wanting to learn more and understand myself better.

And it was so interesting because after taking the test and I read the results. I thought, "Oh gosh, this explains so much why certain things are so easy and fun for me. And other things are a struggle, and Meg does hire somebody to help with those other things."

Dana Williams: [00:04:26] Wow. And so when, when Kristen started getting into strengths, you already knew kind of a basis about it before that, which I had no idea.

Yeah.

Meg Hinkley: [00:04:34] Yes,

but just, I had gone through that training and it just, it made a lot of sense.

Dana Williams: [00:04:39] Yeah. And Kristin, when did you, you did it what, two or three years ago when Southwest started?

Kristin Moore: [00:04:44] Yeah, in 2019 when Southwest I think that was the year they were like, we're gonna want to be the first strengths-based airline was the, the big goal.

And so I know they're still working on that today. And it was the year that the communications and outreach department decided they really wanted to dive into strengths. And so I was fortunate enough to go and get certified. It was in June of 2019.

Dana Williams: [00:05:08] Never forget that when you got certified and you came back and we were going through your strengths and I saw that you had empathy and you just had all these amazing strengths and you were getting so passionate about it.

And then to watch you take it and grow and grow the coaches group and communications, it was so exciting. So as we always like to start with strings, because that's the basis of what we have in common here on dominate your day is that everybody's passionate about their strengths. And using their strengths every day to li live and lead a meaningful life.

So I'd like Meg, I'd like for you to share your story, because I think it's pretty cool about, I think you went from corporate to now having your own business and in a really unique way to serve others and make a difference. So can you tell us your story?

Meg Hinkley: [00:05:58] Sure. Yeah, I worked for IBM for 15 years in marketing.

After I graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a passion of mine during that time that I actually started in martial arts when I was about 18 years old and got my black belt in karate, about nine years later was very involved in martial arts. I'm also a survivor of a sexual assault that happened senior year of high school for me.

And that of course had a big impact on my life. And part of the reason I got involved in martial arts, although I just fell in love with it for so many different reasons. After getting my black belt, I wanted to start sharing with other women, things that I was learning in terms of "hey, there's things we can do to to take care of ourselves, to help keep us safe," and the concept of women's self-defense and sort of where I've taken it and where others have taken it today is very different from what existed at the time.

So if you go back 20, 25 years ago, if you wanted to take a self-defense class, it was going to either look like. Basically somebody giving you a list of don't walk alone, don't go out at night, don't talk to strangers, like just sort of list of what not to do, or it was teaching you physical skills out of martial arts.

You know, maybe how to punch somebody in the face or throw a karate chop. That was completely not going to be helpful for the types of real life situations that women find themselves in. And so as I started to teach those classes and realize those things and start to work with psychologist and some members of our martial arts group that were with the FBI and some of their data and research, which was really starting to come in strong.

And we have so much more now. So I was developing just on my own thinking wise, a more holistic approach. And then when I left IBM because I had two small children and sort of my head was rotating trying to keep it all together. Decided I wanted to take off some time and just focus on being mom. And I did that.

And then that gave me time then to really think more creatively about how to teach this course. And I started my first one at the local Y here within my first course that I did think I charged $50 a person and we did, it was all  just really starting to learn. And, and I want to say stepping away from

the martial arts group that I was a part of. It's very formal. It's very structured. There's a hierarchy. You  don't, if you're going to teach within that group, you teach exactly how that group does it. And I knew I was going in a different direction and that was okay. But it was just interesting. So I really had to step away from

what gave me my base and a lot of my strength and knowledge, but I knew I was going off in a different direction and wasn't going to be able to stay in that. And that was hard initially, because I was so used to everything having to be so uniform. So I think even for me, it took a little bit to say, "Hey, I can go this a different way, just because there's not an organization or a group of 10 centers that have not validated what I'm going to teach

doesn't mean it's not good and needs to be taught." So that was, I think an interesting part of my struggle in the beginning, but I just, I, and I didn't have if you look at my, my top strengths, it won't surprise you to know that I did not have a marketing plan. I did not have a structured vision and goals.

I just started to teach classes. And my favorite thing about starting at Hockaday almost 20 years ago was that I wrote a letter to Liza Lee, who was the headmistress of Hockaday- well-loved woman still doing so much great work today. Starting all girls charter schools and telling her what I was doing.

I love that's the back of the day we wrote a letter and then I got a call from her and she said there had just been a student in her office the week before that had shared that she had been raped and was crying and upset and said, you know, "what am I going to do?" And Liza Lee had thought, "what are we going to do?"

And she said, "I think you're the answer." And so that's how that relationship started and it has been an incredible relationship. And I'll just stop right there. And I'm kind of talking.

Dana Williams: [00:10:23] No, no, that's good. I wanted to see cause when you were talking about coming out of the martial arts group that you were with to start this group, I was curious and Kristen might know what is it in your strengths kind of helped you make that move?

Cause that was pretty bold, right. To go in and you're kind of pioneering a new path to do so.

Meg Hinkley: [00:10:48] And I,  I was the first female black belt in our organization and a big deal at the time. And so when I stepped away to do what I was doing, there was amongst many of the instructors, and I don't mean this in a negative way,

it was just, "Oh, she's going to do kind of the woman self-defense thing." It's not an artist, not what we do, which is true, but it's so much more than they understood. And I, don't blame them for that either they had their own perspectives and the backgrounds that they came from. But I was just seeing this in a very different way.

And it wasn't the traditional self-defense path and it wasn't the traditional martial arts path.

Dana Williams: [00:11:28] So from your perspective, Kristin, as her daughter watching all this going on, you were probably what in junior high or high school or younger, younger were you? Yeah. So what, what was it like from your perspective, watching your mom kind of create this new path and do all of this.

Kristin Moore: [00:11:44] I mean, honestly, when I, at that age, what I conceived of it was just that my mom was the coolest, because you know, you have friends who have moms that stay at home and that's awesome. And then you have friends whose moms maybe do a corporate job, and that's cool too, but not a lot of moms teach women self-defense and teach women how to fight and protect themselves.

And yeah. So I'm just getting to tell my friends that for me at the time, I was just like, "Whoa, mom is doing something so cool." And that is sort of what stuck with me at that age. That's kind of what I could conceptualize at the time, but it's interesting you ask Dana, which of her strengths helped her kind of move out of the status quo and try something totally new.

And I think when I'm hearing it so mom's number 10 strength is Command, and I always think about Command brings clarity. And I think between her Empathy and her Command and her Activator, it was, I know what makes sense. I know the direction I need to go. I have clarity and confidence and I'm going to go make it happen.

I think it's just a beautiful weaving of those strengths and it's something that she was making happen to help people, which speaks to a lot of her relationship building themes too.

Meg Hinkley: [00:13:00] I agree with that, Kristin and I think too, that I had every time I would teach a class or think about something new to add.

I had so much energy around that and I just, it was like the hobby and the thing I wanted to work on. And I wasn't used to having that kind of energy. Necessarily about my work at IBM.

Dana Williams: [00:13:20] Did you have any women role models in that area? I mean, this is something we talk a lot about is, you know, who influenced you as a female entrepreneur at that time who had some pain and was turning that pain into helping others?

Is there anybody

Meg Hinkley: [00:13:37] Like a role model. I didn't have anybody doing what I was doing. So that was very different. Like I said, there were, there were people doing the more, very traditional 20 year old self-defense model. And. Over time, I found others throughout the country through networking through other things that were teaching differently than I was, but we were, we were having a similar concept of empowering women in their lives, not just through self-defense, but how the training can empower them in their lives.

So I started to connect to them, but one of my close friends, my bestie, I call her, Lisa Hancock. She was making a move at the same time, becoming from a communications within a, like a channel 8  type of a job. And she went to school and got a degree in Restorative Justice and she's a mediator.

And so she was starting out doing her own thing as well, and it evolved, and it has evolved in so many different ways. Originally working in the criminal legal world in trials as mediator. And then she now does a lot of mediation within churches and with other organizations. And she also is very well, highly trained, I guess.

I don't know exactly how to say it in teaching the Enneagram. Oh, wow. We had some similarities in what we were doing just that they were both different.

Dana Williams: [00:15:07] And that's so important, whether it's a mother, daughter, team, or friends, having those people in your life that will pour into you. And that kind of are, I have a few friends like that that are kind of, you know, doing different things.

They're still working, they're doing things and there's just something special about that. And you can kind of relate to them and you know, they're in your  path, and they're there for you all the time. So it's always neat to hear about those special, the special people. Can you recall a story? You've been doing this for 20 something years.

Can you recall a story that you want to share today with the listeners of one of your students or an opportunity you had. I know not only do you serve as, as a teacher in self-defense, but I hear you, Kristin, you had shared with me that she also does a lot of rescue. Was it rescue search and rescue?

Yeah. Search and rescue. So that's a whole nother thing, but there's something probably in your spirit, that's giving you energy to do both those things. And I'm sure it's when you get to hear some stories of women that have, or other people that you've rescued or that you've helped. So do you have any particular stories that come to mind as you think about that?

Meg Hinkley: [00:16:22] You know, I have, of course, stories of students who have had to use physical skills and did it successfully. And that's always so exciting to hear one of my former students Laney Milan was a student at Texas Christian University and year after graduating from Hockaday, walking back from a fraternity party, got grabbed from behind by a stranger, had a knife in his hand, was pulling her off into a construction site.

And then she said, you know, my training kicked in and, you know, she was able to grab them and grab the groin get him to drop her, turn around, you know, struck him several times and was able to run off. So you hear stories like that. Those are really humbling and just, you're so happy that somebody takes the skills because what I'm really doing is not teaching them.

Exactly. You must follow this process, but I give them a set of fundamentals and then they're going to take that into themselves. And they're going to use that in the ways that they're subconscious is going to tell them to do at the time when they need it. And there's something kind of comforting in that.

Like you're not going to have to sit there and decide like, "Oh God, what do I do?" You're going to get that plan of action based upon what, you know, what you've practiced and who you are. And so overall I'll say an overall story that I love to say that encompasses all the women I teach is that they take the training and then I see them do things with it.

That I've like, wow, that's really impressive. I never thought of that. And that really helped them. And so they're, and what I think is happening there is they're taking their own strengths and using this training in a way, then that's going to feel most natural and most comfortable to them. The other thing is that I remember a woman telling me how the training had just.

And she felt so empowered by how she physically used her body in the training. And she had always felt physically weak and not strong. And, and this is not about, we don't teach women to physically overpower somebody. It's not that you have to out muscle the person it's about knowing the vulnerable targets to go to, and to know that you can damage those targets and that research shows, there are things that you can do that will make you highly successful against somebody that's bigger and stronger.

And for her just going through that process. Changed her life and made her want to step out and do something else that she had been afraid of. And I think that's another piece of this training and probably why I like the search and rescue work and, you know, mountain, mountain climbing, hiking, all of those things because they stretch you.

They make you a little bit vulnerable and afraid sometimes, but then you want to do a little more and stretch a little more.

Dana Williams: [00:19:15] I loved how you came and talked to our Clubhouse group and with Kristin last week or week before last and we, it was all around physical wellbeing. And we talk, we've been talking about the five areas of wellbeing and how important physical wellbeing is to our whole wellbeing.

And so it sounds like between teaching and, and it sounds like you're very active and hiking and search and rescue. And so what is your kind of physical routine?

Meg Hinkley: [00:19:46] Well, pre COVID. Yeah, pre COVID was definitely, and, you know, four days in the gym, I'm very into industry training and believe in strength training.

Especially as we age, because we're gonna just naturally lose strength that we had running around as kids. And if I have learned more than anything else, if you can keep your muscles strong, then you can continue to do. Th, you know, whether it's climbing or being thrown around by the guys in self-defense class or search and rescue works with water rescue.

You're able to do those skills. If you keep, you know, your body strong and Take good supplements, you know? Yeah.

Dana Williams: [00:20:26] It really just taking good care of yourself. Now I want Kristin to share with us because she's learned a lot about self-defense from you. And I think Kristin , you had some fun, little, little tips that you were sharing that you've learned.

Can you share with the audience, what you learned from your mom about self-defense that you've been able to use in your, in your own world that she taught you?

Kristin Moore: [00:20:47] Yeah, well, I think I've had the luxury of getting to learn self-defense tips most of my life, which is pretty cool between, I know my dad is a black belt too.

And so both obviously both my parents are really well versed in martial arts and yeah. Mom developing her, all of her self defense work and teaching those classes. And I actually took her course over at Hockaday. And a teacher led me in managing that. And so I got to take the full classes, some of the Hockaday girls, which was really neat.

And I learned, gosh, I learned so much. I think some of, some of the things that really stuck with me beyond the physical, whereas just some of the simple kind of psychological things that you can do or things that you can do to prevent potentially, you know, a dangerous situation becoming physical and mom shared this story once about just the impact of making eye contact with people.

So there was this new story of a girl who ended up getting sadly kidnapped from a Walmart parking lot. But the surveillance footage showed that the man who ended up kidnapping her had, was kind of on the prowl trying to find go after two other girls and both of them kind of in their own way, made eye contact with him and addressed him.

And he totally backed off. And the third girl, of course not her fault, but she was walking to her car. She was looking at her phone. She didn't make eye contact. He ended up pushing her in the car. And my mom was just sharing that, like just making eye contact and letting someone know, "Hey, I know you're here and you're not a surprise to me."

And just sort of having that confident, demeanor psychologically can make a really big difference in this kind of situation. Because people who who want to do these things are looking for easy targets. And so if you can if you can act in a certain way, if you can just kind of tweak the way that you are showing up and coming off you can really not be an easy target.

You can be someone that someone doesn't want to. Don't want to mess with regard kind of, regardless of what your personality is, all of us are capable of that, which has always been so empowering for me. And then I always remember mom, like at the end of every class is like, if you forget everything, eyes and throat go for the eyes, go for the throat.

You know, I grew up saying eyes and throat, eyes and throat, eyes and throat. Yep. That's what. Mom was also our girl scout troop leader. And so it's funny when I talk to my friends from that girl scout troop, like we didn't bake cookies or do crafts, but we learned eyes and throat.

Dana Williams: [00:23:18] That's a great story.

And Meg, are there any other tips you'd want to share with the audience today that you like to give to people besides eyes and throat and eye contact that might be helpful

Meg Hinkley: [00:23:29] in people. We hear this growing up. Hopefully but I think we disconnect and we don't know what it means to really trust your gut, trust your intuition and what that means.

And what's happening is our subconscious is taking in so much information about a person, about a place, about a situation that we're not aware of. And so you can meet a person or be walking into a situation and you have that uncomfortable feeling and they call it a gut feeling because you might feel it in your stomach.

You might feel it up in your chest. Some people feel a little dizzy or feel their hands or their feet get cold. And what that is is the start of this wonderful process called adrenal stress that is preparing our body to fight or, or flee from that situation. And it is because your subconscious has seen something.

It already knows. Okay, this is not good. And it's good. It gives you that information. In the form of a feeling which can be frustrating because it doesn't say, "okay, Dana, here's the report on the three things that you don't like about this person. Number one, number two, number three," you just get this uncomfortable feeling.

But I want everybody to know the feeling is the point. It's the message. When we were just talking about a situation that happened with a woman recently that somebody tried to assault her in her driveway. Unfortunately, she, she fought back and prevailed, but she said they live kind of out on a farm or a bit remote long country road.

And this truck had come down their driveway and she said, I'd seen a hundred trucks come down that driveway over the last 16 years. And I, it was always fine, but I was terrified looking at this red truck coming down and I kept thinking, "why are you terrified?" Well, the answer was, it doesn't matter that the message is the feeling your brain has already taken an information to tell you something is wrong and you may never know what it is.

And this was interesting later she something she was able to say, like, he had, and she actually had remembered seeing the truck about four hours earlier. So why was it coming down? Her driveway then? And she realized it didn't do any work. He said he was a landscaper, but he didn't work for any of the people around her.

Cause her subconscious said, you've never seen that truck here before. Why doesn't he have landscaping equipment in the back of the truck? Why doesn't he have a logo on the side of the truck? Do you about everything other than landscaping? So all of these things were telling her something's wrong, something's wrong, but you know, we want to deny that or talk it away.

Like she kept saying, "Oh, I'm probably just being paranoid or, you know, I'm just being over-reactive" or whatever that thing was. But we really want to pay attention to that feeling. Cause it always has our best interests at heart. Always trying to tell us something.

Dana Williams: [00:26:20] Yeah. And that's great. So both of y'all have empathy, right?

Yeah. So that probably comes in not only in the fight or flight situation, but also when you're teaching to understand how, if somebody might not be as secure, fighting or secure of I can imagine the empathy is huge. And for you, Kristin, I am so excited that you have empathy as a counselor. As you prepare to be a counselor.

So talk to the audience about why you decided to go back to school, leave amazing career you had at Southwest and, and use this time. We always said that that COVID kind of accelerated some things. So for you, it was, it was going back to school. So talk, talk to us about that. Share that journey that you just went on.

Kristin Moore: [00:27:06] Yeah, it was a it was a hard decision to make. And I remember trying to, to explain to my husband like that it, why it was so hard because I knew it was the direction I wanted to go in, but I loved my job at Southwest. I had the best leader at the time and, and he said, "it's because you're not running from something you're just moving towards something else."

And I think that that makes these kinds of decisions so much harder. But I knew  throughout all of my life, I think I've been fascinated by people. The differences of people psychology, the brain. And in college, I played around with the idea of majoring in psychology. And I remember kind of talking through it with some people and realizing I would have to go to grad school to really, you know, take that to the next level.

And at the time I thought I'm not going to go to grad school. That was not for me. I just want to finish school and start working, start doing something. So I ended up going the route of communications, which I really enjoyed. But working with people one-on-one counseling, it always stayed a real heavy interest for me, something I was interested in read books about.

Got excited about, and then things really started to turn though when I became a certified strengths coach, because then part of my job at Southwest in communications was working one-on-one with leaders and getting to sit down with them and go through their strengths and help them see help them learn about themselves, help them see what they brought to the table, what made them unique and how they could.

Approach their goals in a different way, how they could improve their relationships and just getting to sit with people and watch the light bulb go off and hear them, hear them think for the first time, like, "Oh my gosh, now I get, I get it. This is, this explains me. This puts words to everything I've been trying to say to somebody for so long about how I am or how I think and feel."

And so just getting to sit with leaders as a process through that and learn more about themselves and achieve their goals and just start to approach life differently was so energizing. I just loved the best was getting to come back, you know, and do a follow-up session with someone and them say, okay, so I tried leveraging my strengths in this way and

this ended up actually working out for the first time. And they were like, so excited. I mean, there's nothing better. I have Developer number three. So it's like, there's nothing better than seeing people have those moments. And so I knew I was loving that and I had actually started talking to my husband about, "Hey, what do you think about me going back to school part-time and trying to get my degree in counseling" because something I did notice coaching people is sometimes I thought, "Oh man, if I just had that counseling knowledge and experience, we could, we could go so much deeper.

We could do so much more in our time together." So I started talking to my husband about that, but we kind of felt like, Oh, that's going to be a lot with work and how are we going to juggle it? So we just kind of left it, left it hanging. Right. And then COVID hit and all of us, I think, spent a lot more time thinking about, "okay, what am I doing right now?"

And where do I want to be in five years? Am I on the right path? Am I doing what I want to be doing? And so during that time, I just started thinking, you know, this, this might be the right time to make that leap of faith and to just do something totally different. So ended up taking the package from Southwest and it's been a big transition going from being in the corporate world for six years and having a pretty structured routine and and way of working and then to move into being a full-time student again.

Is it's a big transition, but it's been really fun. And I've learned a whole lot about myself along the way, too.

Dana Williams: [00:30:50] That's great. So, Meg, did you see this in her a long time ago, this kind of counseling developer person that is coming out from her strengths?

Meg Hinkley: [00:30:59] I did. I did. I am not surprised at all of the journey that she's taking because I have just seen that.

She has a calmness about her and is so interested in people and how they think and what they do. And we just in the conversations we had over the years, I just thought she would be absolutely perfect at doing this. So I'm really excited for.

Dana Williams: [00:31:24] That's great. And Kristin, you're about a semester in, right?

You're almost through with your first semester. What, what have you learned so far about your stuff? You said you learned some stuff on this journey now that you're not in the corporate headquarters, you're, you're kind of now on your own, but as you get close, as you get closer and closer to this degree happening, what has been something that was, that you learned about yourself through the process?

Kristin Moore: [00:31:50] Oh, gosh, so many things. And I think it's, I think probably anyone would learn something in this kind of transition, but especially when you're studying mental health counseling, it's like everything you read is a therapy session. And you have to be, they require that you are in your own counseling as well during the program, which is, which has been really helpful.

But gosh, I mean, I've just, I've learned about myself when I think about my strengths. I think I told you this a few times saying that I was like, what is my routine now? Like, I need to figure out what, what does it look like to have a really energizing day? Like, what does it look like to have a really good day?

Because I had sort of figured that out, you know, in the corporate world, but having to figure out what does that look like when I'm home all day and all of my work and all of my school, at least right now. COVID is all at home. And, and I, and I don't have as many of those kind of external people that I'm interacting with all day long, like you do in a corporate environment.

So how am I going to connect with people more? I need that connection. Okay. How am I going to figure out my routine? That's something I need to learn. And so just learning how, how to make the day energizing, how to vary things throughout the day, cause I've hired applicability and make sure that I'm connecting with the people I care about high empathy.

Getting out in nature I've found is so important for me and not just being on a screen or staring at a book all day. And so that's been really important. And I think too just in the process and learning from other students that I'm with in, in the corporate environment, I think there is sometimes this pressure to just, there's a lot of pressure to really perform and, and be high achieving and be really successful and, you know, nail your goals and, and all of that is very good.

But I think there's been a big emphasis in this program that I'm in at hey go ahead and show up however you are. It's okay to be imperfect. It's okay. When you're having a bad day, because that can really empower other people to feel validated in their feelings and to be able to express themselves authentically too.

And so I think it's been a really interesting adjustment to go from sort of an environment that's been more focused on you know, reaching those goals and milestones, which is, which is great and energizing, but moving into an environment where it's more about how can you authentically connect in order to bring about really positive change in your life has been really meaningful.

Dana Williams: [00:34:21] I bet. And do you know yet, I know we've talked a little bit about you want to maybe serve adults. Is that kind of where you're thinking kind of focusing on adults when you, when you get your degree?

Kristin Moore: [00:34:31] Yes. Yeah. I'd love to work with adults that are suffering from anxiety and there are ways to really manage that and work through that and, and grow beyond that.

It's very possible. And so I'm really passionate about empowering people to, to heal from anxiety. And I'd love to partner with adults too, that are just in phases of life transition, or maybe are in that phase of, "I don't know what I want to do with my life or I'm feeling kind of stuck." I just love getting to sit with people and help them realize what makes them really unique and valuable and special and important and help them get comfortable with that.

And then feel empowered. To live that out. And so, yeah, I'm really excited.

Dana Williams: [00:35:17] And I love when I see you guys, I love your, the way you connect and communicate. Probably Meg, you probably have this with Kristin, like I do with my daughter where there's reverse mentoring going on. So you're mentoring her and then she's probably teaching you something, right?

Meg Hinkley: [00:35:32] Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. That, that has that's been happening for many years actually.

Dana Williams: [00:35:37] Isn't that cool to have that opportunity to say, okay. And we kind of have those calls every couple of days of like, okay, can you read this? Or what about this? And so talk about this is a Mother's Day special. So any special Mother's Day

moments that you want to share, Kristin, that you want to share about your mom right now with folks about what you enjoy about her being your mom and just the special, so relationship you have.

You can be thinking about it. You can be thinking about it. And the same thing with you, you know, mother stays important and as we know, life is precious and just be able to take this time and recognize. And, and what I love about y'all's relationship is just how you let each other use your unique gifts and your talents to serve the world and other people and encourage each other.

I see that just from my brief two times with you guys, but if there's anything special that you guys, and, and there might be Meg, you know, with your mom or other moms that you've witnessed with all the women, you've helped launch out into the world that you get, I'm sure they keep in contact with you.

You know, any special kind of Mother's Day, just wisdom that you guys want to share that you're learning or that, you know, I know I did. I hit you blind with this. I didn't give that to you ahead of time. Cause I'm a little authentic girl. I like the

adaptability. You guys can handle it, roll with it.

Yeah. So any thoughts on that for mother's day?

Meg Hinkley: [00:37:17] I have one. And like Kristin said, there's, there's so many, like where would I start? But looking at our relationship now, I liked that we are. You know, like, as you said, that reverse mentoring and in the, in the friendship and it's, it's still mother-daughter, but there's friendship in  respect there and a different way.

And I had a very difficult year last year losing a close brother. And this was after several other losses and it was so amazing that Kristin was just there from the moment I called and really took over the role of just being the one to care for me, because I was just a mess and I couldn't, and I, that I can't even explain how much that meant to me that she was just there every day.

Let me get all teary here. So, no, I love that. So, so much. And then about two months after that, she's like, come on, we're going to take a trip. And we, during COVID we went to, we went to Los Cabos together and to this resort, And it was just hilarious because we traveled so well together. I think because we're both adaptable, we're both like, what do you want to do?

I'll do that. Sure. I'll do that. And we, you know, and we like a lot of the same things, but it's not like, you know, so we both just kind of flowed really easily together. And I was laughing at one point because when we got there, we were looking up things to do, and Kristin, read about this hike that you could do over the famous point in Los Cabos for the, the famous arch rocks.

I don't know if you've ever seen those in some of the pictures, but it was on private property in a man who trained dogs or something. And it was, it was a thread off something in TripAdvisor. And so. There was a thing that says off this thread, text this guy, whatever, so Kristin texted him and then he texted back, like be here tomorrow at nine or something like that.

And I said, do we know anything about him? Do we know? We know nothing? And I said, Oh my gosh, think how bad this will look. If mother and daughter follow some weird texting to go meet some guy in Los Cabos in his private property, don't go hike this. We both end up murdered by a serial killer. It will be so embarrassing as a self-defense teacher, but we both have this sense, like, okay, well we're going to check it out.

And then we got there, there were like four other people waiting and we're like, this is good. And it ended up being one of the funniest things and hilarious integrating that, that she took that trip with me too. Cause she just knew. I needed that for my soul and had that time with her.

Kristin Moore: [00:39:47] Yeah. Wait, Dana, this is what happens when you get to people with number one, empathy are peers, but I think that that that's been

a really special part of my mom and I's relationship is that we both had different, you know, life can be hard. Hard things happen. Both had hard things happen through you know, mom recently with losses. And I had some really difficult health things that popped up when I was in high school. And I was just thinking, I think a really special piece of our relationship and our friendship is that we, we show up for each other.

And we don't give up on each other. And I think that is something, Ooh, that's hard that my mom always instilled in me at a young age was just you show up when it matters. So whatever that is for someone. You know, it can be a wonderful, joyful thing. It can be a wedding or it can be a funeral, but my mom always ingrained in me that you just, you don't have to do it perfectly.

I think people get caught up in that. They think, well, if, if someone just passed away or something just happened, what am I going to say? What am I going to do? And it's not about that. It's about just showing up and being present. And I feel like that is one of the biggest lessons that I've learned from you mom is that it doesn't matter,

you know, if you've got it all together. It doesn't matter, if you know what you're going to say, you just show up and you just show up for the people in your lives. You show up for the happy moments and you show up for the hard moments and you just do whatever it takes to be there for the moments that matter, because that's just, life is all about relationships, the most important thing.

So I feel like that's something that we've really shared and something that we, we practice and we do for each other.

Dana Williams: [00:41:34] I love that. And, you know, I think I'm so passionate about each day, you know, there's 20,000 moments in a day. So what are you going to do with those moments? Who are you going to help today?

How are you going to learn today? How are you going to grow? And I think that's why created The Strengths Journal just to kind of help intentionally live out those days because sometimes the days can just happen to us and then we have no control, but I love how you guys have taken your passion and turned it in to an amazing way to help others.

But how energized you guys are when you're, I've heard that from both of you, how energized you are when you're using your strengths and be in there and help and showing up for others. Any last things before we close out that you guys want to share, that we didn't get to talk about or any thoughts? As we've kind of talked through our Mother's Day moments talking about strengths, talking about your careers,

talking about life. Is there anything else that you didn't get to say that's on your mind right now that you want to share? And that's okay if there's not, I just want to always make sure that, that we, we open up that space for, for just sharing. So anything else you want to share with the audience that you've learned on your journey?

Meg Hinkley: [00:42:48] The work you're doing and Kristin it's, it's such a gift because you both love and are passionate about the work and then through your work, you're going to help people know themselves better. And help them to live more fulfilled, happier lives. And that is like, I can't imagine, you know, doing anything greater with that.

And I, I have said to Kristin, I had a counselor many years ago that I saw for an extended period of time that my husband and I saw them together and he changed our lives and we had a great marriage and had good things, but he made it better in made it. Helped us understand each other more and understand each other's strengths more.

And why we married such polar opposite people. And you know, that type of, I mean, I wrote him a letter recently. He's 81, I think now, but just saying, "Hey, I just want you to tell, let you know, like, thank you. Wow."

Dana Williams: [00:43:41] I love that. I think Kristin, you've been on the letter writing campaign lately, too.

Haven't you kind of just been writing people notes. I don't know if y'all knew that about each other.

Kristin Moore: [00:43:49] My, my new year's goals was to write a handwritten letter every week. So I'm joining you up with that, but something, something that just came to mind for me. And it's, since we're doing Mother's Day, I'm trying, I'm thinking of all the advice you've given me, mom, and I always think about, talk about.

 I mean, other than the self-defense stuff, none of it is graphic, so, hey. Something that you've always taught me is like, if I'm feeling overwhelmed or I'm just feeling like what, like, you know, everyone has his days. You're like, what am I doing? Like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?

And. You always say mom "one day at a time." And I just think that, that  it really resonates with, I've been using this Strengths Journal now. I mean, since it came out and I think that that is so important is to just take life one day at a time. And I mean, we learned, we've all learned that through COVID.

But just the importance of, if you're intentional with your days, that's going to build the life that you want. And so making your days, what you want them to be is going to build that life for you. And it doesn't all have to make sense that day. You know, sometimes it's like, okay, I know this energizes me.

I know I'm having fun. I know I'm enjoying this. I don't know how it's going to fit in to the, my career or the bigger picture of my life. And it doesn't all have to make sense today. And so I think just taking it one day at a time and doing what energizes you and what you're passionate about is it's just an advice that you've given me, mom, that if I was going to share with other people, it would be that just one day at a time.

It doesn't all have to make sense today.

Dana Williams: [00:45:23] That's so good. And that's good for people like me that are Futuristic. I got, gotta focus on today. My husband will say like, well, I don't know what we're doing six months from now, but let's talk about today.

Kristin Moore: [00:45:34] Maybe that just resonated with the Activators and Adaptable.

Yes,

Dana Williams: [00:45:40] absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you guys. So much, this has been so incredible. What I love for Meg , share with people, how they can find you. If they're interested in self-defense classes.

Meg Hinkley: [00:45:52] They can look at my call me, or reach me through my website athenasstrategies.com or they can call or text me (469) 939-1107.

That's on the website too.

Dana Williams: [00:46:04] Great. And Kristen, if people want to talk to you about your journey from coach now to counselor, how do you, is there any, do you want them to get you on LinkedIn or any special place?

Kristin Moore: [00:46:15] LinkedIn is great. Kristin Moore on LinkedIn and I'm learning so much about the process to becoming a licensed counselor,

and so I am taking so many notes because the Developer in me is like, I'm going to help the next person that wants to make this move and doesn't know where to start. And so I'm always happy to talk about. To talk about that.

Dana Williams: [00:46:34] That's great. And if y'all, haven't heard you've, might've heard us talk a little bit about the Clubhouse, which we have a Dominate Your Day Club house, which Kristin and I are on with two other coaches every day.

And we, we had the luxury of having Meg with us. So please, you know, if you want to join us on Clubhouse, it's Dominate Your Day.club or Dominate Your Day. And we actually have a landing page with all of our resources and then feel free to come to thestrengthsjournal.com. And learn more about The Strengths Journal and then we'd love for you to subscribe, to Dominate Your Day podcasts, wherever you listen to podcasts.

So I just am so honored to have both of you here today, and I'm so blessed to be able to get to know you each better as a mother daughter duo. And can't wait to see what the next values you're going to bring out to the world with your amazing talent. So thank you for being here. It's been incredible.

Meg Hinkley: [00:47:31] Thank you for having us, what a great gift this is to just get in. Oh, wonderful. My daughter, isn't fun. It's a wonderful gift.

Kristin Moore: [00:47:40] It is so much fun. Thank you guys.

Narrator: [00:47:45] Thank you for listening to Dominate Your Day. We'd like to encourage you to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. So you're ready to hear these life changing stories.

We can't wait to bring you exactly what you need to dominate your day.