Ep 180: Tommy Thompson ~ Finding Clarity Amidst Life's Busyness

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.363 --> 00:00:07.693
Truth and Transcendence, brought to you by being Space with Katherine Llewellyn.

00:00:07.693 --> 00:00:23.873
Truth and Transcendence, Episode 180, with special guest Tommy Thompson.

00:00:23.873 --> 00:00:53.570
Now, if you haven't come across Tommy, he's an executive coach and life coach, the author of Space to Breathe Again Hope for the Overloaded and Overwhelmed no idea what he's talking about there obviously and a host of the Space for Life podcast, and he has 30 years of multi-industry entrepreneurship and the Master of Divinity degree under his belt.

00:00:53.570 --> 00:00:55.435
So a man of many parts.

00:00:55.435 --> 00:01:11.528
And you can find Tommy at TommyThompsonorg, and that's T-O-M-M-Y, T-H-O-M-P-S-O-Norg, so that's where you can find him, and we'll give you that information again at the end.

00:01:11.528 --> 00:01:16.608
So, Tommy, thank you so much for coming on the show.

00:01:16.629 --> 00:01:18.593
Well, thank you, Catherine.

00:01:18.593 --> 00:01:21.128
I've been looking forward to our conversation.

00:01:21.829 --> 00:01:22.210
Excellent.

00:01:22.210 --> 00:01:23.864
We had a lot of fun in the prequel, didn't we?

00:01:23.864 --> 00:01:33.512
Absolutely, and what we're going to talk about today which I actually think everyone talks about this, but does anyone ever do it which is about being a listener.

00:01:33.512 --> 00:01:43.322
And I can actually remember back in the 1980s I think it was where someone hit on the idea that if you actually listen to people, it might be helpful.

00:01:43.322 --> 00:01:58.469
And this was an absolute mind-blowing idea for a lot of people, because everyone thought communication was about communicating to somebody else and that you know, if you got really really good at that, then everything would work.

00:01:59.881 --> 00:02:08.873
And someone realized well, no, if you don't listen, you don't know what message you need to be giving anyway, and also you become a real pain in the ass, if you don't mind me using that term.

00:02:08.873 --> 00:02:18.947
So being a listener is really important, and I think still today, decades later, and particularly at the moment in our world.

00:02:18.947 --> 00:02:35.604
At the moment, I think we're in one of the most opinionated times of my lifetime, where so many people have opinions about things and are very happy to expound about those opinions, but aren't necessarily willing to listen to other people's points of view.

00:02:35.604 --> 00:02:42.449
So, culturally and socially, I think this is a particularly relevant topic at the moment.

00:02:42.449 --> 00:02:49.067
So, tommy, you were telling me that being a listener is like a really core theme for you.

00:02:49.067 --> 00:02:53.467
Would you like to tell us a little bit more about kind of the origins of that?

00:02:53.467 --> 00:02:54.531
How did this happen?

00:02:54.531 --> 00:02:58.580
How did this happen that you really connected into being a listener?

00:02:59.581 --> 00:03:00.782
uh, well, well thanks.

00:03:00.782 --> 00:03:25.659
I couldn't agree with you more that I think, as our culture is continuing to evolve or at times it feels like devolve it feels like a big element of that is our inability to listen at all, both to each other but even to ourselves.

00:03:25.659 --> 00:03:30.651
And that's a big part of listening as I think about it.

00:03:30.651 --> 00:03:55.954
Where this really kind of came about for me was probably now about close to 35 years ago, when I sat down kind of in the middle of my entrepreneurial life and I felt like something was just missing, that I was doing some good things but that I just wasn't right exactly where I wanted to be.

00:03:55.954 --> 00:04:20.333
And I sat down to go through a kind of a self-directed process of trying to discern what I felt like was my calling in life, what my mission, my purpose, my kind of unique thing, began to sit down and think about that over some long chunks of time.

00:04:20.333 --> 00:04:41.608
What I didn't realize in a sense, was that was very much of a listening exercise that I was going through and kind of spent time trying to think what do I feel like I'm really best at, what brings me joy, where can I have impact in my life?

00:04:41.608 --> 00:04:44.252
And as I went through that process.

00:04:44.252 --> 00:05:11.646
I really believed that at the core, that I was called to teach, and virtually every venue of life, not just within the church, which I did, not just as an entrepreneur, but as a father, as a husband, as someone who loves sports, just wherever that.

00:05:11.646 --> 00:05:26.451
What really brought me joy was teaching, and as I mulled on that more and more, I realized that there are these underlying things that are beneath teaching.

00:05:26.451 --> 00:05:30.740
They are what I consider like in order to be a teacher.

00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:46.033
Statements and the two that stood out to me as I mulled on this more and more was if I'm going to be a teacher, then I have to be a learner at the core, I have to be someone that's just a voracious learner.

00:05:46.033 --> 00:05:54.533
I take in more and more, and then I realized that, even beyond that, because there's so much to learn, where do you go?

00:05:54.533 --> 00:05:59.649
How do you put any kind of parameters or boundaries around this learning?

00:05:59.649 --> 00:06:02.201
I realized that at the core.

00:06:02.261 --> 00:06:24.396
For me, the first piece of this is that I needed to be a listener, and being a listener involved for me at the core listening to God, who is at the center, I hope, of who I am and what I do.

00:06:24.396 --> 00:06:34.009
So I needed to learn to be a listener to God, and a part of that is, of course, learning to listen to yourself.

00:06:34.009 --> 00:06:53.860
And so I realized that it's only out of that listening posture that I could know where I should exert the energy to be a learner, and out of that, learn to teach.

00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:59.367
And then from there I learn from that process and I listen.

00:06:59.427 --> 00:07:07.836
So my shorter version of my mission statement was listen, learn, teach, learn, listen.

00:07:07.836 --> 00:07:50.601
And so I realized that, at the core of my being the best who I believe God called me to be, the best person I can be, both as a husband, a father, as an entrepreneur as it's now evolved to a life coach, that I hope defines me as a husband and as a father.

00:07:50.601 --> 00:07:54.949
I just hope it defines me as a friend.

00:07:54.949 --> 00:08:02.687
So I've realized that so much of life works when we start by listening.

00:08:03.668 --> 00:08:04.228
Beautiful.

00:08:04.228 --> 00:08:05.992
I'm curious.

00:08:05.992 --> 00:08:22.946
You know you were saying you went through that process of realizing that you wanted to get closer to clarity about what you were here to do, and you went through a process of examining that and you said that that in itself was a listening process.

00:08:22.946 --> 00:08:25.317
You said that sort of as an aside.

00:08:25.317 --> 00:08:38.091
I thought I'm coming back to that and I would love could you kind of share with us a little bit about what that felt like going through that process.

00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:39.921
Yes, definitely.

00:08:39.921 --> 00:08:44.267
It was a very defined season in my life.

00:08:44.267 --> 00:08:49.553
Probably I guess I was around 30 or 31 at the time.

00:08:49.553 --> 00:08:50.975
Is that right?

00:08:50.975 --> 00:09:07.221
Yeah, I think yeah right about that time, and I had gone through a process in my life of going to college and then choosing from college to go to seminary where I got a Master's of Divinity degree.

00:09:07.221 --> 00:09:19.288
I had worked at the end of that process of getting my Master's of Divinity degree as a teacher and coach in a private school here in Richmond Virginia.

00:09:19.288 --> 00:09:45.129
I had decided after a couple of years of that that I felt drawn to join my brother in entrepreneurial ventures, and so we had a series, at that particular time when I was going through this process, of four different companies that we were running all at once a very, very full life and it was also right, at the beginning, of having a family.

00:09:45.210 --> 00:09:52.730
So I'd been married for, I guess, about 10 years at the time and life was full and it was good.

00:09:52.730 --> 00:09:55.860
The businesses were going fine.

00:09:55.860 --> 00:10:12.208
I felt that I was competent at what I was doing in terms of running these businesses, running the finances of things, but there was this sense in me that something that was missing.

00:10:12.208 --> 00:10:25.471
I was doing good things, I was reasonably successful, but my heart and my passion weren't engaged.

00:10:25.471 --> 00:10:36.234
And I knew that I'd come from this world of teaching that I thought was kind of maybe a piece of it, but that hadn't quite worked.

00:10:36.620 --> 00:10:39.863
Yeah, that hadn't quite grabbed you fully, it hadn't quite grabbed me.

00:10:39.863 --> 00:10:45.846
And the entrepreneurial world, even though it was working okay, still didn't quite grasp me.

00:10:45.846 --> 00:10:58.470
So I had this sense that something was missing and that's what led me to the process of saying, oh, I need to take some time, I need to step back and to think about it.

00:10:58.470 --> 00:11:07.495
And you know, I guess it's kind of now obvious, looking at it in the rear view mirror, that I was listening way back then.

00:11:07.495 --> 00:11:16.494
I was listening to be able to identify that this small thing was missing, that something was not quite right.

00:11:16.793 --> 00:11:17.674
Yeah, it sounds like it.

00:11:18.400 --> 00:11:23.373
So I think that was maybe a part of who I was a reflective person.

00:11:23.373 --> 00:11:43.342
Of who I was a reflective person, I think it was a part of my spiritual sense that I believed God was involved in my life and that there was a purpose for me being here, and so all of that led to this sense of.

00:11:43.342 --> 00:11:45.910
I want to delve further.

00:11:45.910 --> 00:11:49.330
I don't know if I'm going to come to an answer with this.

00:11:49.330 --> 00:11:57.831
I didn't know anybody else who was asking these questions, to be honest, so it was kind of unusual for me to be doing this.

00:11:57.831 --> 00:12:08.546
So I just sat in a room I can remember a variety of Saturday mornings in a row for a couple of hours and I would just start to write questions.

00:12:08.546 --> 00:12:18.024
I would start to reflect on things that brought me joy up to that point in life, what people spoke about.

00:12:18.446 --> 00:12:36.375
That I did well and just started to put together all of this information, and the key turning point for me was realizing that I loved teaching, but not just teaching one thing.

00:12:36.375 --> 00:12:39.883
I loved being a teacher in the broadest sense of it.

00:12:39.883 --> 00:12:44.029
I called it in my mission statement that God has called me to be a teacher of life.

00:12:44.029 --> 00:12:52.613
Even back then, way before the life coaching way in the midst of an entrepreneurial world.

00:12:52.613 --> 00:13:10.703
I had this aha moment that God had called me to be a teacher of life in the breadth of it, in every place, in every place, and it was like this weight off my shoulders.

00:13:10.744 --> 00:13:11.748
I felt like I knew who I was at that moment.

00:13:11.748 --> 00:13:12.168
Amazing, I love that.

00:13:12.168 --> 00:13:14.280
Yeah, that feeling when you said the weight off your shoulders.

00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:16.446
There is that sense isn't there.

00:13:16.446 --> 00:13:18.090
I know this is it.

00:13:18.090 --> 00:13:19.153
How do I know this is it.

00:13:19.153 --> 00:13:20.360
Well, I just know this is it.

00:13:20.961 --> 00:13:22.124
That sort of thing, isn't it?

00:13:22.644 --> 00:13:30.101
it absolutely it freed me up, yeah yeah, well, you certainly seem very you know.

00:13:30.101 --> 00:13:38.470
When you came on the before we started recording, I said you look really kind of fresh and awake and you said, of course, of course I am.

00:13:38.470 --> 00:13:45.188
You know, it's that sort of but there is that sense isn't there of um, I love the way you described that.

00:13:45.188 --> 00:13:56.259
You know, recognizing there was something missing, and you did not choose to just cover it up, which is what some of us do some of the time to just cover it up and try and pretend it's not there.

00:13:56.259 --> 00:14:01.753
You actually listened to yourself and kept asking questions.

00:14:01.753 --> 00:14:03.547
I think that's so important as well.

00:14:03.547 --> 00:14:06.830
You're keeping asking questions and you're listening to the answers that you're getting.

00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:24.153
Sure, and it goes back to what you said at the beginning about our culture, because I think that we do cover up our innate need to listen, and we cover it up in my mind, which is what a lot of my book and my podcast is about.

00:14:24.153 --> 00:14:28.523
We cover it up in busyness and distraction.

00:14:28.523 --> 00:14:37.524
So we are so afraid of silence, we are so afraid to step back and listen because we don't know what we're going to hear.

00:14:37.524 --> 00:14:41.881
In fact, we're afraid to do that often because we think we'll hear nothing.

00:14:41.881 --> 00:14:45.208
And what happens if we hear nothing?

00:14:45.208 --> 00:15:10.785
And so I think we've become, as a culture, addicted to busyness and distraction, because that relieves us of the obligation to listen and if we just scream at the other person loud enough, then we don't have a problem, and so that's become what our culture is like across the world.

00:15:10.785 --> 00:15:31.910
So there are answers beyond my personal life that come if we could become listeners to one another, in our marriages, as parents, in our work, in our societies, in our governmental situations.

00:15:31.910 --> 00:15:37.511
So much would be solved if we could begin by listening.

00:15:38.033 --> 00:15:48.110
Yeah, there was something that really struck me in what you were saying there about the fear that if we listen, there'll be nothing there, no message for us.

00:15:48.110 --> 00:15:56.528
Yes, so we're listening, for what's our mission, what's our purpose, and the answer is I got nothing.

00:15:56.528 --> 00:16:00.009
That's really depressing, and I think you're right.

00:16:00.009 --> 00:16:09.414
I think we, probably unconsciously, are trying to avoid facing that moment of do I actually have a purpose?

00:16:11.019 --> 00:16:22.836
Exactly because if there's nothing there, then that kind of somewhat implies that we don't have the worth.

00:16:22.836 --> 00:16:32.524
Don't have the worth, and so I've talked to a lot of people about this and tried to encourage a lot of people.

00:16:32.524 --> 00:16:33.947
And number one, it's very hard.

00:16:33.947 --> 00:17:09.212
We have not developed listening muscles to one another, but certainly to our own life, but there is somewhat of a fear, and so people think, okay, well, I sat down for five minutes and I listened and I think, well, okay, that's good, that's a start, but there's so much more to be had than that, and it's something that I think all of us need to do to learn to listen to ourselves and learn to listen to the person that's right in front of us.

00:17:09.212 --> 00:17:10.906
That's a great place to start.

00:17:11.221 --> 00:17:17.907
Yeah, because they're right there looking at us, and if we do listen to them, we will notice an effect of that, won't we?

00:17:19.551 --> 00:17:20.073
Absolutely.

00:17:20.319 --> 00:17:22.145
Difference in the quality of connection.

00:17:22.145 --> 00:17:33.000
Yeah, yeah, amazing, no-transcript.

00:17:34.230 --> 00:17:34.971
I hope so.

00:17:34.971 --> 00:17:36.192
I hope so.

00:17:36.192 --> 00:17:43.959
You know, what I really encourage for so many people is to develop listening practices.

00:17:43.959 --> 00:18:03.471
You know, listening, I don't think, necessarily comes naturally unless we create listening spaces in our life, listening spaces in our life.

00:18:03.471 --> 00:18:20.807
So a couple of the practices that are core for me, that I think are transformational for people, is to create a listening time every morning, and so every morning I have a fairly luxurious time that I allow for myself to sit and listen, and in that listening I journal.

00:18:20.989 --> 00:18:22.592
In that listening I pray.

00:18:22.592 --> 00:18:27.922
In that listening I read the Bible and look to listen to God.

00:18:27.922 --> 00:18:37.859
In that listening sometimes I'm just quiet and I create that listening time and that listening time centers me for the day.

00:18:37.859 --> 00:18:55.834
Hopefully, I create a weekly listening time, what I call a weekly review time, and I create a Sabbath in my life which is one day where I stop working and in that rest I'm listening.

00:18:55.834 --> 00:19:42.233
And so I feel like, if I can and I can encourage other people to create those spaces where listening can happen, then we can begin to develop the listening muscles which then can translate to when I'm sitting across a breakfast table from someone and I'm quiet, calm, I'm engaged, I'm ready, I'm able to listen and it's in that listening that also learn kind of the, the, the toxic piece of over busyness and distraction, and how easy it is to get there and how it's not the way I want to live my life.

00:19:42.233 --> 00:19:45.782
So I've tried to encourage people along those lines.

00:19:46.369 --> 00:19:49.016
Right, okay, that makes perfect sense.

00:19:49.016 --> 00:19:59.439
And let's say I came to see you as a client, right, and you were saying okay, catherine, your life's full of stuff you're doing and busyness, so build in these listening practices.

00:19:59.439 --> 00:20:14.496
If I came back to you the next week and said I can't do it, that's just impossible, I just can't do it, how do you respond to people like that who do try to do it and just find themselves that they just cannot bring themselves to do it?

00:20:15.439 --> 00:20:23.624
Sure, I mean, I think we go back to square one, you know, in terms of saying what do you mean when you say you can't?

00:20:23.624 --> 00:20:26.419
Is it uncomfortable to you?

00:20:26.419 --> 00:20:31.501
Are you finding that you don't lack the discipline for it?

00:20:31.501 --> 00:20:34.410
Are there blocks or things?

00:20:34.410 --> 00:20:38.078
But let's say, someone says I just simply can't do it.

00:20:38.078 --> 00:20:44.018
So I say, well, okay, could you do it for five minutes?

00:20:44.018 --> 00:20:49.128
Well, I probably could do it for five minutes.

00:20:49.128 --> 00:20:52.958
Okay, so let's just start with five minutes and let's just do one thing.

00:20:52.958 --> 00:21:07.077
Let's just have for five minutes, let's just have you sit and all I want you to do is I just want you to reflect on the day before and, just in that sense, listen to it.

00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:23.713
So I try to pare it down, because the degree of obstacles in people's lives for doing this are very much varied in terms of it, or we might look at a different way of practicing it.

00:21:23.713 --> 00:21:37.296
And so, for instance, in the book I wrote, I talk about a little chapter called the Hidden Sanctuary, and the Hidden Sanctuary is a place where we can find some respite and some quiet.

00:21:37.296 --> 00:21:44.501
That is an unexpected place, and what I talk about is the hidden sanctuary in almost all of our lives is our car.

00:21:44.501 --> 00:22:06.670
So what would happen if, in our cars, we turned off the podcast, we turned off the music, we turned off everything and just sat quietly in silence in our car as we drove from location A to location B, hopefully at the speed limit so that we could slow ourselves?

00:22:06.670 --> 00:22:12.222
You know what would happen if we turned our car into a sanctuary?

00:22:12.222 --> 00:22:17.761
Well, you certainly could turn off the radio, you know, in your car.

00:22:17.761 --> 00:22:22.251
Well, that's a place of quiet.

00:22:22.271 --> 00:22:28.421
So I find that word can't that you used is rarely true.

00:22:28.421 --> 00:22:30.703
It's rarely true for me.

00:22:30.703 --> 00:22:36.955
I choose not to, but I rarely am unable to.

00:22:36.955 --> 00:22:42.565
So I want to unpack a little bit underneath that and say what are the obstacles?

00:22:42.565 --> 00:22:46.138
Why is it that you feel like you cannot do this?

00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:47.643
Yeah, lovely.

00:22:47.643 --> 00:22:52.422
Well, I think that was very kind, that response you demonstrated there.

00:22:52.422 --> 00:23:22.861
Because I think sometimes with these things, even if someone gets the idea and they think it's a great idea, they might be thinking that's a fantastic idea, you know what, what I'll just get through to Easter, or I'll just get through to such and such, and then I'll get you know, and they just think I just can't do it.

00:23:22.861 --> 00:23:31.737
But I think the way you're talking about it, it sounds like you're not just saying to people right, this is a good idea and just do it.

00:23:31.737 --> 00:23:36.576
And if they say they can't do it, you're just saying well, just do it.

00:23:36.776 --> 00:23:45.021
You're kind of gentling them into it exactly, and, and you know, I've just found in my own life that I have to be creative about it.

00:23:45.021 --> 00:23:54.092
So, you know, I talk about this idea and I I embrace myself of creating powerful pauses in my life.

00:23:54.092 --> 00:24:13.313
And that's, you know, just that, that small little nuance of if I could build five minutes in before I'm sitting down to have this conversation with you, which I did I had some time beforehand to just settle and just be quiet.

00:24:13.313 --> 00:24:25.251
That's a listening, that's a quieting that, I think, enables a conversation to rise to a whole another level.

00:24:25.251 --> 00:24:30.482
And we're not talking about turning our lives upside down to do that.

00:24:30.482 --> 00:25:06.351
We're just talking about making a small little tweak to say I'm just going to leave a few minutes earlier so I'm not rushed and so I can sit, so I can give just a few minutes thought to what this meeting ahead of me is about, or this lunch, or this conversation, and so that I can be ready, prepared for that.

00:25:06.371 --> 00:25:12.742
And those small five-minute pauses, I think, can literally double or triple the effectiveness of the times that we're spending in busyness.

00:25:12.742 --> 00:25:19.623
Yeah, imagine five minutes changing the quality of something at that level.

00:25:19.623 --> 00:25:36.665
And so I very much believe that this creating space and becoming listening, these practices are what enables a life of the greatest purpose and meaning.

00:25:36.665 --> 00:25:43.757
It's not just about having life easier and being calmer and being more at peace.

00:25:43.757 --> 00:25:49.611
It's actually also about being purposeful and having the greatest quality relationships.

00:25:49.611 --> 00:26:05.336
So I believe that, in essence, this creating space, this listening, is where the best of life and the most growth and the most effectiveness comes.

00:26:05.336 --> 00:26:09.744
It comes out of that rich topsoil of space.

00:26:11.269 --> 00:26:12.593
Yeah, thank you.

00:26:12.593 --> 00:26:46.173
Well, I was just tracking how my experience of being in the conversation with you, as you were describing that, and I would certainly say that the way you were coming into the conversation and then your presence in the conversation definitely is supporting me in being able to relax into the conversation with you, and I think it also supports that kind of space that you mentioned and then the sort of attentiveness you were able to bring with you from having given yourself that powerful pause, as you mentioned.

00:26:46.173 --> 00:26:59.782
I feel like we're able to sort of drop down the layers in the topic we're talking about more readily than we could do if we were being really determined and trying to probe it in a sort of….

00:27:01.384 --> 00:27:02.046
Driven way.

00:27:02.190 --> 00:27:02.752
Driven way.

00:27:02.752 --> 00:27:03.596
That's the word, yes.

00:27:03.596 --> 00:27:28.984
So rather than being driven and trying to get to the bottom of the topic, instead we can just kind of ease our way down the layers of what we're talking about through… and I would say I need to do this because my default is that, driven nature, I'm a very competitive, driven, entrepreneurial type of person.

00:27:29.065 --> 00:27:35.557
So I've learned this not because it becomes naturally, but because it does not become.

00:27:35.557 --> 00:27:37.641
It is not natural for me.

00:27:37.641 --> 00:27:40.551
And I would really say the same thing back at you.

00:27:40.551 --> 00:28:00.184
I think back to our pre-conversation before today of sitting down and talking with you and you come with that same sense of presence and calm into a conversation, into a conversation and, as you know, both of our times are precious.

00:28:00.184 --> 00:28:12.191
We don't want to waste any of the time.

00:28:12.191 --> 00:28:15.935
So it's that sense of you are a person worth talking to that I sensed in our very first conversation.

00:28:15.935 --> 00:28:23.330
It's this commonality of a real listening demeanor that I think drew me to what you're doing.

00:28:24.173 --> 00:28:25.095
Thank you so much.

00:28:25.095 --> 00:28:26.157
I really appreciate that.

00:28:26.157 --> 00:28:29.794
I'd like to share with you something that happened for me years ago.

00:28:30.476 --> 00:28:46.942
At the time I was doing executive coaching, which meant spending a lot of time sitting in a room with one other person, and often I'd be in a room with somebody for a whole day when we'd break for lunch and stuff, and I remember kind of teetering on the edge and really surrendering to listening really fully.

00:28:46.942 --> 00:28:53.712
I remember noticing there was a fear that if I fully, fully fully listened, I would disappear.

00:28:53.712 --> 00:28:58.502
I would be swallowed up in that person's reality and I wouldn't be able to get out.

00:28:58.502 --> 00:29:06.201
Wow, Interesting, and it was an interesting thing I noticed and I thought, well, I'm just going to give it a go.

00:29:06.201 --> 00:29:07.753
Right, I don't think that's going to happen.

00:29:07.753 --> 00:29:11.113
I'm not in a sci-fi movie or something where you disappear.

00:29:11.714 --> 00:29:26.818
And what I discovered was that when I fully surrendered, it was almost like that person took me by the hand and took me on a magical journey around their experience of life, which had all sorts of color in it that I hadn't noticed and all sorts of perspectives I hadn't noticed.

00:29:26.818 --> 00:29:31.553
It was almost like it was a gift and I never went back.

00:29:31.553 --> 00:29:32.854
As a result.

00:29:32.854 --> 00:30:09.105
After that I just recognize every single person is like potentially a doorway into a miraculous new world that I would never have experienced or conceived of by myself if I opened to receiving what they're communicating process also works the other direction, because if we can truly listen to someone, that is such a gift and honoring to that person it is so rare for that person to experience.

00:30:09.145 --> 00:30:11.191
So it's this two-way thing.

00:30:11.191 --> 00:30:12.271
I love what you shared.

00:30:12.271 --> 00:30:47.031
It's this two-way thing that we completely become absorbed in the gift that that person is to us and at the same time, that person feels valued in a way that perhaps they rarely ever feel, even in their own homes, when we listen to them homes when we listen to them.

00:30:47.031 --> 00:30:49.617
So I think something very spiritual happens when we become listeners like this.

00:30:49.617 --> 00:30:52.325
Something, as you say, on a different plane happens.

00:30:52.325 --> 00:30:53.647
So that's great.

00:30:53.647 --> 00:30:55.392
I love what you're sharing there.

00:30:55.913 --> 00:31:19.965
And it is a risk I know that there are times when I am with someone in that type of one-on-one conversation that the fear that will arise is that if I listen fully, then I'm not going to be prepared to respond to them.

00:31:19.965 --> 00:31:23.758
I have to be thinking about what I need to be saying.

00:31:23.758 --> 00:31:29.457
Next, I need to be preparing, and in that very preparing I'm not listening.

00:31:29.457 --> 00:31:49.267
I'm thinking about what I'm going to say, and so it's maybe overstating it, but it takes some courage to say I'm just going to be quiet and I'm just going to listen and trust that on the other end of it, if there's something to say, I'll be ready to say it.

00:31:49.611 --> 00:31:53.034
Yeah, I totally recognize that one as a podcast host.

00:31:53.034 --> 00:31:57.682
That's definitely one I've encountered because I can get fascinated in what someone's saying.

00:31:57.682 --> 00:31:59.998
That's definitely one I've encountered because I can get fascinated in what someone's saying.

00:31:59.998 --> 00:32:06.757
And there's that thing of, yeah, sometimes when someone's finished speaking I'm so blown away by what they've said I feel like I want to go.

00:32:07.076 --> 00:32:19.936
But can we just press pause for I don't know 20 minutes it's just so it's very interesting, but of when we're in a conversation with somebody, we are in a conversation, aren't we?

00:32:19.936 --> 00:32:22.980
We're not just listening to a podcast or something.

00:32:22.980 --> 00:32:30.809
So there's that being present and able and ready and willing to respond whilst also fully listening.

00:32:30.809 --> 00:32:34.038
That's a real kind of dynamic interchange, isn't it?

00:32:34.921 --> 00:32:42.419
Yes, definitely, and I've had many people talk about you know, since I podcast also that it so intimidates them.

00:32:42.419 --> 00:32:43.541
They're just, you know.

00:32:43.541 --> 00:32:52.193
How do you know you're not going to just, you know, get to a place and not know what to say next or keep the conversation going or take it in a good direction?

00:32:52.193 --> 00:32:54.175
And for me it's been.

00:32:54.175 --> 00:33:00.586
One of the very exciting things about listening is that it does involve some trust.

00:33:00.586 --> 00:33:11.299
It involves, for me, trust that God is going to show up in the midst of my listening and that he's not going to leave me hanging.

00:33:12.881 --> 00:33:49.238
There's something that's exciting when I sit next to someone on a podcast or on a Zoom, about the uncertainty, the unpredictability of where it will go, and it puts me in a position as a podcast host which I'm sure you can resonate with of I have to trust, I have to trust the process, I have to trust, I have to trust the process and I have to trust that, in some fashion, God's going to show up and he's going to give me the words and he's going to give me a sense of direction of where to take the conversation.

00:33:49.238 --> 00:33:50.621
And that makes life exciting.

00:33:50.621 --> 00:33:53.035
You know, listening makes life an adventure.

00:33:53.576 --> 00:34:03.183
It really does and, as you say, it takes you into the unknown, which, of course, a lot of us are programmed to try to stay in control at all costs.

00:34:04.009 --> 00:34:05.537
Exactly exactly.

00:34:06.089 --> 00:34:13.081
I think the work you're doing is absolutely wonderful and you're now you're an executive coach and a life coach.

00:34:13.081 --> 00:34:15.724
Does that mean that you work with all kinds of people?

00:34:15.724 --> 00:34:16.230
Does that mean?

00:34:16.289 --> 00:34:17.050
that you work with all kinds of people.

00:34:17.050 --> 00:34:22.795
I do, and that's something that it's part of that field called to be a teacher of life.

00:34:22.795 --> 00:34:28.137
I really enjoy the breadth of people I work with.

00:34:28.137 --> 00:34:42.507
So I work with people in their 20s up to their 60s or 70s and I teach, sometimes as a business consultant, sometimes helping people kind of figure out balance in life.

00:34:42.507 --> 00:34:52.855
Sometimes I'm even helping people, you know, in their marriages because I've, you know, worked with that.

00:34:52.875 --> 00:35:04.396
I spent a couple hours with a friend out on a golf course teaching, you know, teaching the golf swing, because I love that golf course, teaching the golf swing, because I love that.

00:35:04.396 --> 00:35:09.989
So I particularly love the breadth of situations of helping someone figure out a career direction or just how to grow in their life.

00:35:09.989 --> 00:35:55.994
So personally I enjoy the breadth of all kinds of people ages, men, women, kind of entering in wherever they are, and it in a sense feels somewhat presumptuous to be able to feel like I can speak into that, the path that God has taken me over my life of running multiple businesses across multiple industries, of having the Master's of Divinity degree, of having been a coach, of having taught in the church for 20-some years, so taught on issues like that, that this is just kind of the place that God's given me, so I just go with it.

00:35:55.994 --> 00:35:56.755
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:57.737 --> 00:36:03.217
Well, it sounds like all the things you've done are probably feeding into what you're doing now one way or another, aren't they?

00:36:04.018 --> 00:36:08.018
Absolutely, absolutely, and it took me a long time to get to this place.

00:36:08.469 --> 00:36:14.237
I was an entrepreneur, completely consumed in running businesses for 30 years.

00:36:14.858 --> 00:36:37.759
For 30 years, and it was actually as I don't know that whether we even talked about this, but it was my daughter's diagnosis with stage four cancer that turned our life upside down in 2010, caused me to need to step back in a significant way from business.

00:36:42.730 --> 00:36:52.313
About 75% of my work I stepped back from to be able to care for our family, and after a six and a half year battle with the cancer, she died in 2016.

00:36:52.313 --> 00:37:04.396
And then, all of a sudden, I had this space that had been occupied in caring for her and family, and I said at that point, I was 58 years old.

00:37:04.396 --> 00:37:06.659
I said I have a season ahead of me.

00:37:06.659 --> 00:37:08.204
I don't know how long it is.

00:37:08.204 --> 00:37:15.902
I want for it to be defined by the very best, what I am most passionate about.

00:37:15.902 --> 00:37:37.422
And so I made a complete pivot in my life from running companies to saying I want to just invest in having as much impact for good and for God as I can possibly have in people's lives and reoriented my life I guess now about seven or eight years ago in this direction.

00:37:37.969 --> 00:37:41.436
Yeah, yeah, thank you for sharing that, and I'm so sorry for your loss.

00:37:42.117 --> 00:37:44.753
Thank you, it was difficult.

00:37:44.753 --> 00:37:50.021
It was a hard, hard struggle beyond words.

00:37:50.871 --> 00:37:53.244
Yeah, I can't imagine so.

00:37:53.244 --> 00:37:59.902
Wow, well, that's one of those moments where you could just go right, that's it, we're done now.

00:37:59.902 --> 00:38:26.661
But I think I do appreciate you sharing that and I do respect and honor that you use that as like a lead into pivoting rather than a lead into despair, which is the other option, and, if anything, you have increased your desire to contribute and increased your intention to contribute.

00:38:26.661 --> 00:38:38.572
So, whereas that's not the way everybody always goes, after those really really hard experiences, Well, that's true, and a lot of that is by grace.

00:38:39.172 --> 00:39:17.942
A lot of that is we experience God's presence in such powerful, palpable, undeniable ways that it encouraged me to know that God can be present in the worst, in the hardest of life.

00:39:17.942 --> 00:39:49.744
So it increased my passion for this and I realized that if we could survive that hardest of hard things and if we could understand God's presence in that, then my friends all around me really good people who were, as the title of my book says, overloaded and overwhelmed and stressed out without a storm of life in their life that's where I went.

00:39:49.744 --> 00:39:53.414
I want to help, I want to help equip people.

00:39:53.414 --> 00:40:08.739
I want to teach them the baby steps of moving and creating a spacious life that is rich and abundant, but it's also prepared to handle the worst storms of life.

00:40:08.739 --> 00:40:10.623
So that's what that's all about.

00:40:11.731 --> 00:40:30.742
Yeah, yeah, fantastic, very, very creative way of responding, and I mean creative in the sense of following the life principle of being in the life and responding to what life's giving you, and responding from your heart.

00:40:30.742 --> 00:40:33.001
So total, deep respect for that.

00:40:33.001 --> 00:40:41.659
Amazing Thanks, amazing, thanks, amazing.

00:40:41.659 --> 00:40:51.835
So I think one thing I take from your entire story is that you are being a leader in your own life.

00:40:51.835 --> 00:40:54.440
You're not being pushed about by your life.

00:40:54.440 --> 00:41:02.193
You're responding to your life and you're standing up and saying I want to help other people and you're doing your best to help other people.

00:41:02.193 --> 00:41:17.172
And I think it's fair to say that a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are also trying to help people in the world at the moment, and some of them are officially leaders and some of them are just trying to be leaders in their own lives.

00:41:17.172 --> 00:41:27.340
And some of them are listening to us right now, and I just wonder if there's something in particular you'd like to say to those people who've just been listening to this whole conversation.

00:41:27.340 --> 00:41:30.175
Is there something you'd like to say to them?

00:41:31.099 --> 00:41:35.099
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I would want to encourage that.

00:41:35.099 --> 00:41:43.983
You know, I believe life is a joy to have, it's an opportunity, it's an adventure.

00:41:43.983 --> 00:42:03.724
So if you feel that nudge, if you feel that leaning, that urge to make more of your life, like I did 30 years ago, even in the midst of a very good life, I want to encourage people to jump at that, to move forward with that.

00:42:03.724 --> 00:42:13.974
And then I would really want to encourage them, if they don't know where to start, to just start with some baby steps.

00:42:13.974 --> 00:42:41.161
And that's why I love and was such an important part of creating change in my life by creating that time, however long it is in the morning, to center yourself and to listen to yourself, to God, to your life and the circumstances, and just at least do something.

00:42:41.161 --> 00:42:55.653
Don't just think about it, don't just be inspired, but take that and at least make one step, even if it's a very small step, one step in that direction.

00:42:57.617 --> 00:42:58.838
Wonderful, beautiful.

00:42:58.838 --> 00:43:10.052
I love the kind of shades of gray thing that you do, that you know, thing of sort of well, just try, do what you can, just, you know, just take a step and just kind of.

00:43:10.052 --> 00:43:13.480
It's a very kind of kind way of doing it, I think.

00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:23.143
And if people would like to come and work with you, I'll just say again the web address they can find you, which is tommythompsonorg.

00:43:23.143 --> 00:43:30.083
Yes, and do you see people in person or on Zoom or both, or how do you do that?

00:43:31.592 --> 00:43:40.329
Well, I do both and really probably primarily where I'm putting my time now is into some writing.

00:43:40.329 --> 00:43:48.123
So I have a blog that I write, called Reflections, that people can find on Substack.

00:43:48.123 --> 00:44:10.686
That is where I kind of share the deeper things that I'm hopefully wrestling with in life with in life and have some podcasts that I think are very meaningful about things that I'm learning and that people that I'm connected with are learning.

00:44:10.686 --> 00:44:12.858
So those are great venues.

00:44:12.858 --> 00:44:37.833
I'm not necessarily trying to build a huge coaching business, to be honest, now, but for those people that I feel like there's just a real opportunity to make a difference in their life, I love talking with them, so I always welcome having conversations to begin with, and then we can always figure out if there's a place to go from there.

00:44:38.273 --> 00:44:54.094
Yes, beautiful, I really appreciate that because there are so many people at the moment who are trying to scale their coaching business or their group facilitation business or whatever, and I think for a lot of us, particularly when we are a little bit older, we're thinking do I really want to do that?

00:44:54.094 --> 00:44:55.619
Is that really what I'm here to do?

00:44:57.349 --> 00:45:01.442
Exactly yeah, you can use up a lot of space real quickly.

00:45:02.010 --> 00:45:02.894
You really can.

00:45:02.894 --> 00:45:04.804
Then you wonder what on earth, why have I done that?

00:45:04.804 --> 00:45:10.056
And then you're right back at the beginning, exactly Fantastic.

00:45:10.056 --> 00:45:17.016
So everyone you can contact Tommy for a conversation, check out his podcast, check out his blog.

00:45:17.016 --> 00:45:20.643
Now we've talked about quite a lot today.

00:45:20.643 --> 00:45:25.918
Actually, many layers has there been.

00:45:25.918 --> 00:45:29.063
For you, has there been a favorite part of our conversation today?

00:45:30.929 --> 00:45:35.762
Gosh, a favorite part we don't script these things, do we?

00:45:36.010 --> 00:45:40.659
No, don't script these things do we, which is really, I think, so much fun.

00:45:40.659 --> 00:46:10.626
I hadn't thought, honestly, about the degree to how listening was already embedded in my life before I started that process of life mission, and our conversation kind of helped highlight that and I also, I think, personally realized, I guess, the truth of how we are often afraid of silence.

00:46:10.626 --> 00:46:29.362
We're afraid of listening because it might expose things, and so that was a reminder, even though I said it was a reminder to me that, yeah, it is a little bit scary to consider some of the things that we're talking about.

00:46:29.362 --> 00:46:33.192
It's scary for people, so honor that.

00:46:33.771 --> 00:46:36.153
Yeah, wonderful Thank you.

00:46:36.153 --> 00:46:52.864
And I'm now going to ask you one final request, which is is there some sort of reflection question that you would like to give to our listeners for them to reflect on across the coming week?

00:46:52.864 --> 00:47:01.411
That would help them to engage more deeply with some of what we've been talking about today engage more deeply with some of what we've been talking about today.

00:47:01.431 --> 00:47:02.692
Well, that's a good question.

00:47:02.692 --> 00:47:12.539
I think what I would encourage people to ask that reflection question, is what deeply matters to me.

00:47:12.539 --> 00:47:32.291
I feel like life is too short to not invest who we are, in our time, in our energy, into what matters to us.

00:47:32.291 --> 00:47:44.505
But I feel like too many people are caught up in the speed of life and just the executing of life to where they don't really ask that core, fundamental question of what really deeply matters to me.

00:47:44.505 --> 00:47:55.284
And I think as we define that and as we name that, just in the naming process, we can begin to lean towards that.

00:47:55.284 --> 00:47:59.280
So that would be perhaps the question I'd encourage people to ask.

00:47:59.949 --> 00:48:01.012
What a fantastic question.

00:48:01.012 --> 00:48:07.197
Thank you, what matters to me, tommy, this has been such a joy and a real pleasure.

00:48:07.197 --> 00:48:11.056
Thank you so much for coming on the show and thank you for everything you're doing.

00:48:12.181 --> 00:48:12.822
Well, thank you.

00:48:12.822 --> 00:48:24.052
I knew from our first conversation that this was going to be a joy to do together, that it would be an easy conversation with you.

00:48:24.052 --> 00:48:35.882
It would also be something that would be a little bit more than on the surface, and so I've thoroughly enjoyed that, and I just think what you're doing is fantastic.

00:48:36.443 --> 00:48:37.364
Thank you so much.

00:48:37.364 --> 00:48:52.967
What you're doing is fantastic.

00:48:52.967 --> 00:48:53.967
Thank you so much.

00:48:53.967 --> 00:49:03.208
You can find out about Transformational Coaching, Pellewa and the Freedom of Spirit Workshop on beingspaceworld.

00:49:03.208 --> 00:49:06.119
Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.

Ep 180: Tommy Thompson ~ Finding Clarity Amidst Life's Busyness

Listen On

Recent Episodes