Andrea Crisp – Grace, Grace

Claudia Henock 0:03
Hi, everyone, welcome to Your Most Precious Thing, the show that talks about the stories of items we hold near and dear to our hearts. I’m your host, Claudia Henock, and I’m so excited to be launching the 10th episode of this passion project of mine. I appreciate everyone that has listened to the show so far, and I’m definitely excited for the future of this podcast. And now, let’s meet our guest for this week.

Claudia Henock 0:25
Empowerment coach, author of Design with Purpose, and the host of the podcast, the Couragecast, those are the best ways to describe it Andrea Crisp, whose mission is to empower solopreneurs with tools that uplevel their mindset and unlock their potential for explosive growth in life and business.

Claudia Henock 0:46
Hi, Andrea, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Andrea Crisp 0:49
I’m good. Claudia. It’s nice to see you and chat with you.

Claudia Henock 0:54
Thank you, it’s good to hear from you as well. And so to start, what would you say is your most precious thing?

Andrea Crisp 1:02
Well, I was chatting with you a little earlier about this figurine that I was given a few years ago. And it is this figurine of a woman and her head is kind of down. And she’s got her arms with her palms open. And on the bottom of the figurine, it says the word grace. So this figure was actually gifted to me by a friend of mine, who’s also a mentor of mine for many years. And, now when I’m thinking back about the moment that she gave it to me, she often would say to me, “Andrea, Grace, Grace”, she’d always say it twice. And I wasn’t always necessarily sure why she said it twice. But it was almost kind of like sometimes we need to give ourselves grace. And then give ourselves grace again. Because it’s not just enough to say, “Okay, we can have grace for this time in our lives”, but really to say, “No, we really can have grace.” So she’d say to me, “Grace, Grace.” So it’s been something that I’ve carried around with me for many, many years and does represent kind of those moments that I need to let myself off the hook and say, “It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be fine. Grace, Grace, Andrea.”

Claudia Henock 2:23
So, what was the point in your life when you decided, “Hey, I’m being really, really hard on myself?” Where? Okay, let me just rephrase this question a little bit. Before you had met your mentor, did you give yourself grace for the mistakes that you made in your life before? Or are you the type of person that kept constantly thinking about past mistakes, past decisions in your life, and what you could have changed?

Andrea Crisp 2:52
Yeah, that’s a good question. I’ve always been a perfectionist and a little harder on myself than probably necessary. And it’s kind of that, that kind of mindset has gotten in my way a lot over the years, it’s been the thing that, in some senses has been really good for me, because I get things done, I’m able to be successful, because I have an ability to have that perfectionist mentality. But it also is, you know, on the other side, the flip side is not a great thing. Because if I make mistakes, or I feel like things aren’t just the way I want them to be, or I start overthinking, I overprocess, I get in my head, and I don’t just let it go. I see a lot of people who have the capacity just to be like, “Oh, I made a mistake, big deal. Move on.” And I’ve never been that type of person. I’m trying now to be that type of person. The older I get, the more I’m trying to show myself some grace, and live by that principle. But she gave that to me definitely as a reminder, that I needed to show myself a little bit of grace. So yes, I have always been somebody who was hard on myself.

Claudia Henock 4:09
So when you first met your mentor, how did she define what grace meant for her to you?

Andrea Crisp 4:15
Um, I think for her, it was really this, this place of like, knowing that, you know, we’re not perfect in any way and that we all need, we all need a little help. We all need a little bit more faith in our lives, we all need a little bit more of a really an understanding of how we are co creating with God, with the universe. And I think that she had a very strong faith herself. And so, you know, she, she probably had gone through maybe similar things and recognized it in me. So I think that’s kind of why she knew, “Okay, I need to give Andrea this grace”, because maybe in her own life, she was, you know, doing very similar things that I was doing it before she, you know, was able to, to extend grace in her life. So yeah, yeah, it’s definitely one of those things that I also now try and pass on to, maybe I should give my figurine away at some point to somebody.

Claudia Henock 5:20
That’s actually good point that was brought up in one of my other, one of my first episodes, too, because sometimes you just want to, in this case, pass the grace on to someone else who might need that physical reminder.

Andrea Crisp 5:31
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have gotten a friend gave me some Giving Keys, I don’t know if you ever heard of those, they’re called a Giving Key. And basically, you give it to somebody when, when you think that they need it. And they keep it for as long as they need it, and then they pass it on. And when I first started coaching, I was given a little toy train. And the coach that gave me the toy train, said to me, “Keep this as long as you need it,” as a reminder that I, like The Little Engine That Could, you know that book. Yeah, just remind yourself, you are the little engine that could, and I did, I kept it for a really long time. And then there came a point in my life where there was somebody that I knew, and I was like, “This is now needs to be passed on.” And I remember I gave her that little toy engine. And I told her the story of where I had gotten it. And while I believed that she needed it as well, and then I passed it on. So I find it’s interesting, because a lot of times we, we hold on to things like physical items. And we think that, “Okay, I need this, this is the only thing I’m going to, I need this to get by in life.” And I think, as we grow and expand, learning that things, items are for a time, they’re for a season, they’re for our growth and expansion. And it’s not really about what the item is, it’s about what it represents. And when we can kind of come to terms with what it represents in our lives, and have some healing around that. We’re really extend that grace to ourselves, we can pass it on.

Claudia Henock 7:18
And that’s something that I’ve learned as I’ve been doing this podcast as well, too, because for a lot of the people I’ve interviewed, including yourself, they have like strong connections to these items, whether it’s through a mentor or through an experience that they went through or through a family member, it’s essentially contains a story from their lives. And sometimes like the items that, the items that we have tell the best stories, essentially, of what we’ve gone through.

Andrea Crisp 7:44
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Claudia Henock 7:46
So for anyone that’s listening to this podcast right now, that is struggling to figure out, like how to give themselves grace, when it comes to struggles in your life. Do you have any advice for that type of person?

Andrea Crisp 7:58
I would say that one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is allowing yourself to show up as you are, and that it’s okay, if you make mistakes. And even if it means that, you know, you’re not going to be perceived as, as perfect to those around you. Or maybe you’re not going to measure up to your family’s, you know, expectations of you. Or you’re not going to have the quote unquote, success you desire. That it’s okay to be yourself and allow your, when you start showing up fully as yourself and you give yourself grace for just being who you are. And allow yourself also to learn and grow like you don’t want to stay the same. Like grace doesn’t mean like oh, you get to be a terrible person. And there’s grace for that it means that we have to keep growing and learning and expanding. But there’s grace for the the moments of mistakes and the moments of growth. So when you’re on that trajectory, and you’re starting to move yourself forward in life, then it’s really important that you can keep giving yourself grace because you’re going to keep growing. And it doesn’t matter how much success you have in life, you’re always gonna be presented with another opportunity to grow. And that opportunity to grow is often going to come with a set of challenges or obstacles that you’re going to have to face that you might have to give yourself grace in learning them. And so I would say to anyone that this is a an ongoing journey. So Grace, Grace, for your journey. Grace Grace for your journey.

Claudia Henock 9:41
That’s something I’m trying to learn for myself as well, because I think I’m kind of in that stage of my life where I’m just kind of like, reflecting where I’ve came from and like reflecting on the choices that I want to decide on for the rest of my life essentially. So sometimes it does feel, I guess, tough to like focus on decisions that you wish you could have changed, but so…

Andrea Crisp 10:04
Yeah, but that, you know, when we do that, when we’re like looking back and going, “Oh, I coulda, shoulda, woulda: it’s kind of like, unless you are looking at it through a lens of like, “Okay, what, what do I need to do differently?” I mean, that’s different, right? But if you’re looking at it to be hard on yourself, or to feel bad, or to, you know, just to kind of beat up on yourself, then it’s not really, like, it’s not bearing any kind of fruit in your life, it’s not making any difference. All it’s doing is making you feel bad. And, like, what’s the point in that? Right? You know, like, if you want to learn, then yeah, learn and look and go, “Okay, I could have done that differently. And note to self, next time, I’m going to do that differently.” Whereas it’s like, “Oh, I’m so terrible. I’m such a failure. You know, I, you know, I’m the worst person ever”, and that really is not helpful in any way, you know, to, to you or to anybody around you so…

Claudia Henock 11:04
Yeah, and that’s something that I’m learning myself too, because I’m gonna be honest, I, there have been days where I feel like the crappiest person in the world. So it kind of feels like you’re digging yourself out of a hole. But someday, your head’s gonna pop up from the ground, and you’re gonna see the world’s okay.

Andrea Crisp 11:19
Yeah, that’s right, right, when you have that, that kind of that outlook, kind of like, you know what, maybe I fall in a hole, maybe a trip in a hole every so often. But that’s okay. It’s kind of like just pop out and like little turtle pops its head out. And it’s like, okay, here I am, again, right? We all have that, that opportunity to, to really have, you know, because when you really think about it, people don’t talk about this enough. But everybody goes through stuff. So whether they’re admitting it or not, or whether they’re sharing it with the world or not, a lot of people don’t want everyone else to see their hardships, or to see the times where they’re judging themselves, or when they’re being hard on themselves, or they feel like they failed, they don’t want to talk about that, because that’s difficult, and they don’t want other people’s opinions to be swayed about them, because of maybe how they face a certain situation. But because we don’t talk about it, people think that, “Oh, well, if I go through a hard time, then you know, I’m the only one that goes through a hard time.” And that’s just not true. Like, everyone goes through hard times. And everyone has the opportunity to, you know, come to this, this place. So it’s not just you, it’s not just me, it’s every one of us. And the more honest we are about our struggles and our challenges and overcoming them. I think the more permission, it gives other people to really be able to face them for themselves.

Claudia Henock 12:51
There’s a lot of good golden nuggets of advice in there that a lot of people, that a lot of people would really be very fortunate to hear as well. And I really do appreciate it. How do you give yourself grace when it comes to your personal life and your business as well, because we previously work together when it comes to working on your podcast and in working on your coaching business. So how do you give yourself grace when it comes to both your personal and your professional life?

Andrea Crisp 13:24
When you know, first of all, I think it’s always important that you give yourself grace, personally, first, because you’re human before you do anything, right, you are a person before you ever do anything with your job, or as an entrepreneur, or if you, you know, carry some sort of position in the world. And I think that if you can learn how to give yourself grace, personally, then it’s going to help you to be a better human when you’re working with other people. And so for me, there have been times where I’ve had, you know, difficulties like I’ve lost a job unexpectedly. And I felt terrible. Like I thought, “Oh my gosh, everybody’s going to judge me. And this is this the worst thing ever.” And I remember thinking to myself, you know, Andrea, you can either learn from this, or you can wallow in self pity. And so I had to learn that, you know, what is this opening me up to? Like, is there a new door, that of opportunity that’s going to be presented to me that I may be not aware of, and that I need to allow myself to walk through. But if I’m beating myself up too much, I’m almost like, it’s like, I’m keeping myself from any of those open doors. I’m keeping myself hidden away from opportunity. But the more honest, I am about, you know what? That didn’t really go as planned. It’s kind of embarrassing. I lost a job, but here I am, and it’s okay. And now I’m just open for more opportunities. That’s grace, that’s extending Grace.

Andrea Crisp 15:00
It’s also times where, you know, maybe you said something in a heat of the moment to someone in your life. And, you know, being able to give yourself enough grace to say, “Yeah, like, I shouldn’t said that, like, that was not good, like, I’m sorry”, and, and really owning up to our mistakes, owning up to who we are, allowing ourselves to just have grace in those moments, and be real and honest with our family and with ourselves. And when you can do that, personally, then you can show up in your professional life and do the same thing. So if you make mistakes in business, which inevitably, are going to happen, because yeah, obviously, you know, happens, that it’s not like, you’re like just standing there thinking, Oh, you’re such a terrible business person, or, I mean, there’s been times where I’ve put podcasts out, speaking of podcasts, I put podcast episodes out, and I’m like, oh, that was such a dud, like that was like, it was not a good podcast episode, or it really fell flat. And that’s the moment where you can either choose one thing or the other, you can either, like go down that rabbit hole of saying, “Oh, you’re the worst person ever. You’re terrible podcaster, or you should quit podcasting altogether”. Or you can be like, “well, that’s a good learning experience. Maybe next time, I need to listen to my intuition about maybe not putting that podcast out, or, you know, taking a break if I need it”, and just having the grace to be able to extend it to yourself and know that it’s okay. And it doesn’t have to be perfect success does not require perfection. So success requires you to show up fully, and own yourself and your mistakes, and just be 100% responsible for who you are in every way, so.

Claudia Henock 16:50
That’s definitely a really good point that you brought about success as well, and sometimes when it comes to starting something brand new, for example. And sometimes when it comes to stuff like that, people are afraid of making mistakes, or just not being the completely the best person for this particular role. One thing that I’ve learned is just to do it scared.

Andrea Crisp 17:11
Yeah. It’s great. That’s great. Claudia like, that’s it, just do it scared because you don’t know, right?

Claudia Henock 17:18
Just do it scared, because you may either completely hate it and say, “Oh, this isn’t for me, but I’m glad I did it”. Or you may completely fall in love with it and decide to keep going.

Andrea Crisp 17:28
Yeah, and you never know sometimes how good you’re going to be at something when you give yourself the chance. You know, you might like, it’s like podcasting. When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing. So I had to learn everything. I had to, you know, research things. I had, I made so many mistakes in how I recorded things at the beginning. I look back and I think oh my gosh, like some of those episodes were just terrible. I mean, some of them were really great, too. But you know, at the beginning, you’re just learning. But if I had like given up after the mistakes, I would never be where I am today, many, many years later, still podcasting. Because I, now when I press record, I don’t care as much. Like yeah, if there’s mistakes, there’s mistakes. I don’t care, because I’m not afraid to show up as, as myself now. And I think I was trying to be so perfect at the beginning that no leaving no room for error, and now I’m kind of like, you know what, I’m just human. So it is what it is. And I mean, it’s not like you know, they’re paying me millions of dollars for this podcast. I can make some mistakes.

Claudia Henock 18:34
Totally. So Andrea, I want to say thank you so much for being on my show. And we’ll definitely have to chat a little bit after I end the recording as well. So if people want to find you online, or your find your coaching business online, or where can they find you?

Andrea Crisp 18:50
Well, you can always find me on Instagram. That’s kind of where I hangout. So you can find me @andreacrispcoach. You can also find the podcast, @the.couragecast, which you know about because you were very instrumental in helping me with my podcast. And also I’m online at andreacrisp.ca. So I’d love to connect or chat with anybody.

Claudia Henock 19:12
Awesome! And, Andrea, I want to say thank you so much for being on my show. And it’s really great to reconnect with you. And yes, I’m trying to work on reconnecting with the relationships with my life and, and I’m really excited to talk with you again soon.

Andrea Crisp 19:27
Yeah, well, thank you, Claudia. I appreciate you reminding me of the most precious thing that I have.

Claudia Henock 19:33
I appreciate it. Thank you so much again and have an awesome day.

Andrea Crisp 19:39
You too.

Claudia Henock 19:40
Alright, bye.

Claudia Henock 19:41
Thank you for listening to this episode of Your Most Precious Thing. If you want to support the show, you can leave a review on your favorite podcast platform, and share your favorite episode with a friend. You can also contact me @claudiahenock on Instagram and Twitter, and Claudia Henock on LinkedIn, in additon to claudiahenock1@gmail.com You can also follow Your Most Precious Thing through my official website, www.claudiahenock.com, and anywhere you listen to your podcasts. Also, I am so excited to announce that starting next episode, there will be a new cover art for the show. And I’m so excited to show to everyone. Intro and Outro music is Synapse by Shane Ivers and you can also listen to his music on silvermansound.com.