She Is A Leader - The Podcast

Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]:
Hollywow. You are in for a special treat with this episode of She Is A Leader, featuring Andrea Johnson. Look, I know how it is when you are told to tone it down, when you are told you are too much, when we are told we are too much. When somebody tries to put us in a box because of how you look, how you speak, or just how we show up in the world. And Andrea gets it, too. What I love about this conversation is how real Andrea gets about breaking free from these expectations. She shares her journey from music industry professional to powerhouse leadership coach. And trust me, her story of finding her authentic voice will hit you right in the fields.

Yvonne Heimann [00:00:57]:
We dig into some really deep stuff here. How personal loss has transformed her approach to life. Why understanding your core values changes everything. Freedom of thought is her number one, by the way. And what it means to finally say screw it to other people's judgments. This episode feels like sitting down with your two friends who get what it's like to struggle with showing up authentically. And Andrea puts it perfectly when she says, I'm final showing up as me. And isn't that what we all want? If you ever felt judged just for being who you are, or if you're ready to step into your power without apology, come join us for this episode of She Is A Leader.

Yvonne Heimann [00:01:46]:
I promise you, it'll make you feel less alone and more inspired to embrace your unique leadership style. And remember, we are all in this together. This is your community where you can show up as you are and all of you. And I can't wait to hear what resonates with you in the comments. And with that, I would love to introduce you to Andrea Johnson. She empowers executives and founders to lead with authenticity, conviction, and confidence so they can make a positive impact on their lives, organizations, and communities. Uncovering and understanding the significance of her core values became the key to the process that allows her clients to become impactful leaders. Her passion is equipping female leaders.

Yvonne Heimann [00:02:45]:
Now you know why she's here. Double, double fold to define a new culture by trusting their own ability to think critically, create imaginatively, and lead effectively. And Andrea, your submission also had the my most favorite word in their core values.

Andrea Johnson [00:03:07]:
Hey, that's. That's my. That's my word

Yvonne Heimann [00:03:09]:
You being a female leader. No question. Sure do I want to have you on the she is the Leader podcast and supporting female leaders. And like, literally I went. I read through your submission like Core values. Oh my God, I have to have.

Yvonne Heimann [00:03:26]:
Her on with that. With all of these amazing alignments and accomplishments and similarities between us both. I'm curious, Little Andrea. Little, little, little Andrea. Did she think you're gonna end up doing what you do today?

Andrea Johnson [00:03:47]:
Heavens, no. Little Andrea wanted to be Karen Carpenter. I love it. Oh, yeah. Little Andrea was a performer. But I was told a lot and, you know, this is, this is what we get a lot of times when women are leaders. I was told a lot that I was too loud, I was too opinionated, or I was too bossy and that I needed to learn my place. And not everybody wants to hear my opinions.

Andrea Johnson [00:04:11]:
And, you know, it's just. It's kind of hard to. To discover your leadership talents or even just to be authentic to who you are when you're constantly trying to fit into these social norms. So that was a very doing performing. And I mean, I've had a music business degree. You know, I actually worked for record companies. I actually went that far with it. But that was something where, when you're in the entertainment industry, it's fine to be a sassy, smart, strong woman.

Andrea Johnson [00:04:37]:
Right? That's a really safe place for a strong woman to be. Probably safer now than it was back when I was trying to do it. But, you know, I think we all. Anybody that wanted to aspire to be a singer or anything imagines a Taylor Swift type strength or Beyonce type strength or being able to have those kinds of opinions and, and sway that people with your thoughts and your. And your ideas, not to mention your talent. But no, even 10 years ago, Andrea had no idea this is what I would be doing.

Yvonne Heimann [00:05:07]:
So I'm curious because it's like, yeah, sister from another Mr. The whole too loud. You're supposed to be seen, not heard. All of. All of the stuff that gets put onto us. I'm curious, was there. Did you use your work in the industry to be like, I'm not listening to you, or did you initially buy into it and then break out of it? Because, heck, girl, be the loudest. And yes, you are showing up as a leader.

Yvonne Heimann [00:05:40]:
So I'm curious, did you initially believe what you were told and you broke out of that mold, or did you use the industry to just go straight and not believe it to begin with?

Andrea Johnson [00:05:52]:
I wish I could say the second was my answer, but it's not. My. My story is one of believing it to the point of my own detriment and to the place where I finally kind of got broken in my understanding of who I was and why I was here and what I was doing and went through major breakage and deconstruction and reconstruction. Because it's not just that I'm also from the evangelical culture. My husband is a pastor. So I have all of that together, all that conditioning and. And I am, if you know anything about enneagram, I'm an enneagram 6. So I am all about staying within.

Andrea Johnson [00:06:30]:
Either I fight the rules or I stay within the rules. And so when I wanted to be accepted, I just internalized and doubled down on all the rules and everything I was supposed to do to the point where I even was finally able to adopt a child at 42 because we had infertility issues. I went through early menopause. But when I adopted him, when we adopted him, I thought I was supposed to stay home. It was miserable. And I mean, I'm somebody who's a doer. Even though I'm home all the time now as a self employed person, I can't do nothing. I can't sit around and do nothing.

Andrea Johnson [00:07:05]:
But I wish I could say that I didn't buy into it, but Yvonne, I did. I bought into it hook, line and sinker. And it took a really hard year of 2016 to 2018, a couple of years in there of 2016 to 2018 to show me. And somebody else said it recently, they thought they were right until all of a sudden they realized we were wrong. And I'm like, yeah, I thought I was right until I understood and saw it was as if somebody took me and like turned me around 360 and said, look at what you're espousing. And so there was a lot of grieving going on there, not just for myself, but the way I had. Because I'm still a leader even if I had bought into all of that. Right.

Andrea Johnson [00:07:45]:
And I, because in the church especially, I led a lot of women, I did a lot of things. There was a lot of breakage and breaking down. But I just, I've come back stronger. And now, you know, there are people in my family who think I've lost my religion, but it's not true. But it just is a very. I'm just finally showing up as me.

Yvonne Heimann [00:08:05]:
And I, I think, God, there's so many layers to this, right? It's on, on religion. Yes. I have experienced. I'm not, I'm not baptized or anything. My parents were always like, when you turn 18, you can decide where you want to go and what you believe and all the things. And I'm like, I pull things from everything and I love certain things and I don't like how certain things manifest. So I have experienced what it feels like when somebody is like, you lost your religion? I'm like, no, I actually didn't. It just manifests different for me than it does for you.

Yvonne Heimann [00:08:47]:
That. That came to mind for me. And that's where I see you. I'm like, even speaking beforehand and reading your bio, I'm like, no, it just manifests differently. It shows up differently. There is so many different ways how we can interpret the same things in different ways and they can all coexist all at the same time. Having said that, I'm curious, what was the activator for the. I don't want to say breakdown, for the change, for everything happening, for doing the work.

Andrea Johnson [00:09:23]:
Several things, but they kind of coalesced into like one six to eight month period of time. First of all, it was my disillusionment with my work. I spent 25 years in the higher education system. I was almost little, actually. Two years at graduate school where I met my husband. Then I was 11 and a half years at Johns Hopkins Oncology center, where I learned to. I became like a research administrator where I helped get all the grants and all that kind of stuff. We did cancer research.

Andrea Johnson [00:09:53]:
And then I moved to the University of Virginia here in Charlottesville, where I started out as a research administrator and a grants administrator and moved back into the School of Medicine doing operations, administration. And so I did all the budgets and all the numbers and all that kind of stuff. The problem is in large institutions like that, they want you to stay like the same. They want you to stay there. They want everybody to stay. They don't want any upheaval. And I get it. They need institutional knowledge, that kind of thing.

Andrea Johnson [00:10:17]:
But I needed to grow, and I wanted to help my people grow. So I was already chafing over that and understanding that my top core value is freedom of thought. Now, looking back, I don't fit into a big system very well because I don't need you telling me what to think. Right. So that was the first thing. The second thing was my mother was diagnosed with cancer back in 2000, 2003, something like that, anyway, breast cancer. And we. We put her in hospice in September of 2016, and we lost her in February 2017.

Andrea Johnson [00:10:53]:
And that I was 50. And at that point, it just was very. That was a seminal piece for me. It was going to a crucible. But then there was also the 2016 US presidential election, which opened my eyes to a lot of things that I had been closing them to for many, many, many years. And also here in Charlottesville in August of 2017. So it's like a one year period of time. The Unite the Right rally came through here, and it was the Nazis and the white supremacists, and a girl died who lived down the street from us or like right down the road from us.

Andrea Johnson [00:11:27]:
And all of those things together just had me take a look at myself and say, girl, what. All the stuff that you have espoused in the past, this is the end result, right? It's like either. Either you know where you're going and who you're supporting and what you believe in. It's really difficult to say, I am an evangelical Christian when evangelical Christians are doing these things. I can't do that. So I have. I have to. I had to start shedding labels.

Andrea Johnson [00:11:54]:
I had to start deciding what was important. And I started out positively, though. I started out with trying to. When I lost my mother, my first thing was, what do I stand for? What do I believe? And that's where intentional optimism came from. I started. I like brainstormed and pulled all that together. I don't need to go into the full process unless you want it. But that was the first place I started, was what can I do positively to say, I'm gonna.

Andrea Johnson [00:12:16]:
If this is my first 50 years, I'm gonna be really optimistic and say, I'm gonna have another 50. And how are they gonna look different?

Andrea Johnson [00:12:23]:
There were some things that my mother did beautifully. She died well. I mean, dying to me is not a pretty thing. And I. I was there and it's not. To me, it's not. I don't. I don't wish that on anybody.

Andrea Johnson [00:12:36]:
But she did it with grace and courage. And two days before she died, she was on the floor playing with my 8 year old son. And, you know, I mean, so things like that, it's like, I want that kind of resilience. I want that kind of courage. I want that kind of resolve. And, you know, we can look at people and say, I don't have that in me. How am I going to foster that? Because it might not be my natural tendency. So I saw that.

Andrea Johnson [00:13:02]:
I also saw that she was really good at walking in a room and just lighting the whole thing up like a bottle of champagne. And I could walk in a room and say, what is wrong with y'all? It's like, okay, I want to switch that.

Andrea Johnson [00:13:17]:
I'd like to have people be happy. I came in the room. So that was the first thing I did. And then as I started digging deeper, I realized, oh, this is much deeper than my behavior. This we have to go much, much deeper. So those were the things that started me on that road and started me asking the questions and going back to my critical thinking skills that I had been taught when I was younger and that I had abandoned throughout my adult life in order to fit in. Does that make sense?

Yvonne Heimann [00:13:46]:
Oh, it completely makes sense. Especially after I had a similar experience with my late husband. Two years of cancer. And I was there when he passed. Similar experience where it's like so many people are afraid to die. And right now this is me still too, because I still have a list of things I want to accomplish, the impact I still want to have. I'm not ready for that. I know it's coming, but I'm not ready for that.

Yvonne Heimann [00:14:16]:
He was so at peace with everything where it's like we all were there. The whole family was there. It was such a peaceful moment. I wish everybody could experience it like that. But unfortunately, as we hear from other stories, that's. We are. We are a small percentage that. That get to experience that on either which way.

Yvonne Heimann [00:14:40]:
And I think that's same. Same with me where that started to. To activate those questions of I know this day is coming for me too. I want to be able to go at peace and not the stories you hear of. Like, yeah, I regret not doing this and not doing this. Where it's like we always know. We always hear those stories. But now suddenly you are in the situation where it's.

Yvonne Heimann [00:15:09]:
It is that. That trauma experience of where suddenly now it's really in your face. And I wish I still fall old. Fall back into old habits where I'm like, how did I get here again of not caring or however I want to put it where it's like I lost track. But I'm like, I'm also just human things gonna happen. And I ramp back up. And I wish what losing Pete did helped me I would be able to transfer that without the trauma attached to it, without having to experience this. Where it's like, guys, tomorrow is not a given.

Yvonne Heimann [00:15:47]:
And it's. It's such a profound moment and such impactful. I would love for people to be able to experience that without having to experience it.

Andrea Johnson [00:15:56]:
Agreed. And I'm sorry for your loss. And you know, we don't think about. Because the younger we are, the less we think about, you know, the end. The older we get. Every. Every ache and pain, every whatever comes around. It's like I'm thinking about it and I just flew for the first time since all these plane crashes happened.

Andrea Johnson [00:16:15]:
And I told My son, who's 16, I said, I'm going to do this better next time, but I want to make sure that the last words I say to you are, I love you and I think you're amazing and this is all going to be. And he's like, can you not go? And that's not how we do this. I'm really sorry. So it's like, even little things like that give us the opportunity to change how we do each day. Like, he gets on the bus to go to school in the morning. I have no idea if there's going to be a problem. Right. And so I want to make sure that as he leaves the house, I want to say whatever I need to say.

Andrea Johnson [00:16:44]:
My mother and I spent six months, I would go over there once a week to stay a couple nights to relieve my dad. And because they were just over in Richmond, and she would sit knee to knee with me and say, have I told you everything? Have I told you how wonderful you are? Have I. Is there any question you have? And so she approached it that way. And I'm like, I gotta do this now, right? I can't, I can't wait till the end. We're not promised a ten year battle with cancer or even a two year battle with cancer. We may need. We may go like die in our soup or on the freeway. And we need to.

Andrea Johnson [00:17:20]:
This sounds very macabre, but we need to be able to say, I lived well. Right. And I want everybody around me to say, I lived well. And so I think at the core of what I try to do is I try to help everybody say, I lived well.

Yvonne Heimann [00:17:33]:
And it's interesting because I do the same thing. I actually had this conversation with my partner where his perception is, you don't want to say I love you too often because it just becomes a habit. And I'm like, hails to the.

Andrea Johnson [00:17:45]:
No, no.

Yvonne Heimann [00:17:46]:
You are hearing it every single day. Because I don't know when I get to say it again.

Andrea Johnson [00:17:52]:
Right? Yeah.

Yvonne Heimann [00:17:53]:
So it's, it's interesting how how those different situations shape us now. How has all of this, this experience shaped you as a leader? How do you show up nowadays as a leader supporting your clients, supporting your community?

Andrea Johnson [00:18:13]:
Yeah, I like the way you phrase that and gave the subcategories to it because a lot of times people don't think of themselves as a leader unless they're leading a team or unless they're a boss or unless they're in charge of Something. And when I first started my podcast and my messaging, it was, everybody's a leader. You just have to show up as a leader wherever you are. And I am a John Maxwell Leadership Team, certified speaker, trainer, coach, executive leader program. And one of the things he talks about is the first person you lead is yourself. And so in that area, that's how it shaped me, because my core values are freedom of thought, belonging, and authenticity. That's my top three. And I can't be authentic if I'm not doing what I'm asking my clients to do, if I am not actually walking the same road as they're walking.

Andrea Johnson [00:19:03]:
So when I do a workshop, when I am the leader for the event at my church, when I am teaching Sunday school, when I am telling my son how to start becoming an adult at 16, I mean, it's like all those things. Everything that I have learned so far is teaching me how to be a better leader. And so it gives me the thing that I love to tell people is the basics for being a leader is understanding yourself, understanding who you are, which is our core values. And when we do that, then we have confidence, and we don't feel like we need to defend ourselves. We don't feel like. And that's part of my. That was part of my church deconstruction. I don't feel like I need to defend Jesus or, I mean, it's like, I don't need to defend any of that.

Andrea Johnson [00:19:51]:
And I don't need to defend me either, because this is who I am. And evidently I was made. I need to be as gracious and kind as possible. But I think that's the biggest shift in my leadership is I don't feel like I have to apologize.

Yvonne Heimann [00:20:03]:
Love that. Love that. Because I think what happens, the better we understand ourself. If that's core values, if that's behavior, if that's language patterns, whatever it is, if we. The moment we are like, you know what? I know who I am, and I don't. I don't think we know who we are in the younger age. We test a lot of things out. We.

Yvonne Heimann [00:20:27]:
What works for us, what do we like? What we. What do we not like? Once we get. I'm like, mine. I'm. I'm like, I'm the stereotype. As they left, 40 came around, and I'm like, things just changed. The total stereotype. 40 walks around.

Yvonne Heimann [00:20:46]:
And I'm like, I don't. I don't care. I'm doing what I want to do as long as I don't hurt or kill anybody. It doesn't. I get to be me. I'm me now. Everybody else told me over the years who I'm supposed to be. I'm done being supposed to.

Yvonne Heimann [00:20:59]:
I am now. And I think when. When we get to the point of, first of all, acceptance and understanding, we get to a point of, I don't need to justify myself. I don't need to explain myself. You, either way, gonna get along and accept what it is, or you're gonna work on it or you're not. That's. That's you. That's not me.

Yvonne Heimann [00:21:23]:
That's you. And that's where for me, a lot of freedom came in, where I'm like, do I. Do I want to have all the people that ever crossed the. My path in my life close to me? Yeah, I'm. I'm in. I'm a dog. It's like I'm Chinese, simple dog. I like everything in peace and everybody together and everybody just in a dog pile and cuddling.

Yvonne Heimann [00:21:48]:
That's me. But you know what if that means I'm losing my peace because there is one doggy in there that still has to do some work and is aggressive. I'm not. I am. I am happy and fine by myself if I need to be. I will not have people in my life just because I don't want to be alone.

Yvonne Heimann [00:22:11]:
And that's. That's one of the big changes that has happened for me in just diving into my core values. What do I actually care about, what activates me and what drives my decisions and really understanding that and then being able to say, you know what? Yes, I'm loud. Yes, I curse, yes, I'm German. I might not be quite as fluffy, but I am working on being a little bit more emotional publicly. And not just the systems girl working on it. But you know what?

Yvonne Heimann [00:22:41]:
I am who I am right now, and I'm proud of being here and who I am.

Yvonne Heimann [00:22:45]:
And it sounds like that's exactly what you experience, too, in. In your growth phase.

Andrea Johnson [00:22:51]:
Yeah. And it's still going on. I mean, I. I didn't really start tackling any of this. I did a lot of personal growth a lot. Like, I even have original on video here you can see my governing values. These are from 1995. And I read Stephen Covey's book.

Andrea Johnson [00:23:08]:
And at the very end, it was, you're going to figure out your governing values. And the very top one was freedom. I just didn't have a good definition of it. But these. I mean, this is laminated with packing tape. Okay. That's how old this is. Yeah.

Andrea Johnson [00:23:21]:
And. But I had done a little bit of that work, but I hadn't really. I just. Just doubled. Like I said before, I just doubled down on the rules and made sure that I stayed within the rules. There was all this cognitive dissonance. There were things that didn't work. And as a.

Andrea Johnson [00:23:35]:
As a byproduct, I ended up. When I was younger, I had bulimia and depression. I ended up. I weighed over 310 pounds. I had gastric bypass 20 years ago this week. And, you know, so. But these are all things. So there's a lot of.

Andrea Johnson [00:23:52]:
And I'm working with a coach now where I'm actually starting to understand the thought patterns that come back sometimes that remind me of when I was 15 with bulimia. And it's like, oh, where is that coming from? You know? So it's like I'm finally getting down to a lot of that stuff. But being able to say, I'm really, really me didn't start until the last five years, because I was going towards, you know, like, intentional optimism, moving towards things on the outside, which is the way we. We always start with behavior. Right. It's the easiest place to start. And so I. I started there.

Andrea Johnson [00:24:26]:
And, you know, people still look at me and say, you don't. You seem different, but not, you know, so I'm like, okay, well, there's a certain amount of me that I just can't rein in. The spunky's never gonna go away. The spunky was always there. I. I can't believe I didn't get fired for some of the things I said to at least two of my bosses.

Yvonne Heimann [00:24:49]:
Oh, I did get fired.

Andrea Johnson [00:24:51]:
Oh, well, I did, too. But that was when I was in college. By the time I was, you know, 50, I. When I first came to Virginia, to the University of Virginia, my boss had done something about. He was trying to put. And I didn't realize this worked this way, but I was on. It was a different kind of team than I was on. And he actually put a meeting on my calendar.

Andrea Johnson [00:25:11]:
And I literally said. I mean, not in these words. I don't think I said. I don't think I said, who do you think you are putting a meeting on my calendar? But I said, why do you put a meeting on my calendar?

Yvonne Heimann [00:25:21]:
So you pretty much said that you used the corporate version of who do you think you are putting?

Andrea Johnson [00:25:27]:
Really? You know, I mean, it's like, literally, it was. It was. And. And. And he said, oh, I mean, I think he was just really taken back. Nicest guy. You know, he was not a good manager, but nicest guy. And I think he was just really shocked that I was upset because it was a meeting with him.

Andrea Johnson [00:25:47]:
It was just the two of us. It wasn't like. It just felt really odd. It wasn't, hey, do you mind meeting. Clearly, I am not that person. You don't just tell me what to do. And so these kind of things kept showing up and. Right.

Andrea Johnson [00:26:00]:
And the more I looked back at them, I realized, oh, so when I started looking at my core values, I started realizing, well, now it all makes sense, right? This idea of getting. Almost getting my Masters of Divinity, which I'm hopefully going to start finishing this year, 30 years later. That's where I met my husband. Maybe getting a PhD but being upset when people would say to me, my husband would even say, so wouldn't you agree that something? And I could not. My mother would say, isn't this the prettiest picture? And I just didn't know how to respond to these kinds.

Yvonne Heimann [00:26:33]:
Tell me what to think.

Andrea Johnson [00:26:34]:
You got it. It's like, I. I didn't know how to respond to those phrases because if I didn't like that picture, then I was going to disappoint my precious mother. And if I liked it, I felt a little manipulated and coerced. And so this is just. Not everybody has this problem. My sister's like, I don't understand why you can't just say, sure. Like, because.

Andrea Johnson [00:26:55]:
Because I want to be honest. I know. And when I. I went, I left for college. My sister's almost five years behind me in school. And I left for college and they came states because I was raised in Korea. My parents were missionaries. And I went to school by myself and then finished, came home and.

Andrea Johnson [00:27:12]:
And went back to. I just couldn't hack it out in Los Angeles and the music industry. It was too much. And came back to live with them. And she was a junior in high school, senior in high school. Anyway, she said, let me give you a tip. Whatever they say, just say, yes, ma'am, no ma'am, yes or no, sir, and just then go do what you want. And I'm like, what? And she said, andrea, I've watched you all my life.

Andrea Johnson [00:27:37]:
You beat your head against a wall trying to get them to agree with you or trying to have, you know, to, like, meet in the middle somewhere. She said, just say, they don't care. They just want you to say you're going to obey And I'm like, that is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard in my life. We just have very different personalities. And if you don't honor who you are. And so what I learned with my husband was I told him, I said, look, this is a thing for me. I would like for it not to be a thing. It just is.

Andrea Johnson [00:28:07]:
I don't know how to explain it to you, but, you know, I met him in grad school. We were in seminary together. So it's like, we have theological discussions, and we'll now sit across the living room on a Saturday morning and have a thorny theological back and forth. And it's stimulating. We love it.

Yvonne Heimann [00:28:23]:
I love those conversations.

Andrea Johnson [00:28:24]:
Yeah. But he has to. He will ask me, what do you think about this? Or have you read this and do you understand it? Or what is this. This mean to you? Because he's learned not to say, wouldn't you agree? Because what if I don't agree? You know, so things like that have helped me. You know, having other people in my life who also want to honor my core values have helped me step into who I am. And so I'm still getting there. And when you do this for 50 years and then make a really drastic change, there's a lot of conditioning to undo and a lot of beliefs to jettison and a lot of. I call it scaffolding.

Andrea Johnson [00:29:01]:
A lot of. There's a lot of junk to get rid of, superfluous junk to get rid of. And, you know, it's. Every time I. Every once in a while I'll tell my husband, so I don't think this anymore, and he'll go, oh, you know.

Yvonne Heimann [00:29:13]:
Having somebody in your life that can take this, I'm like, I have similar conversations with my partner right now where it's like, this is how I perceive this. This is how I feel in this situation. And we can have these conversations without pointing fingers at each other, without each one taking blame for it, because there is no taking blame. It's just. It's. It's a different experience. It's a different set of core values. It's a.

Yvonne Heimann [00:29:45]:
It's a different perception and getting to the point of, first of all, not being the victim of, oh, my God, nobody. No, I made somebody bad. No, it's just their personality. Just let them tell the. The activator that happened. I don't like trigger. Trigger is always negative. But it's like, I.

Yvonne Heimann [00:30:05]:
I activate people. Yes, I can be a lot. Yes. I potentially step into that pile of goo that's coming back from your childhood. But if you don't tell me, I don't know. And I can't adjust. So being able to have these conversations without interpersonal emotions connected to it, I don't need myself to be validated. He doesn't have to be validated.

Yvonne Heimann [00:30:30]:
We can just have these conversations and adjust accordingly.

Andrea Johnson [00:30:35]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I will tell you one of the places where it makes the biggest difference. Like I said, I have a 16 year old, so he's 16 now. And, and he thinks for himself too. And we are not perfect. All the parenting stuff that we thought we knew. Like I said, he came into our lives. I was 42, so I was a grown woman and I had my own way of doing things.

Andrea Johnson [00:30:58]:
And I came from the 60s where I was born in 66. Right. So my parents are like, kids are seen and not heard and you do what we tell you to do. And that's already hard for a strong willed child, supposedly, as if that's a bad thing. But for us, we had to learn. He was adopted, he's not genetically related to us. He has adhd, he has some other things that go with adhd. And we had to learn a whole new way of parenting.

Andrea Johnson [00:31:25]:
And I mean, my parents looked at us in certain areas because he needed to be swaddled for a long time just because of other issues and because he came to us at nine weeks. So my, we swaddled him for a really long time. My dad was like, this looks like child abuse. I'm like, this is not helpful. It's like this helps him, you know, you saying that to me is not helpful. This helps him sleep.

Yvonne Heimann [00:31:44]:
But it's like, interestingly enough, I literally sleep with a weighted blanket to feel like I'm being swaddled. But it's, it's the, it's the experience he carries. And it's like five.

Andrea Johnson [00:31:57]:
Yeah, he has five blankets on his bed at all times. And I, I open the door to check on him every night because I'm a mom and I just open to see if he's sleeping and he's usually asleep. If he's not asleep, he's pretending and he's good at it. But he's, it's like this big pile on the bed and it's all these blankets. I'm like, aren't you hot? He's like, no. I'm like, okay, whatever it takes. I'm not, I'm not here to judge. Right.

Andrea Johnson [00:32:19]:
So like, we just need to wash them every so often. But in working with, figuring out him because he's blossoming into a grown human and we're trying to help him figure out who he is and how we need to interact with him. And we have our own baggage. So sometimes having conversations within the family where we sit down and we say, all right, nobody's judging here. And if there's emotions, we're going to give each other the benefit of the doubt because we all have a different perspective, we all have different core values. This has helped our family more than any client I have ever helped. And so if you're sitting here listening to this conversation thinking, yeah, I know my values, I don't know that you do. I just.

Andrea Johnson [00:33:01]:
99% of my clients think they know their core values and 100% of them do not. They might know one, but they don't, or they're not honoring them. And it's always shocking to people when they actually dig down deep enough to see who they really are.

Yvonne Heimann [00:33:19]:
Because I think a lot still think when they hear values, it's like your business values that you decide on, you don't decide on those. And, and that's, that's like the, where I come at, I come at core values from the neuro linguistic programming perspective where we, we have our, our script to literally pull them out. And it's fun watching my clients every single time when I do that, where it's like, she asked the same question again, what the hell? And it's like I literally pre frame them. I'm like, so you're gonna think I'm completely insane because I ask you the same question over and over and over again. Believe me, there, there is reason to this insanity. Just go for it. And it's interesting every single time to see the reaction afterwards when I'm like, and here is what we got out of you. Oh, this makes sense.

Andrea Johnson [00:34:17]:
I'm like, yeah. Every time. Yeah, I come at it from a similar. I was trained by someone who was nlp, but mine is just a little bit different. I'm. I am a. I don't know if you understand human design or anything, but I am a generator. And so having the back and forth is really.

Andrea Johnson [00:34:33]:
That's where my. That's where I shine. And half the time I don't even know what I'm saying. So we record everything manifesting generator. Seriously, where it's like, I'm a pure generator.

Yvonne Heimann [00:34:44]:
Even, even in the podcast, it's like, I don't know what I talked about the last hour. AI, you need to run through the transcript and give me an intro.

Andrea Johnson [00:34:51]:
I. Yeah, so what I do with them is I walk them. So I have a hybrid program where I let them do a digital course. And then so they do some work on their own. And then we come together and I push back and go back and forth and I make them define things for me. I make them tell me how that looks in their life. And so it's very similar to, like. And I'll just go through and I'll just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing.

Andrea Johnson [00:35:14]:
And then they'll say, oh, maybe it's not that. Okay, let's keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And then they get down to where it is. So it's a very similar process just from a different angle. But it means that people are willing to say, this is who I am and not anybody else. And watching. And I'm sure you go through this, watching them bing that little light. It's like the heavens open up and the skies go, oh, it is so rewarding to.

Andrea Johnson [00:35:43]:
Then that's just the beginning of the process, right? That's just the beginning. Because most of the time when, like I had these 30 years ago, that's the beginning. And what happens is we go deeper and deeper. The more we integrate them, the more we honor them, the more we align our goals with them, the more we realize, oh, wait a minute. My. Originally I thought my top core value, I thought it was community. But I realized and now I'm landing on belonging because it's not community. I can be alone all day, every day.

Andrea Johnson [00:36:16]:
I don't need that. And I think that's why it was a little bit of a weird thing for me. All my life trying to fit in. I just really didn't want to be ostracized. I didn't need to be around people. I just didn't want to be the pariah. And I wanted to belong somewhere, but I didn't need to be in something. And being able to do that over years and years and years, as you get down to it, for a while I thought authenticity, that sounds too vague and broad.

Andrea Johnson [00:36:45]:
And so I do work with Chat GPT. I tell my clients, go into Google and get your definitions and go into Chat GPT and tell it this stuff and ask it to talk back to you. That way when we come back together, we can have a really rich conversation. And so I do the same thing.

Yvonne Heimann [00:37:00]:
I literally build based on my training a coach. I use Magai so I can use different AIs, but same I build a Persona around my teachings and actually even polished on how I want to be. So a little bit less of the systematic stuff and a little bit more emotional connection. And I work with her, I work with him. Like I dig deep and I'm just keep going and keep going and. Which brings me to my audience doesn't have to do this alone. I know you have this. You have a little exercise and a little resource for my audience if they want to dive deeper into their core values, don't you?

Andrea Johnson [00:37:44]:
I do. And as a matter of fact, within the next week, I don't know when this is airing, but so when life. Oh, okay, so this is live. So within the next week it's actually going to be updated. So right now it's called the Core Values Exercise. It's very simple. It's a one page download. Right above.

Andrea Johnson [00:37:58]:
If you go to my website, Theintentionaloptimist.com right above my head is a little button and it says free download. All my free resources are right there. And Core Values Exercise is one of the top ones. I'm redoing it, calling it a Core Values blueprint, which I think will help people because it. My son's in carpentry and he really likes architecture and he's working on blueprints. I didn't do that on purpose, but it's like, oh, this is a really good, this is a great analogy because when you see the blueprints to a house and I explain core values that way, it's like my property, my house, it gives me a natural boundary. So it's going to be called the core values blueprint. But if you go when this is live, if you go this week, by next week it'll be different, but I'm loading it all up.

Andrea Johnson [00:38:40]:
There'll be videos involved in the new one, but it's a simple exercise and if you're somebody just starting and you can do work on your own, this is a great way to do it.

Yvonne Heimann [00:38:52]:
And yeah, by the time it's live, I'm like, I'm thinking about the schedule right now. By the time this goes live, you're gonna have it updated. As always, you can find Andrea's links and the Core values blueprint and everything right in the description. Wherever you are, watching, listening or reading, it's in the description. Easy for you to click on and go, snatch that, Andrea. I could go on for hours. I have a feeling you're going to be on my comeback list if you want to join again.

Andrea Johnson [00:39:21]:
Oh, gosh, we've only scratched the surface.

Yvonne Heimann [00:39:23]:
Exactly. I'm like, I have so much more. So much more. Thank you so much for joining me today. And everybody listening. If you haven't hit the follow button yet, no matter if it's on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, go hit that button. So you don't miss any other amazing leaders coming on the podcast. You saw Andrea today, so you know I have amazing guests.

Andrea Johnson [00:39:48]:
I'll see you so much. Bye.