‘Happy Self, Happy Marriage, Happy Work-Life’ An Interview With Entrepreneur and Executive Coach Tracy Fox.
The Destiny Awakening Interviews is a podcast with Andrew Wayfinder and his guests.
Every week (sometimes more) we have a short focused interview with an expert, author, speaker designed to bring you powerful insights, inspiration and ways to break free, live life by your vision and values, and make a difference in our changing and challenging world.
Listen to the podcast at: https://www.andrewwayfinder.com/blog/tracy-fox-da11
Andrew Hryniewicz
So, hello everyone and a very warm welcome to another edition of the “Destiny Awakening Interviews”.
I’m Andrew Wayfinder Hryniewicz. And I’m joined today by Tracy Fox, serial entrepreneur, executive coach, 4 times best selling author and speaker.
So a very warm welcome to you, Tracy. And where are you hanging out today?
Tracy Fox
Thank you. I am in a place called Darien, Connecticut. It’s about an hour north of New York City, a suburb of New York.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Great. And how’s the weather there? Is it like Texas?
Tracy Fox
Today it’s beautiful, it’s 50 degrees but it has been a lot of snow and a lot of freezing cold. And I said to my husband, “I swear I’m never spending a February here again.” It’s long and it’s cold and with COVID it’s been pretty miserable all around.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Yeah, it’s been a year.
Tracy Fox
Yes. It has.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Okay, so let’s get on to the subject of the books you’ve written and the work you do.
So while Tracy has an official bio — which includes her 20 plus years of business experience, and her NYU executive coaching certification — I’m actually going to skip it for what one of her clients wrote about her, which was:
“Tracy has helped me grow professionally in ways I never thought I would grow. Grow into a human, I never thought I could become and care for individuals in a way I didn’t know that I was capable of doing. Her strategies will last you a lifetime. And I recommend Tracy to my closest and dearest loved ones. Everyone needs to Tracy Fox in their life.”
So I thought that was, you know, much more interesting than your bio. So the title today is “Personal Power to Create Results and Happiness”.
And Tracy is going to unpack that idea in answering six questions.
So the first question would be: Who is your ideal client, and what’s the transformation that your work helps them achieve?
Tracy Fox
Well, I sort of always say my ideal client is a CEO, but not in the traditional sense, because I believe we’re all CEOs.
So whether you’re the CEO of your household, you’re a mom just trying to raise kids, or whether you’re the CEO of a school, you’re a principal who’s looking after staff and children, or whether you are in fact a CEO of a multi million dollar business.
To me, it’s all the same. It’s people who are, you know, highly successful, highly educated, and usually highly stressed because they have so much going on. That’s sort of my ideal client.
And the transformation I always try to work on is helping them design the life that they want. Because what often happens with highly successful, highly busy people is they’re just in the rat race.
And they’re not stepping back and designing the life, they are reacting to life all the time.
And that gets people into a lot of trouble. And it definitely does not end up in a joyful place. It may end up in a super successful place.
But I talk to so many people who who say, “Tracy, I have everything. And yet I have never had a happy day in my life.” And to me, that is just a waste of what we’re all doing here.
Andrew Hryniewicz
I agree. So that actually, you’ve probably answered the second question, but I’ll ask it again. What is the biggest challenge they face?
Tracy Fox
Well, I think the biggest challenge they face is, yes, they don’t have personal happiness. But I even think it’s bigger than that. I think the biggest challenge they face is not believing they can do anything about it.
That the power is always in somebody else’s hands. Because all day long, I coach a lot of people and what I will hear is the refrain.
“It is what it is… I am who I am… There’s really nothing I can do about it… Yes, I’m talking to you… And yes, I’ve talked to a therapist…”
But there’s no core belief that they have the power to change their life. And where I come in, and actually I’m very gifted is in helping them look at that completely differently.
So the transformation takes place in their thinking that things are actually possible. Whereas before, not only did they not believe that were possible, they didn’t have the tools.
And so a lot of the people I coach, have a pattern and a trend of always being in therapy and always talking to somebody. What I tried to do is say “No, we’re going to have like a boot camp.” And I usually only work with clients eight to 12 weeks.
And in that boot camp period — not only are we changing their thinking, which of course changes their outcome. But I’m also leaving them with tools to set them up for success for the rest of their life.
And yes, do they want to check in on occasion refresher? For sure. But we’re not sticking together for years and years and years. Because that’s to me, that’s not personal empowerment, to always be relying on someone else for your answers.
Andrew Hryniewicz
And you know, speaking as a therapist turned spiritual energetic healer and coach, therapy has its role, but it often becomes, it can become very confining.
Tracy Fox
Exactly. And it should be like, I agree it should be a grace period.
I’m all for therapy, but it has to be a grace period. Not, “I’m just always connected to that. And I can never stand on my own two feet.” So yeah, for sure.
Andrew Hryniewicz
So question number three: What’s the number one insight you would share with the audience to help them right now, if they’re wrestling with these sorts of challenges?
Tracy Fox
I think the insight is you have to take the time and reflect on what you really want. And again, most people, in my opinion, get up in the morning, and they start their day. They race to their computer. They race to the next thing. And they are not designing their life.
And you know, the true insight, and I say this a lot: is that we always have to remember that we’re different than the animal kingdom, right?
I mean, animals get up, and they just do what they do.
They’re in survival mode. They don’t get to choose.
Whereas we as humans, and it’s an obvious thing, but we get to choose separate from circumstance.
And I think so many people forget that level of personal power, that separate from circumstance… like you can lose your job… you can be in the midst of a crisis at home… but you always have the power to do something about it.
And people don’t think that way.
And so what I’m always trying to have people have an insight around is — as you change your thinking, you can change your life.
And it goes back to personal power. And I know I sound like Tony Robbins, but it’s absolutely true.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Yeah. Okay, So question number four: What what concept book program or talk has had the greatest impact on you?
Tracy Fox
I wasn’t sure if this question meant something I’ve written or if it was somebody else’s book? I’m gonna actually speak of it from two different points of view.
I’d say the first book that ever changed my life, and I actually, you know, with my book called “Happy Self” is an ode to the first book I was ever given. Which did change my life, which is called “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale.
And he outlines in that book how “Your thinking leads to your belief system, which leads to your actions, which leads to your destiny”.
So in other words, if I get up in the morning, and I think “Nothing good ever happens to me, this life blows”, and I just start down that thing, then well, what’s my action going to be?
My action is going to be, “Well, what’s the point of even leaving the house?” And then what’s my destiny going to be? Right? I’m not going to be successful. I’m definitely not going to be happy.
But if I even change that thought to… I get up in the morning, and I say, “All things are possible. I’m really believing there’s a plan for my life. And this is an amazing journey.” Right?
Then my belief system is all things are possible.
And if all things are possible, then I’m out and about making things happen. And if I’m making things happen, then I have always an amazing destiny and amazing opportunities.
So everything goes back to the key philosophy: ’As I think, so shall I be.’
So I was given that book by Norman Vincent Peale. And then, you know, fast forward 40 years, when I wanted to start writing books, I wrote a book called “Happy Self”.
And the premise of that book is, again, that so many of us are in reactive mode. And I look at that as a sort of horizontal living, where you’re just looking around and reacting to things.
And I think we need to live vertically.
And I explained in the book, as a very simple concept that you have, you should live by a core set of principles that should be your base.
And so the principle might be, you know, “I only repay anything that comes my way with kindness.” That could be a principle you live by. So whatever principles you know, you want to establish for your life.
And then the second piece of that is knowing yourself.
So many people don’t take the time to know themselves. And then of course, if you don’t know yourself, you actually can’t love yourself.
And I can’t tell you how many people I work with, although they’re highly successful, they don’t have self esteem… and they definitely don’t have self worth or self love.
So there’s the second part. And then the top part is you must connect to your higher power through spiritual ways. And so that can be anything — from prayer, to meditation to an actual religion, where you go to church — whatever it might be.
But so it’s living by core principles, knowing and loving yourself and connecting through spiritual practices to a higher power.
And that’s what the book “Happy Self” is really all about.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Great. And that leads us to… What’s the free resource you’d like to share with the audience that will help them?
Tracy Fox
There’s a couple… one would be, you go to my website, tracyfox.net.
And on there, I have a bunch of stuff, but the main free resources is my podcast called “Happy Self”.
Where it’s all about, I’m giving away all my tips and tricks and all the things I would do in coaching… Or I would be writing about in a book… I’m giving it away for free.
And so I talk about everything. From the four keys to happiness, that would be my first one. And, you know, I just did one yesterday, we’re on our 40th episode, “How to have strong boundaries, so you can have great relationships”.
So all the free resources are at my website. But the easiest one is the “Happy Self Podcast”, because there it is. It’s free and I’m starting to get a good listenership.
And all my tips and tricks are there.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Okay, great. And then the last question is: What should I have asked you that I didn’t?
Tracy Fox
Yeah, I had to think about that a lot.
And I think it goes back to identity, that we all need to think about who we are, because we all operate out of our own identity. And I talk about this a lot, I do a lot of marriage coaching as well.
And you know, so many people don’t identify their marriages as important, or they don’t identify themselves as important.
So if you don’t identify something as important, then you’re not going to treat it well.
And so I think it’s really important that everybody think about who they are, what their purpose is. And, you know, I started my book, “Happy Self” with a quote about life is a gift, it’s a one time offer, use it well.
Like, literally, we’re not coming back. And if we are, we’re not coming back as the same person in the same time. And every day, this life is getting shorter.
So you have to figure out who are you? What’s your purpose here? And then you have to live from that identity.
And I don’t care if that’s living, again, as a mom, or as a married person, or as a billionaire CEO. To me, it’s all the same.
Who are you?
What’s your main purpose here?
And you have to live from that identity, if you want to have joy, and happiness, and also success.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Yeah, well, that reminds me of, sort of one of my favorite essays in the world is by Thomas Merton, where he said the purpose of an education is to save your soul.
By helping you answer three questions, “Who am I? What is my gift to the world? And How do I make that offering valid?” And I think the third one is probably the hardest. You know, is how do you take your essence and this gift and bring it into form?
I think it’s where we get the struggling artist, and the tortured creator, and the frustrated business owner… but they’re all important questions. And I think you’ve really nailed them.
Tracy Fox
Well, and I think you bring up a great point, which is we get so caught up, right in all those things. But if we just live from a place of… I sort of talk about your divine duty.
Your divine duty, no matter what your gift is, is to not keep it small, but to offer it to the world. And then let the results play where they may.
And I think that’s just such an easier path to just go “here’s my gift, whatever it is, I’m going to put it out there.” And I’m going to see, you know, what the feedback will be.
As opposed to what we’re talking about, which is being always in that piece of struggling. And you know, there’s a piece of it about faith.
And of course, that’s where Thomas Merton comes in.
But the faith piece of it, that if I do the work, that there will be a time where I get the feedback that I deserve.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Yeah. Well, and I think also the idea that the work is actually its own reward.
Tracy Fox
Exactly. So well said exactly.
Andrew Hryniewicz
Yeah. Well, that’s perfect. Tracy, thank you so much for your time today.
Tracy Fox
Yeah, it’s been it’s been great. Thank you for having me.
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