Stop Waiting And Get Curious About Your Potential

Welcome to the D shift podcast, where we provide inspiration, motivation and education to help you transition from the challenges of divorce to discover the freedom and ability to live life on your own terms. Are you ready? Let's get this shift started. Hey, and welcome to another episode of the D Shift podcast. I am super excited to have Krys Pappius on the episode with us today. And actually, we were just chatting ahead of time, we actually lived in a very short distance from each other, or I used to live closer by we're Christmas now. So small, small world, right, Krys ?

Either life not to be the only Canadian, hey, oh, no,

I have lots of Canadians on here. We're multi, multi, national, multicultural, but multinational on here as well. So Chris is a mindset coach. And I think that mindset is something that's really critical anytime you're going through a transition in life. So Chris, tell us a little bit about what you do, where your area of passion is, and maybe maybe a little bit of background about how you ended up getting

background will lead into why I do what I do. So in a nutshell, I was a police officer for 20 years. You know, you go out there, you run in wherein everybody runs out, and you do things that most people wouldn't think of doing. And everybody thought I had a great life. I had all the trappings of success. Then in 2003, I had a near death experience. And in that moment, I didn't feel sad. So I didn't feel scared, I felt sad. Because in that moment, I own the fact that on the outside, everything looked great. But on the inside, my soul was dying. I was a people pleaser. I was stressed, I was overwhelmed with life, always looking back at the traumas of the past and looking at the future. And all I could see was more of the same. And I couldn't, I wasn't willing to accept that anymore. And I knew that if I was going to survive this event, I was going to make changes. And I thought that I had to do it all by myself. Right? Because goodness knows asking for help. That's a sign of weakness. And the truth is that in spite of all this, external police all that life scared me. Vulnerability scared me. Yeah, right, I have to be hard. But I started on this journey, because I realized that I no longer was willing to accept that. And so for a long time, I took all the workshops, read all the books, took all the courses, and I got a few nuggets here and there. But not one of those resources told me how to take my dream, which they gave me permission to dream and turn that into my reality. And when I took a step back, and I saw how those nuggets could fit together in a process, and when they started implementing that process, that's when things started to change. It still took me a long time because like I said, I had to do it myself. Yeah, and I took a lot of wrong turns. It was trial and error. And it but in the end, I got what I want. And there is a reason why Mount Kilimanjaro is the picture behind me. I saw Kili for the first time in 1980. I was flying through Kenya. And I knew that people could get to the top. And I thought I wonder what the world looks like from up there. And immediately the barrage of all those beliefs. You could never do that. You know, who do you think you are all that nonsense. And one of the first dreams that I brought to reality after I was fit and able to get back into life we engaged in life was I went to the top of Kilimanjaro. Amazing. That was the first thing I did. And I still didn't, I still wasn't clear about where I was going what I was doing. But when I saw the world from the top of killing, I saw life as full of possibilities and I knew I could do anything. And I'd like to point out that I got to kill it in 2006 when I was 50 years old. It was never too late. And after that, I started, I smartened up and I asked for help. I asked for coach to help me get past my blind spots to help me see what I wasn't seeing. What were the things that I was carrying with me from situation to situation that got me the results I was getting, which I didn't like. Yeah, yeah. Well,

first of all, congratulations for that accomplishment. I had no idea so I'm learning something so fantastic. So something you said really stuck with me. You talked about this sense that you are a police officer, you are the strong woman And but inside you were really vulnerable. You were really living in the past and worrying about how that was going to bring your future forward. How can we put you on the spot now, Chris, how many people how many women that you work with, would you say fit into that

bucket? All of you media, we all wear armor, our says we've been trained that asking for help. And making mistakes is a sign of weakness. The truth is three weeks into my police training, after split back in the day, it would take three to five years to get that job, you had to jump through all kinds of hoops. Three weeks into training. When I was in my high heels doing push ups, I knew I had made a mistake that this is not this was not where I was supposed to be. I was too afraid to say I made a mistake. Right? And I continued for 20 years. Yeah. The firt. The big learning point for me was I didn't understand why this job of being there to help people was not working for me, like what was the mistake. And the mistake was that I didn't understand what my purpose in life was. I didn't understand what my unique gifts were with, that I could share with the world. And the impact I wanted to have in the world. I didn't understand that. Right? Once I understood that, I realized that had I known my purpose 30 years ago, I could have shown up in that career, honoring my purpose and the career would have been completely different. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely. And you know what, it's funny because I was talking to one of my clients earlier this week, and she's in a very publicly visible position in a very large company. And she told me, you know, she said, I am so tired of being told that I can deal with any problems they throw at me, because now this is her words, not mine, because I'm, I'm a strong black woman. And that's what I'm supposed to be. And I can't say this is too much for me, because I'm afraid that that's it, I'll be out of I'll be out of this position that I have fought so hard to get to. And I just I said to her, that must be really tiring, not being able to be who you really are, you know, to say, Hey, I would like some help. And she goes, Yeah, and that's why I'm working with you as a coach. But, um, so tell tell us about, tell us about why people? How do people actually get to the point, I realize you had a near death experience. And that must have been extremely traumatic. How do other people get how to other people figure out that they have this exterior persona, but this interior sense of Holy crap, what do I do now? Like, how do they? How do they how do you think they get to you?

I think maybe if I say something that clicks for me to say, you know, I was a police officer, and I had, you know, that armor, literally that armor, right. And I realized that that was not getting me what I wanted, and I knew I had to change. And the first step is to just say, I am going to do it. Chile, what was the change? I went from 25 years of saying no, I can't to. Yes, I can mean that change was in a split second. Yeah. At some point, you have to say to yourself, enough, is enough. Yeah. I don't know how I'm going to change. And I don't believe in blowing up your life. I believe in small steps. And what I offer is a safe place just to explore what's not working. Yeah, I don't tell you what to do. Nobody is an expert on you. All. Yeah, you are the expert on you. You at some point, you have to make that choice. So in my career, I saw this very often, people whose lives were turned upside down for whatever reason, who rose to the occasion. And that's what we humans do when our backs are against the wall. We have no choice. We know it's sink or swim. And many of us will dig deep. And we'll find we'll tap into that courage and the wisdom that all of us know all of us have. We all have it. And we rise to the occasion, and we move forward in life. You see it in the news all the time. People who go through these incredible events and then all of a sudden they start foundations and they start doing incredible things with the world. Yeah. What is my message is why are you waiting? Are you going to wait for near death experience? Or are you going to say, Okay, I'm curious enough? And maybe that's what it is it's curiosity, to what's possible, and start asking questions. And the questions can lead you down different paths. But at some point, you have to start saying, I'm responsible for my life. I have to make choices. It's not out there.

Yeah. And so here's, here's, I'm going to kind of piggyback on what you just said, if you will have been faking it till you make it. And you're doing that for more than a couple of months. You're just flat out faking it, you're never making it. I'm so tired of that conversation. And the second thing I really like is you're not you're not advocating this, blow up your life, just crash everything, take this huge leap of faith and somehow by, you know, hacker, golly, it's all gonna work out for you. Because I think both of those statements, although they're two different extremes, they're both crap. They're not accurate. They're not true. So I love the idea of you saying, You support people to make little steps that they choose to make is what I'm hearing you say,

when I work with somebody, it's the client who decides what they want to work on what they think is going to give them the biggest bang for their buck. Yeah, as far as changing, I can't tell, you know, you can score different areas of your life and maybe in one area to two in one area to seven, it's not necessarily the two that has to go up. What if the seven could go to an eight and have an impact on your entire life? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's my clients who decide what they work on. And with my clients, we reverse engineer, what is the smallest thing that you can do today? To get you moving towards your goal? Nice, nice. And, and I will say that the first thing I do with a client is what is your purpose? What are your values? And what is your purpose? Because if your vision isn't built on that, right, then you're still chasing the shiny object. Yeah.

And that's why, you know, it's, that's interesting, because with my clients, I always do that value alignment thing. That's one of the first things what before they're going through the divorce? And they're like, Well, what, what, why do I have to know what my values are? Because I say it when you're making these decisions throughout the divorce. If you're making decisions that don't align with your values, you're gonna have regrets from day one ever since, you know, after you make that decision, it's just going to be why did I do that? Why did I do that? So So I love that whole idea. And seems like we're kind of running in the same track there.

I think we are. And I think that's where courage comes. Yeah. Because your purpose and your values when you're in alignment with that you are propelled forward. It feels right. Yeah. Yeah. And it means that if things don't go the way you would prefer, you have a solid foundation to deal with whatever comes your way. I do not sell unicorns and rainbows. That's not life. Yeah, life is gonna throw you curveballs. The question is, do you have a solid enough foundation? To bend? Or, as opposed to break? Right? And that's kind of centered like that?

Yeah, I love this. I really love this. And I think the important thing is, you may not feel like you have this right now. But you can you can develop this, this is not, you know, it's not something that you don't have the capacity to do. Everybody has this. But I think we've lied to ourselves and put so many layers of settling and something I want to talk to you about people pleasing and all that kind of stuff. We've allowed that to layer over like those that core of our be,

but it's still there.

We just have to dig all the dust all the garbage off of it and you know, get some bleach in there and pick it up. Absolutely. And start leaving that that purpose in that life. Can I redirect this conversation a little bit around that people pleasing? Think so can because I think that is something and I'm going to be a little bit sexist here. But I do think that's something that a lot of times as young girls, you're you're taught, you know, you got to what is that saying? You got to get along to go along, you got to go along to get along. You got to you know, don't rock the boat. Don't don't necessarily put yourself out there just kind of stay with the crowd or tell me tell me about how that ultimately ends up in in potentially harming our lives.

So you're absolutely correct. It is sexist, and it's sexist conditioning. From them, little girls from the moment of their first, okay, humans, from the moment of our first breath, we are being conditioned by those around us, taught what we need to do to feel safe, accepted, and and well safe, accepted and loved. Add to that as we grow older, the messages the cultural, culturally intense messages of what makes a girl you know, what are we supposed to what is the role, we're supposed we're supposed to be the caregivers, like you said, Don't rock the boat. put other people ahead of you, you know all of that. That's conditioning. And it's culturally based. No one, I don't believe that anyone who ever taught me to be you know, little girls are meant to be, you know, nice. They were not doing that to be evil. They were simply teaching me as a young girl, what they were taught. Yeah, no one is being evil, or, at some point, we need to take responsibility for our life. Because you're correct. people pleasing, means we're putting everybody's needs ahead of our own at the expense of our own. And the cost is inevitably stress, and overwhelm, and resentment. We're not doing things for others, because, oh, that's what I want to do. I'm doing it because we feel we're supposed to do it. And we're doing things for people and feeling resentment. I remember clearly, one night or was one morning after night shift, my sergeant came to me and said, Hey, we need somebody to walk work overtime. And you know, I'd like you to do it. And at that point, I looked at him and I said, Why do you keep asking me to work the overtime? Why does everybody keep going home? And I'm here on overtime when I'd like to be at home in bed? Nobody answered. Because I knew you wouldn't say No,

exactly. Right? Yeah.

No, that was such a wake up call. It shook me. I knew you wouldn't say no. So I don't even you know, impose on the others.

Well, and you know, and that that starts very, very early. And I think it's better in workplaces than it used to be. But I remember now, this is when I was in my teens. And I worked for a retail outlet part time when I was going to school. And the expectation was, and I worked quite a ways to my college or my university. And I was very happy to be able to because it was a good income. It wasn't hard work. And it really helped me with paying for my education. But every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every New Year's, every holiday, I was expected to work because I was single and didn't have children. And I'm like, What the hell, I have a family, somebody's child, like to be able to do these things. And I think we get those messages. And then and then we don't, we just I love that idea, or I don't love it. But I love that you said it, that we build up that resentment, I can't tell you how many women I work with that volunteer at their church, or that volunteer at a women's shelter that volunteer here or there or the other place. And they you know, they're like, oh my gosh, I've got to go volunteer again, like I just, I don't have a moment to breathe for myself. But I gotta take care of my mom, I've got to deal with my kids. I've got to volunteer, I've got to work. I'd like to keep the house, I've got to get the dog to the groomer. And I'm like, well, can't you ask somebody to help you? Well, no, these are my jobs.

Well, can you ask them to help you? Or can you just say no? So so that's the difference? And the difference really is why why do you want to know your values? And why do you know your purpose? Those are the things that bring you joy. When I know my purpose, and I know my values, I can be an in school mentor for 17 years, which is what I was doing, you know, supporting kids from challenging home environments through the school system. And I don't resent it because I'm giving the gift of me. It's different when from when the surgeon says I know you're not gonna say no. So I need you to stay and stay late. Right? That's resentment. Right? When it's really part when it's connected to your heart is a reflection of what's important to you and what brings you joy. Then there's no resentment and you could have five, if that's really what you want to do volunteer positions, but it's different. I have to do this too. I want to do this. Wouldn't life be so much better? If instead of I should, or I have to? It was like it was a question of waking up in the morning and saying, I get to do this and I love it. Yeah. What a different life that is. Yeah.

So one of the things is this whole. And this is something I don't know when it all started, but this whole idea of shifting our mindsets. Can you talk a little bit about what that means for you? Because I know you are a mindset coach. So can you tell me a little bit about what that where that sits with you and what that what that means to you as a coach, that's an expert in this area.

In my world, mindset is the way I view the world, how the world works, and my place in the world. And a lot of the way the world works, even that is conditioning. Anything that's conditioned means we have been taught that I have learned this, it doesn't mean it's reality. So I'll give you an analogy. So you've spent winters in Canada, maybe I have Yeah, I don't know, how many of your listeners know the experience of No, no, first of all, it's light, and it's fluffy. The first car goes through, and that first car can go anywhere, because the snow is light and fluffy. But people are like sheep. So the next car will follow the first tracks, right? Because we don't that that's okay. And every time another car goes through, the snow gets more and more compacted more and more frozen. And there comes a point where they're ruts that you can't get out of. So that's a vision that our beliefs are like that. Yeah, the first time they're laid down, it's like it's fluffy. But we hear it or we tell ourselves, we repeat these things, these beliefs to ourselves over and over again, to the point where they're so ingrained that they kick in before we even know. So before I claim Kili. You know, for 25 years, it was I would think, Oh, I wonder what the world? Wouldn't that be nice? Oh, no. And I wouldn't even know that those beliefs are coming into play and deciding my actions, which was I can't do killing? Right. My job is to clarify for my clients, what is the belief that's keeping you from going after your dream? Right? And let's unpack that belief. Is that true? Or is that simply someone's opinion that you adopt it as true? And most of these beliefs have? The source is, before we were the age of six or seven? Sure, these are things that we accepted as truth. It was somebody's opinion that we heard before we had the ability to do critical thinking, critical thinking is, is this true? For me? It may be true for you, is it true for me? And it's a question of unpacking that. And realizing that this is simply an opinion. So mindset change is, what is it that I want to believe? What is my truth? What do I believe about how the world works? And what do I believe about my role in the world? What what I'm entitled to, I believe that each one of us has a birthright to live life confidently and feel alive and engaged in everything we do. It's only possible when we're making choices, conscious choices about how we're living our life. And that is a choice. And it's choice based on beliefs. And mindset is either I'm here, this is all it's possible for me, I can't do anything else. Or mindset is, I can learn, I can grow. I can make choices. Yes, there's a closed mindset. And it's a prison. Yeah, this is an open mindset. Right? It's right. I love that.

And that was such a clear that was a clear explanation of mindset. So thank you so much, because I think I think sometimes it gets a little muddied what people are talking about when they use that term. So, Chris, we have covered a heck of a lot of information here very short period of time. So if I was going to ask you to summarize this whole conversation, or just one message that you want people to remember, when they turn off this podcast and go back about their lives, what would you like them to remember from our conversation?

It's never too late to change. Will you make a choice? Or will you wait to life throws you a curveball and you have no choice? Why not do it on your own time?

Love that. Yes. And I love it's never too late to choose and it's never too late to try something different and try something new. So, Chris, if people want to get ahold of you to learn more about what you do or to connect with you and talk more about maybe working with you what's the best place to go to get to view

my website is just Krys Pappius.com I'm open to receiving emails, Krys Pappiuss@gmail.com phoned me 604-852-2414 I'm happy to talk to anyone, no strings attached. If we're MCs great, and if not we part as friends and you will still get value.