Coming Back to Love: the podcast

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (00:07.886)
If this is your first time to coming back to love the podcast, welcome. We're so glad you found us. If you're a regular listener, welcome back. Either way, you're not here by accident.

I'm your host, Karen Walker Cohn, a wife, a mom, entrepreneur, friend, and dreamer who is ready to step into more of who I am created to be. I am committed to personal transformation for global impact. Now, this podcast may be very different from others. Our guests don't come with a topic or agenda. They come open and ready to receive and deliver the message that's meant for you.

You will also notice our podcast is not overly produced. This is on purpose. Our hope is we will inspire you to step into who you're created to be, regardless of how it may look. Take inspired action on that book, business, relationship, and yes, podcast or whatever it is on your heart. In my experience, my mess usually ends up being my message. I encourage you to approach our time today with a beginner's mindset.

and with openness to receive what is meant for you.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (01:24.942)
I'm so excited to introduce you to my friend, Debbie Radish-Respess. Debbie and I met while we were doing our ontological coach training, gosh, back in 2017. So I'm so excited to introduce her to you and have her on the podcast. She is known as the alignment alchemist with over three decades of experience as a leader in corporate operations and executive HR. She supports seasoned business owners,

and executive leaders to build a strategy that turns misalignment into magic so that they can bridge the gap between their people and their purpose. Debbie is a beautiful communicator and public speaker, and her specialty is building long -term relationships across internal and external customer environments with integrity, confidence, authenticity, and trust.

Debbie, along with Krista Ryan, who was on a previous CBTL, the podcast called Keep Freaking Going. If you haven't listened, go back and take a listen to that one. Myself and others who I'm sure you'll meet on upcoming podcasts come from a long line of exceptional leaders and ontological coaches developed by Newfield Network, which was founded by Julio Ollala.

He is regarded as a pioneer of the coaching profession and transformational learning fields. I invite you to check out Newfield Network if you're interested in the modality of ontological coaching. What is ontological coaching? It's a methodology that studies a person's way of being, specifically in three main domains, body or somatic learning, emotional and language.

So now before you run over to Google, please welcome Debbie Radish-Respess to the podcast.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (03:30.882)
Debbie, when you hear the title of this podcast, Coming Back to Love, what experience from your life comes to mind?

Debbie Radish-Respess
Well, that's an insightful first question. Thanks, Karen, for starting it off right out of the bat. I actually feel like I came back to love of myself, actually. 30 years of corporate America, I went through a lot of stuff being previously married. And it was...

2018, where I kind of like, refound myself. Well, actually, 2008, when I found my husband. But yeah, coming back to love is like, coming back to who you are, and what you do and what you are meant to do in this world. Boy, that's a really, really deep question. And

I think that you've got to be able to come back really to who you are and what you stand for and why you stand for it and being true to yourself.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (05:03.694)
Yeah, that's so good. And for you, what does being true to yourself mean? What does that look like?

Debbie Radish-Respess (05:15.918)
It actually means showing up as yourself, you know, morals, values. My dad taught me character at a really young age, and I lost some of that character as I got into the world. Because you kind of, I jokingly say that when I left corporate America, I was so tired of putting on my corporate armor to protect myself and...

putting up my professional veneer to hide who I really was. I'm a pretty cool person and I'm fun and open and honest, sometimes a little too direct, but I have a heart of gold. And when I allow that to come out, that's really being the authentic me. I love serving others. I love...

help in others, but I'm also not afraid to hold people accountable, both personally and professionally. Like that's like who I am and what I kind of bring to the table. I see big picture, I see the small trees, I see the like, I'm just like this weird kind of package with all these cool little things all wrapped up inside.

Karen Walker Cohn
Yeah, yeah. And I love that about you. I love that, that package. Because I feel like we, we don't, I in the past have not tended to surround myself with people who, um,

will hold me accountable and do so in such a loving way because I was so afraid of being criticized because criticism was the same as rejection for me. And what would you say to someone who resonates with what I just said where...

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (07:30.51)
where surrounding yourself with people who will hold you accountable just seems really scary.

Debbie Radish-Respess (07:42.158)
Hmm. As an executive coach, I actually asked the question like, what's up? Yeah, but like, what's so scary about that? Do you not hold yourself accountable? Like what and what does accountability mean to you? Sometimes people put like false or too high a standard on expectations. So therefore they feel they're always going to fail.

So just don't hold me accountable and therefore I can't fail. Yeah. Right. So I think it's defining what is accountable. And putting in like realistic standards and expectations. I love it. I love John Maxwell's, but fail forward. Right. Like accountability has to allow some failures and being okay, like giving yourself permission.

to fall. We didn't learn to walk right out of the womb, right? You know, you got to crawl before you can stand before you can walk before you can run. And I think when people are afraid to be held accountable, I don't think that they have given themselves a an appropriate definition for what that really means. And they don't know what they're really afraid of until they start thinking about, well, what does accountability mean?

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the whole, you know, fact meaning. Like for me, I made it mean rejection. So, and I made myself wrong. So if somebody said, oh, you know, like gave me some type of feedback, oh, feedback, I hated that word. And now it's so crazy because I have this saying, I eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, give me all the feedback. And yeah, but I made that mean.

that they were rejecting me.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (09:49.518)
Well, and that's interesting because, you know, even feedback, like I always go to definitions. I didn't define things well when I was in corporate America. Like I just kind of assumed everybody had the exact same definitions and we were all on the same page, which is what causes a lot of conflict. But I think defining things like even with feedback, like.

Do I want feedback or do I want to hear what you're seeing? Like, you know, what am I missing? Like that's one of my favorite questions is, well, what am I missing? I'm technically asking for feedback, right? But I'm saying it in a way to go, you have a different perspective. So bring that to the table, right? And I want to hear your perspective even on me. Like, you know, what am I missing? You know, did I not show up a certain way or did I show up?

in a way that was even better than I thought, but I don't know, right? So, hey, what, you know, just what am I missing? Like that's, and even with accountability, it's, there's an agreement on an expectation. If you're going to hold me accountable, that's not about, you know, I mean, and I use the word rejection because that's what showed up for you. But I also think that we miss opportunities to.

set appropriate expectations. You know, you get what you tolerate, not what you expect, because we don't talk about what is the expectation. How can I hold you accountable if I don't know what that expectation is? And it's an agreement. There's an agreement there. So it's just, man, this is like kind of circular, I guess, but it's all part of it.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (11:43.022)
Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, you get to because I mean, that's the, you know, asking questions, you know, first of all, I wouldn't give somebody feedback unless I ask their permission to do so. You know, because I get to, I get to ask the question, right? Like, are you open to feedback? Are you open to hearing what I'm seeing? Are you open to?

hearing my perspective. And that choice gets to be that other person instead of what I was doing is like, here it is. Well, I think blah, blah, blah. And so I am careful about that now.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (12:36.942)
Yeah, and I also made it, you know, but isn't that so now it's not a rejection. It's a meaning.

Debbie Radish-Respess (12:47.822)
Yeah, isn't that part of the journey in life though, right? How we show up, you know, you talk, you know, we were just talking like what's authentic and what is real and what is life's the journey. This is how we learn and grow. And I don't know, I love getting older. I know that sounds crazy. I just had a birthday recently. And man, I'm, I love getting older because I just, I love this journey of life.

I lost you after. I love getting older. I love that. So I said, I love getting older because I love this journey of life. I love how I'm growing and learning. I give myself more permission to be wrong and to do things in my uncomfortable zone. And

I don't worry so much about what people care about what people think, but I don't allow that to make me stop and not experience life and enjoy life. And I don't know, just kind of be human. That's why I do what I do in my career. But I see it just transfer over into my personal life as well.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (14:14.926)
So the last question, so I want to ask you is if our listeners can take away one message from you in this podcast, what would you like them to take away?

Debbie Radish-Respess (14:39.054)
know what your character is, know what you stand for. I think it's really important. This is going to be really probably controversial. I'm not really fond of DE and I. And I say that because we're all humans and we're all uniquely made and we have unique gifts and we have so much to give each other that you have to look beyond.

the skin tone or whatever. And I think character is what you should judge people on. I think character is how we work together and play together and have friends. And I think the great like I said earlier, like the greatest gift my dad ever gave me was to really know what my character was. And I don't feel that.

people consider their own character. I think they that a lot of folks think they know who they are, and think they know what they stand for. But they're more or less trying to make sure everybody else is okay with them. Even even when they're lying to themselves. And I think that's a it's an unfortunate. It's an unfortunate place to be.

And when I do like my executive coaching or work with the executives that I work with, we kind of get to the heart of that is, what do you stand for? What are your values? Does the company have those same values? How are you exhibiting that behaviors and speech and all of that?

completely is a reflection of your character. And you can tell when someone's faking and when someone's lying and when someone is, you know, again, putting on that corporate armor and putting up that professional veneer and they're not, they're not who they need to be. And I think it's unfortunate because I think that we all have, I think we're all pretty beautiful human beings and we have so much to give and we just don't allow ourselves to do it.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (17:01.326)
Yeah. Wow. That's so good. It brings up a lot of stuff in me. And I talk about triggers. It seems like every single podcast because, you know, the woke world seems to have hijacked that word trigger. And instead of making it mean something about themselves, it's the other person.

They triggered me. I don't have to stand for this, blah, blah, blah. And hear my heart. I am not saying that you should not have boundaries and you should not stand up for yourself. What I'm saying is that trigger is a gift if you will look at it from that perspective. It is the universe God, whatever word you choose. I choose God. I know you choose God.

It is God saying, here's an area that you get to look at. And the awareness, like, that's the word I'm hearing, is this awareness. Yeah, but it opens up the opportunity for conversation. Yes. It's not, you know, it's not about, I'm right, you're wrong.

You're right. I'm wrong. Right. We have different perspectives, different upbringings. We have different lives and that's okay. Um, it's, it to me, trigger should open conversations, but people are afraid because they don't know what they really stand for. And that goes back to my, you got to understand what your character is and what you stand for so that you can have those intelligent.

sometimes emotional conversations that are sometimes passionate and direct and you can still come at it from love. You can still come at it from you're another human being. I'm going to respect that and I'll love you through this. We don't have to get it, you know, we don't have to agree. It's okay not to agree. And I think that we are now living in a world of everybody has to agree or you're wrong.

Debbie Radish-Respess(19:23.522)
I don't want yes men working for me. Right? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's character. That's my thing. Yeah, I love that. And character, based on your perspective of what character means to you, we all get to have perspective. And for me, I love, I mean, this is the whole,

This is the whole purpose of this podcast, right? Well, one of the purposes of this podcast, I get to hear your perspective. And it's like, you know, over the weekend, I was volunteering in a kitchen and serving what I like to call water walkers. Like these are the top like 1 % of people who are willing to dive deep into

learning about their character. And not everybody wants to do that, right? But these are people who are like, yes, you know, got 115 people that in a room that are like, yes, I want to learn about my character. And so I got to serve in the kitchen. And one of the pans because we're you know, we're serving, you know, 100 plus people, one of the pans in the oven, like I got

I was doing the dishes and I got to wash them. And I'm looking at this pan and I'm scrubbing it. And I was like, okay, that looks good. Now I'm going to put in the sanitizer and I moved it off to the side. And then I looked back and I went, Oh, that is not clean at all. It hit me that pan. I moved it and now it's in a different position. It's in a different light. And I was able to see.

areas that I didn't see before when I had it over here in front of me washing it. And I thought, wow, isn't that perspective. So then because the pan had ridges and all these different things, I grabbed the pan and I started looking at it in different lights, turning it around and I'm going, oh wow, Karen, I get to clean that a little bit better. A lot better. But yeah, that's kind of what it was. It's like when you can shift and

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (21:50.402)
you know, when I get to look at Debbie's perspective on things, it's like, oh yeah, that's a new light. I've never, what can I learn from that? And instead of going, oh, I'm triggered. You know, you did something wrong and I don't have to stand for that. And it's like, whoa, I just stepped back and go, why did that trigger me? That's really interesting. And I can also go,

Thank you, Debbie. Yeah, you triggered me. And I got to look at something new because of it. Thank you. What a gift. That's a whole different perspective.

Debbie Radish-Respess (22:36.238)
Yeah, I think that we're I think that that is a lost it's becoming a lost art, the art of conversation. And the and the way to have discussions, you know, you know, the most brilliant ideas come out of all those different perspectives. And sometimes it's a hodgepodge of everybody's ideas, right? I mean, that's that's where innovation,

Excuse me. That's where innovation comes into play is because you have a different perspective. You know, you have 10 different people standing on different corners and looking at the same accident. You're going to get 10 different versions of that accident, right? And the cool thing is, like as you were talking about, you know, cleaning that pan, you know, we're all kind of that pan. Like we have to look at ourselves differently.

as well because we don't, I can't see myself from the side or from the back. I can see myself like looking down, right? I don't know what I look like from the top. I don't look like, I don't know. So I have to get a different perspective and we all have those ridges that have sometimes really deep dirt that needs to be kind of scrubbed. So I'm totally using your example now.

Good, good. And that's the whole point, right? Like, let's use all the things that we're learning and yeah, to share with someone else, you know? So like I say to my listeners, you know, from not every week, but well, actually, no, in the intro, yeah, it says every week is that, you know, if you're here listening to this podcast today, of all times, do you know,

all the different things that had to align for you to be listening to this podcast today. And it's not an accident. You know, take what you can learn from here and put it into action, into your own life. And we want to hear from you too. We want to hear your perspectives. Share that with us. Gosh, Debbie, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for being in.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (25:00.974)
my life as long as you have. I met this beautiful, beautiful soul as we were going through, you know, we were some of the people in the room, the top 2 % that is looking at changing our own characters. I wouldn't say changing the characters, no, that's the wrong, to discovering more of who we are. And,

Yeah, and we've been in contact ever since and I love that. And even when we've had those like long gaps, like we still come back together, we contact each other like we never left. And that's when you know, like this person's my heart. So you are my heart, Debbie, and I'm so glad to have you here.

Debbie Radish-Respess
Ditto. Ditto. I couldn't have said it better, Karen. I just, you were very special to me right from the beginning. And I just feel like that's grown through the years, even though I love that, the naps between the last time we talked and now, right? So it's just, it's beautiful. You as well, my friend, are a very beautiful soul. And I'm very blessed to have you in my life.

Karen Walker Cohn - Bonus Stories
Stay tuned for some more Golden Nuggets with our bonus stories.

Debbie Radish-Respess
Yeah, so here's my quick little story about my dad, about character. I was like 17 and I was buying my own car. We made a deal with, it was a 80 something Monte Carlo and I fell in love with it. It was exactly what I wanted.

And we had agreed on $2 ,000 at the dealership, you know, and it was kind of one of those slimy dealerships that you're like, my dad's coming with me because I'm not going alone. And we walk in. Yeah. And my dad, my dad's got the money and my dad hands over a thousand dollars and the guy looks at it and he's like, all right, we're good to go. And the guy says this, my dad's like, are you sure?

Debbie Radish-Respess (27:13.326)
And the guy's like, oh yeah, we're good to go. Yeah. This is, this is everything. And my dad's like, are you sure? He says it like four or five times. Like they go back and forth. Now the agreement is $2 ,000. The guy only has a grand. And I'm like, dad, let's go. Like, okay. The guy's okay with a grand. Let's go. Like I'm okay with that. Right. Right. You know, it's my money, right? Cause that's a lot of money when you're 17 or 18, whatever I was. And yeah, my dad's like,

Are you really sure, sir, that that that we're good? And the guy looks, you know, looks back down and dad's like, you should count that. And the guy counts it and he's like, yeah, I think we're good. And my dad's like, we agreed to two thousand dollars. I only gave you a grand. And the guy's like, oh, my gosh, he goes, why would you not have left? He said, because we agreed to two thousand dollars. And I will never forget.

the character that my dad showed in that one second, that it has just stuck with me. Not like I haven't seen it prior to those 18 years, right? But that was so impactful to me about character. So that's my character story of just like what I grew, what I woke up with today. I love that. I love that so much. And you know what came to my mind?

is and you married a man like that too.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (28:45.646)
Oh, I did. Very much. So he will never compromise his character. And I've been around a lot of people who compromise their characters for whatever reason. My husband Lee will absolutely not. There is, and I love it because it keeps me in line because it's easy to fall into wokeness. It's easy to fall into, well, I'm just going to let this slide a little bit. Nope.

There is no, there's no sliding. You know, there are certain things that are black and white and it's not okay to slide. So it's very cool. And I was going to say, and you married someone like that because you are something like that. So that makes a difference too. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we surround ourselves. We hold each other accountable.

Exactly. Yeah. And let me tell you, we do like and my friends now my friends are totally different than what they were many, many, many years ago. But I find myself surrounded by even even the clients that I work with, like, I'll say no to certain people, because I know that they don't have this is gonna sound horrible, but they don't have what it's going to take to go on the journey.

And I can't live within that falsehood anymore. I did it for too long and I won't do it anymore. Not just personally, but even with people that I knew at work or whatnot.

Karen Walker Cohn
Right. Right. No, I get it. I am kind of learning how to balance that.

I told this story before, I actually told this story this week and I'm now thinking, have I ever told this story on a podcast? I don't know that I ever have, but not but. And one of the things I'm doing is eliminating but out of my vocabulary. I get to, well,

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (31:05.806)
I want to share this vision about, and I may have shared it with you at a time because it happened like 10 plus years ago. I remember Holy Spirit saying to me, for every one mile of road is two miles of ditch. And it stuck with me a long while ago because it stuck with me all this time.

Because the first thing I thought was like, mile, like I was living, you know, I'm from Canada. So we don't talk like that. I thought it was weird that, you know, God, why would you say mile? Like that's so weird. And now here I am in the U .S. So that's not lost on me, you know, moved to the U .S. about eight years ago. And so this story keeps coming back in the last couple of weeks for me around.

for every one mile of road is two miles of ditch. And he continued saying, and I have you on the road, walking your journey, walking your walk. You have a vision in front of you and it's so far in front of you. You know it's there, but you can't really see it. And with every step towards it, it's crystallizing more and more. You're starting to see it getting clearer and clearer.

And as you're walking down the road, I want you to walk with your hands out to the sides. And there's people in those ditches that are going to grab onto your hand and you can grab them and pull them alongside of you and walk with them. Some are gonna walk ahead of you and that's okay. Some are gonna trail behind and that's also okay. Those ones that you're holding onto their hands, there are times where you're gonna grab,

people in that ditch and they're going to grab onto your hand and they don't want to come onto the road with you. But as you keep walking towards your vision, this is what's going to happen.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (33:20.206)
You don't go back into that ditch with them. You get to keep walking your walk and they get the choice as to whether they wanna come walk alongside of you. A lot of the times I found myself jumping right in that ditch with them and going, come on, come on, we pull you out. And then next thing you know, I'm wallowing in that ditch waiting for somebody to come along and grab me out of it.

And so that was a hard lesson for me. And it's the thing that I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep walking towards my vision because I'm called to something greater. I'm called to step into my greatness. And for anyone listening, you are too. So keep going. Keep developing your character like Debbie said. What a beautiful story.

Debbie Radish-Respess
Boy, what a beautiful story. I am so using some of your stories, Karen, you always have beautiful stories. Even when we first met. Oh, my gosh. These they're just they're they're so they're tangible, like people can relate. And they can see it that your visions are very visible, like they're they're stories that you can feel and

and hear and touch and go, yeah, I can totally see that. I can totally see walking down the road and with the hands outstretched. It's beautiful. It's just beautiful. You're such a beautiful woman. I feel like I'm just learning that in the last couple, couple, three weeks actually, about three weeks where somebody asked me, what's your why?

I thought I knew it. I thought I could not verbalize it. What is my why? And I remember a long time ago asking God to show me through stories, through things that I could understand, because I don't always comprehend when I read or when I... I don't always comprehend, but I'm very visual.

Karen Walker Cohn (The KLW Project Group) (35:43.886)
And so, yeah, I'm like, I want your wisdom. Just like Solomon asked for wisdom, I asked for wisdom. And I asked for you to show me, for him to show me in stories. And it's never stopped. So, and now I use that and I realized part of my how is through storytelling.

and how, like what you just said. And that's why it's like coming back to love, inspiring stories on shifting perspectives. And that's what I'm doing here.

Debbie Radish-Respess
I love it, Karen. I wish I was so good at telling the stories. I'm not a great storyteller. Okay. But when people get it, they get

Karen Walker Cohn
I'm stop you right there. Because you just told a great story about your dad. And yeah. But you are a great storyteller and you get to develop. You know, and that's just it. Because I clearly received everything that you said. And I clearly understood and comprehended what you said and it's beautiful. So I'm so glad you're here.

Debbie Radish-Respess
Thank you.