We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Caryn Brooks. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Caryn below.
Hi Caryn, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Being alive means taking risks; staying alive means winning the bet you just made with the world when you jumped in and said, “I got this!” When creating change, risk is the thing, right? Being strategic with risk includes not only action but also love. Since there are no guarantees in life, prefer choosing risks that have me running towards the people and places I love and value.
Recently, while living alone in a remote area, my beloved family dog collapsed. She’d been dragging, but this was different. Our local vet said she needed to go to the one place in the state that could give her transfusions while they diagnosed the critically low red blood cell count. Cancer? A virus? No one could say it, but we needed to act fast. The only vet who could do a transfusion was a two-hour drive in the darkness of winter. I was exhausted and in the middle of my own healthcare crisis. I wrapped her in a blanket and jumped in my car.
To get there, I needed to create energy from thin air; reflecting quickly on what I would need, I took two steps to mitigate the risk of that midnight ride – I alerted my beloved neighbors and consciously slowed down before speeding off into the night, By bringing safety and connection I created a more resilient container no matter the outcome of the drive – I wanted to be as sure as possible ure that I could contact loved ones for support but also to keep them involved in what looked likely to be the last hours of our beloved family dog, Known in our area as the finest weasel catcher, how could she go down like this?!
Using a deliberate mindset fusion “cocktail” of Love, Friendship, and Fear changed everything for me and my experience. I chose to take a risk for love. Change is risky, and risk is inevitable, but when I choose risk actively, my life improves no matter what because I am aware and “driving” rather than being driven.
How did it work out for my pup and me? Months later, she is recovering; though she is no longer catching rodents, we celebrate her prowess by the fire. The other day, she resisted getting the car for her injection, enjoying a slow-speed chase across the barnyard, and I chased after her, just a little faster so we could celebrate mindset mastery, neighborliness, and, with the philosopher Zhu Xi, “dug the well before we were thirsty” by creating community and decisive actions not so much from thin air as from deliberate action.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
It’s a truism that middle age is a time of declining personal power and authority for women; what if the opposite can be true? Holding space for creative transformations of middle age is the driving passion of my practice, and I bring decades of experience and passion to my work.
The throughline for every phase of my career has always been, “What does it mean to live a good life? How can we make the change real?” As an ethics major, I enjoyed theory, and I yearned for practical application. I created a career from a vision that tapped a yearning for creating change through community and teams, facilitating change in organizations large and small. From grassroots groups leveraging their own visions to organizations such as the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Institute for the Future, The Base Conversion Project, and Kaiser Permanente (Northern California) and child-led learning, change from the inside out starts with you.
The truth I bring to my life and life coaching practice is that only you know and an experienced guide can help you see better; Your unique answer is found in a process of self-discovery with an experienced guide. We are so powerful and so limited. Not only can both be true, but they are both true. We need each other.
My work background began early—I loved catering, babysitting, being a soda jerk, a postroom clerk, and even a price change control clerk in an interstitial space in Macy’s. An amazing executive took a risk on me, and the rest bloomed from an intoxicating blend of adventure, value creation, and holding space for your genius.
Curious about everything and passionate about people, I have always been active in creating change in my community – imagine what we can create together!.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
The best source of new clients remains referrals from a few circles out in my network. Warm referrals remain my strongest asset and I am eager to explore moving more online with writing and artwork hosted or otherwise connected to my Idea*Rhyme platform
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I love my mistakes! The sting means that I recall them better. On my first job devising an organizational strategy for a large materials management division, I lost my way and expanded my scope. When I turned it in, the executive assistant was kind enough to give it back and tell me to revise it. I clearly recall her telling me, “Bring it back tomorrow, and we won’t speak of it again.” I did, and she did, but, to be honest, I talk about it all the time because every part of the experience taught me how to do my job better, and the lessons still resonate today in everything I do. In a way, my mistake was a naive boundary violation and a failure to hold space for what my client was looking for. Over twenty years later, my admiration and respect have only grown. My practice has always grown in this self-sustaining and interdependent way! Risk is easier when I examine the stakes and values, and making mistakes is a high-leverage change lever. It’s how we grow!
Contact Info:
- Website: idearhyme.com
- Instagram: idearhymes
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryn-brooks/