S2E22 with Christine Blosdale - Cutting Through The Noise

Meet today’s guest Christine Blosdale — also known as The Expert Authority Coach™. For over 25 years, Christine has been helping entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, and thought leaders amplify their visibility and become the go-to experts in their given niche.

Her incredible career includes working with media and tech giants like America Online, Microsoft, and Pacifica Radio, where she honed her skills in branding, content creation, and magnetic marketing. Now, she uses that experience to teach others how to cut through the noise and stand out in a crowded space.

Christine is also a five-time #1 bestselling author with books like The Social Media and Branding Survival Guide and Podcastonomics: Unlocking the Secrets of Profitable Podcasting for Beginners. She hosts three podcasts — Out of the Box With Christine, The TikTok Influencers You Really Should Know About, and The Micro Podcast on Podcasting — where she continues to share her expertise with a global audience.

Whether she’s coaching one-on-one or leading her Authority Accelerator Mastermind, Christine brings a “simple, easy, and fun” approach to helping people stop hiding and start shining ... a space in life we all strive to reach ... someday!  

She is wickedly funny, incredibly grounded and during our time together, she shares her remarkable journey from her early childhood in Ventura, California to living her current best life in Sydney Australia with her beautiful wife.  It's a story you won't want to miss!   

To learn more about Christine, you can visit her site here:  https://www.christineblosdale.com

Once on her site, you will find links to her coaching services, upcoming LIVE events, a mastermind program, videos, books AND her award winning podcasts and blogs!  

Welcome to the conversation! 

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:05

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Just Do You Podcast. My name is Eric Nicoll, and I'm your host. If you are a first time listener, welcome to the conversation and if you're a regular, I'm honored that you've decided to join me for another episode. The Just Do You Podcast is centered around a network of conversations, which are meant to connect us, to inspire us, to find our own confidence, our own voice, and to live our own truth. And who knows, we might even learn a little something new that ultimately allows us to live in the sweet spot that I like to call the Just Do You space of being. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down for unscripted conversations with friends, family, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers that all share their own personal journeys. I hope that you enjoy our time together as much as I have. We are certainly gonna laugh, and yes, we might even cry a little, but in the end, we are gonna know that we're not alone during our life's journey. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to the conversation. All right, everyone. Welcome to today's episode, y'all. I have been waiting for this conversation with my guest today. We have tried a couple times to jump on, and first it was my schedule, then I think her schedule, and now here we are finally sitting down. And I cannot tell you, it is the perfect day to have this conversation. I have spent right, the better part of the day on teams calls and listening to people and having to manage and divert conversations to keep people on track. And the whole time I'm thinking, what am I doing here? And how did I get here? Number one, what am I doing here? Number two. So I'm gonna jump right in and introduce everyone to my guest today. Christine Blazedale. Hi Christine. Hi, darling. I've been looking for, I feel like it's Christmas morning. It is. You're under my tree. Oh, am I wearing a bow? Yes. Sorry. Sorry. A fancy bow. Yes, a fancy bow. It just popped into my head. We're just joking. For those of us who can't see us, I'm blending into my backdrop today as we're wearing all gray. So I wanted to work, I think there so much alike. You're like my doppelganger. You're like my, I know male. The male version of Christine. We look alike. We have the same kind of glasses. I don't have a beard, although I do look really good in a mustache and beard. Like when I do you When I go out. Oh yeah. Every now and then I'll use my wife's eyeliner and I'll have the whole thing. I'm very handsome. I would like to see that. You're beautiful and probably handsome too. Thank so You're welcome. Thank, I was asked recently if I had ever done drag and I said no.'cause I'd look like beer author in a house coat. Not making a pretty dry queen, but you, I can imagine would make a very handsome man. Alright, thank you. Okay, let's just jump right in'cause you and I could giggle and laugh for the full hour, but for our guest today. I wanna take a second just to introduce. Christine and I came across Christine. Through social media, which is how we meet people, right? That's just how we meet people today. And I was instantly taken by this incredibly piercing smile with these beautiful eyes and this amazing energy. And I said to myself, I have to figure out who this person is. I wanna know more. And I dug into this, Christine Blazedale. What I found was this powerhouse that had a remarkable story, and we're gonna talk about that today, but I'm gonna take a quick second just to read the bio. And Christine, I like to do this because, we wake up every morning sometimes into a conversation of whatever's going on around us, and we have to wake up ourselves and generate that space and that energy and that positiveness to get our day started. And I love to introduce people because at the end of every introduction, they all go. Oh wow. I guess that is me. Wow. I did do all that. Yeah, I did do all that. And I do it all still. So I'm gonna take a second. Okay, go right ahead. I'm just gonna lay back and just ah, just take it all in. Take it all in. Okay, you should know, we'll talk about this, but Christine actually lives in Australia, so it's tomorrow for her, which always freaks me out. But anyway, yeah. Okay. We're all still here. We're all still here. So Christine is known as the expert authority coach and has spent more than 25 years helping entrepreneurs and thought leaders and coaches and authors amplify their visibility and become this go-to authority that fits within their niche and. She's worked with major companies like Microsoft and big powerhouses like America Online, and what is it? Pacifica Radio was the other one that I thought was really cool. Mastering the art of branding, content creation and magnetic marketing. And that was the term that really caught my eye, was magnetic marketing. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that as well. But she's a five time number one bestselling author. She has her own podcast, in fact, several podcasts and this amazing kind of what she calls the signature simple, easy, and fun approach to being the best versions of oneself and living boldly and unapologetically, which is everything about the Just You Podcast. So welcome to the podcast, Christine. Wow, that's really great. You could read my obituary when I'm well, my goat. Okay. Alright. Can I do it in Australia?'cause I may be living there by then. Yes, you can. Yes, you can come on over. We have a spare bedroom for you. I would love it. Just before we get started, Australia was one of my, is still to this day, one of my favorite places to visit. I was blessed to be there twice. What an amazing beautiful country with such friendly people. And we laughed a little bit. The reason I'm not living there now is'cause you have everything that will kill you outside of the norm. We don't, not in if not in the city. You go to Sydney, there's no snakes in and crocodiles. No. Snakes and spiders. No. Okay, good. No, come on over. All right, I'll come back over. I was close. I was just in New Zealand. I should have popped over and said hi to you. Yeah. Yeah. So let's do this. I wanna go back a little bit. I want to know about the young Christine. Where did you grow up? What was your family life? Life? Brothers and sisters. Give us a little bit of history about Christine and her youth. I grew up in the beautiful city of Los Angeles. And I grew up actually in the valley in San Fernando Valley. But I, I was I was very shy as a kid and part of the, I don't know, my parents divorced when I was like two. Okay. And when I was four or five. I remember thanking them for I was like, you two together. I can't imagine it. So thank you very much for divorcing. And they're like looking at me as a little kid going, you're weird. And I just said no, because I know how the dynamics were would be right. But this way I had my dad's house and I had my mom's house. So I had two homes, two bedrooms. I, being a resilient child as we are children are so amazing. I made the best of it, and I wanted to make the best of it. So I did have that. And very distinct different parents. My dad born and raised in Burbank, California. Very American Republican conservative kind of guy. My mom. The most beautiful woman that has ever walked this earth. She looked a lot like Cher when I was a kid. And, but she was stunning. And she's from Morocco, from north north Africa. Wow. From Casablanca of all places. And dark skin, black hair, we, she'd go out with me, anywhere, shopping, whatever. And people thought I wasn't her child. They were like, who's this? It's I was like, I was, it was like chastity, right? Yeah, exactly. Who are you? Where do you come from? But they thought that she stole me because we didn't look very much alike. Oh my gosh. My mother was just, ugh. She was so beautiful, Eric, that. If we were walking down the street, guys would crash their cars. Looking at her and doing the cat calls and stuff. And of course me being that, that kid, I was like, Hey, yeah, that's my mom, don't be whistling at her really? And yeah. Oh, I was very protective of her. And and she always just told me how much she loved me and how much she believed in me. And at a really young age, this is why I think I became a coach, because at a very young age, I was told that my opinion mattered. And what she would do is she would work late at night. She was a single mom, didn't do well in the divorce, and so she would have to work really late at night. And so when she'd be getting ready, putting on her hot pants and go-go boots and everything to go to work, she'd be getting her makeup on and she'd be putting her clothes on. And she would ask me, she'd say, Christine, what do you think? Do you like this outfit? Do you think this top? And I'd go, I'd stand there. And I was like, literally five years old. And I'd go yeah, those boots don't really go with that top. So I would suggest those boots and put that wig on. And she would do it. And she would change her outfit and she would go now you know, now how am I? And I go, yep, you look great. You're good. And she. Valued my opinion so much so that she would change her outfit. So I learned at a really young age that my tastes, my style, my opinion on things really mattered. And so that carried on and she was always telling me how much she loved me. I missed my mom so much. She passed us a few years ago. And I was here in Australia and she was in America. That whole, she didn't pass of COVID, but it was during that time. And sorry for your loss. God. God, I miss her. But I feel her with me all the time. Yeah. There with you for that kind of love. That kind of love that's a parent has for their child, or a child has for the parent. It never dies. No. It only gets, I really believe it only gets stronger when they're in a space that's like beautiful, but yeah, I miss my mom a lot. Were you an only child? No, I was I had a brother, but my brother was nine years older than me. Oh, okay. I think I was like, I, you know how you're born and you tie, you go back and go, how did my, first of all, how did my parents copulate to create me? Because they were so opposite. And it was close to the divorce. They divorced when I was two Uhhuh. But I got, I'm like, I'm born in November 4th, and then I go back and I go back and go, oh, I was like a Valentine's Night thing. I was like some Randy Valentine's night. At least it was a Valentine's night. At least it was a good holiday. At least it was. I know. An appropriate holiday for sure. But you think there's a lot of Scorpios? I think there's a lot of Scorpios because of Valentine's Night, but yes, I'm one of those fellow Scorpios. We talked about that during our onboarding call. Yeah. So it was probably, your parents probably got busy on Valentine's night too. Same. Same. Same. See, the relationship that you had with your mom, then how did that contrast with the relationship that you had with your dad? You said it was very different. Was there a lot of love there or was it a little bit more patriarchal as expected or No? Oh no. I, that was something, a ghost in the kitchen just dropped a pan. I don't know. That was, maybe, that was my mom. She's stop talking about me. She's I'm busy over here. No, you know what, it was my dad bless his soul, and my father, I think had a lot of problems and issues and, back in those days too, man, alcohol was like, was this acceptable drug of choice. Yeah. And I think that he grew up in under really harsh circumstances with his own father. And so alcoholism was really on that side of the family. Luckily my mom, French, Moroccan, when I was a kid, she'd always offer up wine for dinner. I'm like, oh mom, I want milk. And she's okay. But it was never a taboo subject or anything, but my dad would deal with his emotions through drinking. And when you're a little kid and you've got a, and my dad was big, he was a big guy. So when it came to drinking, he would drink in excess. And being a kid, and I can, and people that are listening to this, if you were a child of an alcoholic, especially someone who could not control their emotions and would explode or be a rager, you learn to be on hypervigilant alert all the time. And that's how, that's what it was for me. I was always hyper alert, who's coming in that door tonight? I don't know. Is it good daddy? Or. Mean daddy or upset daddy. And that's why I would also, my sanctuary was when I got to be with my mom. And so we, on the weekends I got to be with my mom and, and my grandmother, my dad's mom, my grandmother also, she really raised me. And so I had this nurturing women around me. And with my dad, like I said, it was a thing of I'm just gonna walk on eggshells a bit here and get through it. Kids are so resilient. Kids shouldn't have to be resilient. Correct. But we can be very resilient. And so that's how my childhood, was, and I know a lot of other people who were, had the same sort of situation. One parent or another might have drug or alcohol issues. Or even dealing with some mental health issues, and being able to deal, I said this a couple. I think months ago now on another podcast. It's always amazing to me that, parents raise children with really no education on how to raise those children. And then if you add on to the fact that there's this newborn in your life or this new child in your life, and then having to deal with all of the things that could potentially come with that, all the differences, all of the potential issues, all of the potential conversations and all of the things that you would need to deal with. And we're not taught that. To how to raise children, how to deal with children that might be different or may have special needs. Or maybe, yeah. Going through my parents divorced when I was five and I look back at that now. Same kind of same thing. My mom was incredibly loving and still to this day, my best friend. Oh, cute. And we talk a couple times a day and in fact, we're traveling together. We're going to Hawaii for Thanksgiving I'm taking her on a very surprised, oh, I'm so jealous of your mom. She knows we're going, but she doesn't know what we're doing. But my dad was really interesting. I did not have a good relationship with my dad. My dad, PhD in psychiatry and very smart and very book smart, but not very street smart and didn't know how to really deal with children, and especially the child of divorce, who would be screaming because he was separated from his mother on visitation. And I look back now and really give him some grace. God rest his soul. He passed last year, but. I give him some grace because he didn't have the manual. And not only did it have the manual, he didn't have the manual on how to deal with a child that had come out and that was dealing with their sexuality and all those things while dealing with everything else. So that couples onto, I'm not saying this's any more difficult than any other kind of child rearing situations that pop up, but we just don't give, I shouldn't say we don't give them enough grace, but there isn't an education or a handbook, I use that word a lot. There's no handbook. You'd have to take a class or a course to get a driver's license. I know, but you don't have to necessarily raise a child. And I, but what's my point of all that, that I did rambling was I always find through these conversations that the relationships that both men and women have had with their mothers are really different than the relationships they had with their dads. Now, some of them have been beautiful relationships with their dads, but more often than not, it's been a struggle. And I don't know if it was societal pressures or guilt or whatever the case may be, but it's interesting to me because to this day, my mom, she could be my mom. She can be a little, yeah, a lot. She could be a lot, but I'm a lot too. But there is this respect and love for each other that will never change. And like you said, I sometimes really worry about what it's gonna be like when she's not here. And what that looks like for me as an only child and having my father passed and I then start to think about all the wonderful memories. That's why this trip is gonna be so great to Hawaii. We haven't been there together, just the two of us in a long time. That's so good that you're doing that. That's so good. I had to because I started to see, I started to see a shift in energy and in. As people get older and things start to happen around them, and they start to lose friends and they start to lose, people that they care about, they get scared. It gets scared, and she sees me traveling all the time. Let's call the spade, her nickname. I nicknamed her sarcasm because she super sarcastic. And so every time I would travel for work, I'd be in like the Virgin Islands or I'd be in Portugal and she'd be like, oh, you're going to Portugal. And then and always make fun about, so I finally said, pack your bags, lady. We're going to Hawaii for Thanksgiving. But I share that because what I think is so interesting, as we get older and we go through these stages of our lives, I'll be 60 next year. A lot of my friends don't have their parents. You've, lost your mom. I think that's something that we have to take every moment and be grateful for because at some point life happens and that's the part that scares me the most. What was that like though then growing up? How did you manage. That navigation of the two different environments. You said you're resilient, which I can understand, but how did you, what was the internal dialogue that was happening as you were transitioning from one home to the next? I have, I think I was like a baby monk or Buddha. I don't know. I was, when I was really young, I always, I had this mantra in my head that this is only temporary. Anytime. Any, anytime I was going through anything funky or weird or I had, I remember I, when I was really little I had a dislocated elbow and it was because this girl on the playground wanted me to go with her somewhere. I think she had a little crushy on me and she was pulling me to come with me, and I didn't want to go. And I was holding onto the monkey bar. I was like no. And I was so strong holding onto that thing, and she pulled and she popped my elbow. She disconnected my elbow from my socket. So I had this, and it was so painful. I remember being in a cast and the itchy cast when you're a kid. You're like but I kept saying to myself, this is only temporary. This is only temporary. So even when I had those situations where. And I grew, my dad's house was in a really rough neighborhood in Los Angeles in, in the valley. Really rough, lots of gangs. And I never felt safe and secure at that house. The door had one little tiny baby lock on it, the windows wouldn't lock. So I was always like, again, hypervigilant, like one sleeping with one eye open. And then when I was at my mom's house, my mom was like super secure safety. So I always felt really safe there, but it was this idea of this is just something I've gotta get through. I'll get through it. I and I was always saying, when I'm an adult kid when I get older, I'm gonna have my own place and I'm gonna feel safe and I'm gonna it's just something that you do. You know what though is interesting is that with my father, like how I didn't feel close to him. I felt more scared, right? But what was interesting is that when I came out and I was in, I was like 21 or something. Oh, let me tell you the coming out story, the other coming out story, how I realized how the, the heavens opened up and I realized that I was gay. But I was terrified to tell my best friend and my, my, my family members, especially my parents and my grandmother. So I was terrified and I was thinking my dad is gonna lose it.'cause he's a, he listens to Fox News and he's hardcore Republican and my mom is gonna be cool with it. And, I didn't know how my grand, I thought my grandmother,'cause she's older, she's not gonna like it, so I gave, I got the courage up and I went to each family member and I remember first telling my best friend, and she was like. She's okay, that's not a big deal. She goes, do you have a crush on me? Do you like me? You think I'm hot? I go, no, you're, you annoy me. You're my friend. No, I don't think you're hot. Yeah you could, you're beautiful, but you're not my no. It's not my type. Yeah, no. And she was very upset about that. So anyway and then I go to tell my dad, and he's he goes hello. I knew this a long time ago. I was like, what? He goes, Christine, you had the Farrah Faucet poster above your bed. I said, didn't everybody have the Farrah Faucet poster above their bed? He goes, no. He goes, no. He goes, no you really loved that Farrah Faucet. I think there was a 10 million of those posters in kids' rooms. Oh, totally. I didn't realize it was, I didn't realize that was it. Anyway, so he was fine. He was great with it. He was easy peasy. And then I told my grandmother, and my grandmother was just like, you're still my little cricket, right? And I go, yeah. She's no worries. Don't even worry about it. I love you. Okay. So then I go to my mom and my mom had a different reaction. She was very upset and I couldn't understand. It didn't compute to me. I was like, wait a second. Why are you so upset? And her,'cause she grew up in an era where you get married, really, to have somebody take care of you. And she said, who's gonna take care of you? Take care of you. I was like, I'm gonna take care of me. I don't even if I marry a woman, eventually I'm, I don't need them to take care of me. I'm gonna take care of me. And then she was worried about my safety. She was she thought,'cause she said they're gonna, they might hurt you. People might, I've heard, I've seen stories and da. Yeah. And I think it was it all came from a protective mama bear place. But I was like, oh, it really was, it took us some time to get through that. Yeah. And then she realized I'm good. She just wanted me to be happy. I think that's the underlying genesis of everyone's reaction. Parent wise, when we come out, I think our safety and that we're gonna be okay and that we're gonna be taken care of is paramount. And I oftentimes think that's what gets overshadowed when we hear so many stories about maybe families that aren't as accepting. It's all about fear, which is that false expectation that appears real. Yeah, there's, I remember telling my mom, I was terrified. I hid it for a year and I told my mom, I made up some big, huge story with a very dramatic, almost literally, like I was gonna try cocaine but decided not to, but I have to come out and tell you that I'm gay. So I threw the cocaine in there to lessen the blow of the gay part.'cause I knew that the drugs would be worse ultimately than the gay part. And to this day we laugh about it'cause I had to lessen the blow. It took her about a year. I think she was, again, only child, only son. Carry on. The name family, who's, am I protected? Am I safe? And this was what about my grand babies? Yeah, this was the eighties. The interesting ones were my grandparents. My grandmother as well. My dad's mom, who I loved dearly. When I came out to tell her, she's tell me something I didn't already know. And I'm like, grandma did. I'm like, how did you know? And she goes, honey, every time you come to visit, you ask to eat on the good China and the good crystal. Oh, how she's no straight boy cares a lick. And when she passed, I inherited it all. But I always remember that story and I always laugh. My I had a very blessed coming out process. My dad was the only one who tried to psychoanalyze the whole thing and make it about him. Oh, which he was really good at it. The psychologist. I wasn't a good enough father and I, you didn't have a male figure. And I'm like, so now you're, get Yeah. Okay, now I'm gay. I'm like, no. I have liked boys for a really long time and it had nothing to do with you not being there.'cause remember a Billy who used to live next door to you When I'd come on visitation, that's when I figured it out. But, so if you wanna call the spade, you had no say in it. You had nothing to do with it. Had nothing to do with it, dad. But I have heard so many wonderful stories and also some very difficult stories about people's coming out process. So I'm really glad that you had that opportunity to. Kind of work through that process. So when you, that was around 24. So you were in college or had you I, I was, no, it was around 21. I had 21. Okay. I had tried dating boys. I, you know what, when I was younger, we didn't have any, we didn't have anybody that was out. No. We didn't have any role models. We didn't even have any gay men that were out. I was like, Liberace. And he, they were still trying to say that he was straight. I was like, don't, Nope. But there was nothing. And, it was nothing. Nobody. And so even like I remember in elementary school having a sleepover I had the, it was my girl tribe, my, we we did all, we hung out together. We did girl scouts together. We, had sleepovers. And I remember there was this one girl that was at a sleepover and the other girls were all whispering to each other. And I was like, what's going on? And they're like, that girl, I forget her name, but they, that, that girl, she likes girls and we're all like, oh my God. And they shunned her. So that prehistoric thing, that thing that we don't wanna be kicked out of the cave because then the dinosaurs going to eat us. They shunned her. They never invited her to any more sleepovers at school. They treated her horribly. And so I said to myself, whatever she is, I don't want to be, because I don't wanna be kicked outta the cave. I don't wanna have my friends leave me. When you're in elementary school, you're like. But so for the longest time I just said, okay, that, I stayed away from that, even the concept of that. Yeah. Although all my best friends that I had as I was growing up, they were all kind of girls that I had crushes on. I didn't know, you don't know these things, so later you figure it out, and then when I would watch Charlie's Angels as a kid, I got like a little funny little feeling. I was like, oh gosh, I really love Farrah Faucet, and Jacqueline Smith. Oh yeah. All of these women, wonder Woman, come on now. The bionic woman. I was, I had crushes on all these women, and I just didn't, because I didn't know that we had an option, right? I thought I had to be with boys. I thought I had to eventually marry a guy. And so my, high school, just going through all that stuff, and I never felt comfortable with boys. I never felt a connection, really. I just thought it was my duty that I had to give it a go. And so I remember the time that I, because I had been with different men, and unfortunately, the ones that I had chosen, they all, they were all cheating. They were all cheating, right? I found out they were all cheating. And then the last one was just like a big, a huge red flag. And it was right around the time when Basic instinct came out. Now dun. For those who dunno just Google the Sharon Stone scene. Yeah. In basic instinct. And when you say the Sharon Stone scene, everybody who's seen the movie knows exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. When I saw that, I went, oh, that's what I wanted about. Yeah. That's what I want. That yeah, that's what I, that's what I really want. And then I just, I gave up men from the actors. Yes. I just, thanks to Sharon Stone. You know what, and if I met Sharon I would actually, there's an article coming out soon here in Australia, and there's an article coming out really soon. I did an interview and I basically say it's Sharon Stone turned me gay. Now that you've put it out to the universe, you know it's gonna happen. She's gonna come to Australia and be walking down the street one day. Wouldn't that be amazing? I'd love to talk to her. She's very smart. Yes. I love her. She's a genius. She's Mensa whatever. She's very smart. Yeah. People don't give her credit for that. I think she's a great person to make you realize that you were gay. Mine was David Hasselhoff in Baywatch. Really? It was Baywatch anything with a shirt off. I was watching the Pamela Anderson documentary this morning, which I loved. I thought it was an amazing story. What a talk about resilience. Yeah. But she did a lot of flashbacks to her Baywatch days and there was David Hasselhoff and all those guys, David Chochi and all those guys that I was madly in love with because again, like you said, we didn't have the gay icons out there. The only gay person that I knew was my mother's hairdresser, Mr. Albert. And he was so gay and I let him cut my hair one time when I hid in the bathroom'cause he decided he wanted to give me highlights. It was the worst decision I ever made in my life. It was awful. But again, I was so terrified about what people were gonna say and I look back now at that process and hear stories like yours and what our realizations were and I realized. How I have to use the right word. It's not easier today'cause it certainly is a lot more difficult with our current climate, but the ability for the L-G-B-T-Q community to see themselves represented out in Oh yeah. Life is really an amazing thing. Yeah, because I used to watch Will and Grace and Cry because I'm like, why couldn't this have been out earlier? I was dating girls but I was in love with their brother or their dad for that matter. In one particular case. And if we had just had those role models, if we had just had that ability to be and understand that was okay, that we're gonna be okay. Okay, we're back. We had a little small technical difficulty, but we're back. So I think I left it where I was saying that, having the opportunity to not see myself back then, it was really a very confusing time. And so even dating and going out with a girl that I went out with in my senior year, I was madly in love with her dad. And there's a whole long story behind it. And he ultimately, later in life, comes out and we ran into each other at a party many years later in West Hollywood. So it was a great reunion. But what I was saying about in today's kind of environment, in today's kind of climate, it's easier because they see the representation. But we as a community amongst many other communities in the US are just coming under attack. And so I worry that. The resilience of today's L-G-B-T-Q youth is gonna potentially run screaming back into that closet or come run screaming back into that space of, there's something wrong with me. If everyone's out there saying, everyone being the operative word, that they think it's everyone is out there judging me and trying to tear me down and taking away our rights, do I even come out? And what it's gonna do for the mental health of our community is really frightening to me, Christine, and I think as a coach, you obviously work with people to have them be their unapologetically authentic self, and how do we do that in these climates? And that's a weird transition to go from childhood to this. But that's something that really has me concerned about kids these days is do they. Come out freely and be unapologetically them. And then how do we get the message to them that it's okay to still be, that we need them to be, that we need them to be unapologetically themselves and authentic, especially now ab Absolutely. I feel that even though it is, the climate has changed a bit, the overwhelming majority of LGBTQ plus individuals and their family members and friends, supporters, allies are so numerous especially in the United States, let's say. And here, in Australia the same thing. They just rec, it was only recently that they approved same sex marriage. Yes. But but the support that we have is just, is massive. What happens is that the bullies or the, the authoritarian dictatorship that America is under. It gets all of the attention. It gets the microphone. It gets the bullhorn, right? Yeah. And so if you hear through that bullhorn, all of these messages, this mantra, then you think that's how you perceive that's how the world thinks. A about you or their feelings about you, what they think about you, who you are. But I think it's, I think it's too much, it's too big right now that we've experienced that support and that love. A good example, good point is the narrative that's been happening for the last two years with what's going on with, in, is Israel, with the Israel and Palestine, and Palestinian people. For the longest time that large megaphone was like no. We're doing, we wanna protect ourselves and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then now people are seeing all these images and they're like, wait a second, this is not right. You can't starve millions of people, no water, Eric. People don't realize it's not just no food, which you can't, there's no water. You can't live, there's no water. How long can you go without water? For basic sanitation, but to, to live. So people are, and here we just had 300,000 Australians in a downpour walking across the harbor bridge. Now if you listened to the media, they were like, oh, a couple thousand people, showed up and the anti-Israel march, no, it wasn't an anti-Israel march, it was an anti genocide march. And it doesn't matter who is being genocided people, good, kind, loving people are going to step out and they're gonna speak up. And that's what has to happen though in the United States. And I see it. It's not getting the media coverage is not coming to the outside world about all of the marches, also about the immigration policies. These, yeah. Roundups of people who just look, it's not getting to you. It's not getting to you. No. It's being suppressed, but good old TikTok. My, it's where I get my news. Those stories are coming out. They have to hash, they have to title'em something else. Music festival. Sorry, did you say music festival? Yes. Music festival. If you look up Music Festival on TikTok or on one of your other, platforms, then you'll be able to see about how many people are speaking up and and protesting and putting their wellbeings on the line, their jobs. Their careers, their their livelihoods for other people that they don't know. This is what we have to do. We have to speak up, and we have to stop those. That machine of just saying, I, this is how it's gonna go. And to go and to say, wait, that's not right. Right now they're talking about what now? They're doing it in Washington, DC militarizing the entire city. And they say he's saying there's not gonna be any more homeless people. Where are you gonna put'em? Oh, don't worry, we have a place for them. Oh it sounds very much like the, if you Yeah. We have a place for them. And if it's like Alligator Island, what's your crime being so poor that you can't, you don't have a place to live, or you had a me a medical incident that caused you to be homeless, or you came back from serving the military. There's no services for military folks, for veterans, right? Mental health or anything. So they find themselves homeless on the streets and you're gonna what? Put'em in prison. A detention camp. What? I've left America five years ago and you could not, if you said, this is what's gonna hap, I would go you're crazy. That's like a Hollywood script. Never gonna happen in America. That's what I said yesterday. When they were talking about the repeal of, the same sex marriage and Supreme Court, coming after that. And I said, I remember people in my life saying, they're not gonna come for your marriage. They're not gonna come for your rights. They're not. They have more important things to deal with. And we all called the bullshit. We all knew that it wasn't true and yet. Here we are. I shared with you, I have a friend who's trans and she's afraid to leave her house because she's afraid of being beaten or being abducted, or being removed and what's the word they use? Evaporated. Disappeared. Sorry. Disappeared. And the thing that just, again, going back to this L-G-B-T-Q Con Q conversation, I know who we are as a community. I know we're strong, we're resilient. This isn't our first rodeo. We've been through this, right? We haven't, I'm not worried about the yous and mes and even the 30 somethings where I start to get concerned, which is why I love this podcast, which is why I love doing these interviews, which is why I've agreed to a couple projects coming up at the end of the year that is really gonna help young people, is that we have to let them know that we're here and we've got you. That's what I want them to know. I want them to know that they can remove us from books, they can remove us from history. They can remove us from, all of these libraries and all these monuments and museums. And they can even tear up our rainbow colored streets. But they're not gonna change the fact that we're here. We won't let them. And so what's the question that had been running through my mind as we talked about, because I think you and I could talk forever. One of the things that was running through my mind is in how you deal with your clients and finding that space for people to live authentically and unapologetically takes something. Because I don't think that we are. And please correct me if I'm wrong, are we born with that tenacity and that ability to be authentic? What happens to us so that we lose that? That we have to then, by the grace of God, come find people like you to get us back to that space after we've already gone through the journey and are now in our forties saying, what the F What do I do now? Or our fifties raising my hand? I think we're all, see, I, my personal belief is that I've been here many times. I've been Sure. Reincarnated I was a man. I was a woman. I was a girl. I was a boy. That's why I'm non-binary, gender fluid. And you call me, she, he, I don't care. They whatever. I don't go by they, because I am one human being, but you could call me whatever you, I don't care. That said, I believe that all those different life experiences have has given me perspective. I believe that I've lived life in many different ways, and so I believe that when we come into this world, man, we are so close to source. We are we've got it. And then what happens is that through our family, the immediate people around us, we start to learn how to behave. Then you've got the community, then you've got the society, then you've got school that kind of tries to put you like, in a little box. And again, when we're born, society in general was like, are, do we wrap her in a pink blanket or do we wrap him in a blue blanket? Now with me, it's a purple blanket, I don't know, because I was, I've always been. Gender fluid. I've always been. I've just had to adapt to,'cause even coming out as, a lesbian, ugh, I hate that word. It's such a, it just sounds like a weird disease. But I, coming out, being queer, gay I didn't fit in those boxes either, really. I think we're all born with this genius. This connection to source. And so we can be very amazing, but we get it taught out of us. We get it drop, pushed down your intuition, push it down follow the norms. This is what society says that you need to do. Oh, I better do that. So by the time people come to me and most of my clients are women, by the time they come to me, they have, they can have a bit of imposter syndrome. Sure. And that means basically, and it's all levels, it's all socioeconomic levels, it's all achievement levels. So you could be a CEO of a major company and you could still suffer from imposter syndrome. Sure. And that's just those little voices of somebody said when you were five years old, you're stupid, or you're ugly, or you're this, you're that. You're gay. You're gay. And something that. That was told to you, even on a playground, not from your parents, but even to some kid on the playground who said something to you. Even though you've grown up and you've got degrees and you've got, all the success and employees and everything, that little story can haunt you. And so when you're asked to step into something that's a little uncomfortable, imposter syndrome will come up. And that stops so many people. So that's one of the first things that I deal with my clients is we find out if there is any of that. If there is any of that, then we deal with that so that we can get that out of the way. Because if you are too afraid to show up because you think I'm worried about what people are gonna think of me, I'm too old, I'm too fat, I'm too this, I'm too that, then you're not gonna show up and communicate your message. And and people will feel it. Oh, and they can smell it a hundred miles away. They really can. Absolutely. There's something about not being authentic that people don't realize that it is like wearing a sign on your forehead and I'm like you, I, yeah. Flashing on your forehead. I'm very much like you. I believe in that whole conversation around source, and I know when I'm not close to it. I know when I'm off in la land, I know when I'm off in my head, and then I know when I'm right next to source and I'm in that space because that's when I feel most alive and most myself and most willing to take those risks and to put myself out there doing this podcast was that, that conversation source is what got me to this podcast that in a really. I wouldn't say, aggressive is the wrong word. A very confident mentor of mine who said, just sit down and do your first damn podcast.'cause you're never gonna know until you try it. Oh, I love that. Because I had so many reasons why not to do it. I had so many reasons why it was gonna be, not successful too hard. It's too hard. No one's gonna listen Is the content this, am I a good host and yada, yada, yada. What I'm also curious about, and again, I know we could talk, I wanna be conscious of your time, but when people find themselves in this place, and it could be a myriad or of a decade, in their forties or in their fifties. Do you find that there's a conversation that it might be a little too little, too late and they don't take that next step to maybe sit down with someone like you to have that conversation about what it means and what it's gonna take to really break through this barrier of this conversation we're living in now? I have clients that are in their seventies and eighties. Wow. Wow. Usually by when people find me.'cause it's either through like referral or some, some coincident, coincidence, Ky they'll find me, they'll go, I was just drawn to you. I don't know why. I don't know what it is, but I'm just really drawn to you and I like your energy. And I've, that happens across the board with people from all different ages. But what I find is that especially like my clients, that, mostly women that are in their seventies and eighties, they have all of this beautiful wisdom to share and that my message to them is, it is never too late to share that information. We may put you in different platforms that are comfortable for you. So some maybe create, creating a podcast for them is not the thing. But getting them booked on podcasts to tell their stories. Yes. Or writing that book, getting that book out there. That bestselling book or creating a TikTok. I have a client who's got a TikTok channel. She's kicking ass. She's she's well up. There's awesome, and it's because she's authentic and she's real. And one of my favorite talkers is is the grandma. And she's that grandma that every granny, we call her granny, she's that granny that everybody wishes was her, was their granny. So you've given them an opportunity. You're right. And you've given them an opportunity to shine, as like you say in your bio, right? Yeah. And I think so many times as we get older, we think that our time's done, we think that our opportunities are done. And I don't believe that for one second, one second. No, we only get better as we get. I'm you're the same age as me. I'm 60 going on 61. And I'll tell you, I am just getting started. And when you reach that age too, what I love about our age, Eric, is that we have no problem saying no. We have no problem going, yeah, no, that's not gonna work for me. Whereas when we're in twenties, we're like, oh I dunno if that sounds good, but I guess I'll do it because Sure. Sure. Uhhuh. Yeah, I'd love to. Okay. It's, I'd love to, I think that's what drew me to you, and I want you to come back and be a guest another time on the podcast. We have so much that we could talk about and we had, I've had so much fun today, but I think that's what really drew me to you in watching you on social media and really digging into who you are. Because so many of us, and I'm. Again, we talked about same age. I'm in the spot where I've had an amazing career. I've had an amazing run. I own my own company. I've loved it. I have the podcast. It's been fantastic. I will do it for as long as people will listen. It gives me life, but there's a conversation about what's next. I'm in that spot. What's next for me as a six Next year? Not this year, next year. 60-year-old guy, gay guy that lives in San Diego. What's next? Because that can't be all. This is, there's the title of your next book, the 60-year-old gay guy. Exactly. What's next? What's next? What's next? Bring it on. Bring it on. SQL 17. But I think that's something that we all tend to find. I have friends that run the age gamma, but a lot of my friends are much younger and they're still in this kind of prime space. And I feel like I'm just in my prime. I feel like the last decade has really been the opportunity for me to get my voice out there, to be that stand, to leave the legacy. And I want our listeners to know that it's not too late. I look at my mom, she was a teacher for 35 years. When she stopped teaching, the conversation stopped right in that empowerment. And I keep having conversations with her about what are you gonna do? What do you wanna do to keep that going? Who could you mentor? Who could you coach? Where can you give of yourself because she's lost that. And so I'm gonna make sure people have access to your yes site so that they can check you out. And I encourage them to look at your social media and check out your podcasts, plural, and check out all your content. I have two last questions for you'cause I do not want to not. Introduce and have you just give us a brief little story about how you met your wife and the fact that you live in Australia now I think is amazing.'cause I don't wanna ever meet her and go, you didn't ask about me. You're adorable. So how did I, okay. So real, a real quickly. I was living in beautiful southern California in a small place called Ventura, which is where the bionic woman lived. Yes, I knew that. I had to go. No accident there. No accident there. Yeah. And just doing my thing, and social media. And my wife back then she found me on, on Instagram, the things you might like or the scroll, whatever. She saw a picture of me and she went, oh. She clicked on it and started stalking me. Basically followed me and started stalking me. Now my wife at the time was. Straight I, air quotes straight. Always been with men, never been with women. And she just was fascinated by me. And it was interesting'cause before she actually got the courage up to inbox me to, to message me, she was liking all my stuff and she was liking stuff like two years old. Wow. Like going through the scroll, going through the scroll, quite a ways back. And so I was just like, oh, wow, this is a very enthusiastic fan. Okay, this is cool. And then she she inboxed me and said, why do I find you so attractive? Ooh, I like that. That's bold. It's really bold. And I was like,'cause I was clueless. I was so clueless. I was like'cause you got good tape. I don't know what. Duh. And I said, and I said, oh, thank you. Oh, okay. And then I checked her out, I went to her profile and I was like, whoa, she's beautiful. She's beautiful. Yeah. And I, but I couldn't figure out where she was from. And she's, and so I said, what, where are you from? And I told her where I was at in Southern California and she sent me a picture of this really cool, beautiful beach. And I thought, oh my God, is she in Hawaii?'cause I love Maui, I love Hawaii Uhhuh. And I was like, oh man, nope. And then I go, I wrote her, I said, are you in Florida? Because I'm going nope, further. And I said, where are you? And she's Australia. And I went, oh God, that's 7,000 miles away. And and I just was like, okay, let's just see where this goes. And for six months, Eric. For six months we were texting and WhatsApping and video calling and just back and forth and falling in love as you do. And then we decided okay, we need to see if this is, if you're my human.'Cause I'd never been married before I was 50, whatever. Yeah. And we met in Maui'cause it was midway, sorta. Yep. Kind of sorta. We met Maui for 10 days. I got like the luxe accommodation because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Ah, for real. So I got like the beach front, crazy. Thousand dollar a day, place, whatever. And we had 10 days and it was like, that's it, you're my human. And then the whole process of getting me here, which was, immigration and Australia's very tough on immigration. Yes. Yeah. Australia and America are both a little difficult. But I'd say if you are interested in coming here you're a good candidate to, to come here because also you have a bit, you have a business. They like to look at people that have a, you're not looking for work. Not gonna drain their economy. Yeah, exactly. But I love the story, Christine, that you told and so obviously logistics and immigration and all that, but you literally barely made the last plane out of Los Angeles Yes. To fly to Sydney before they shut the airport down for COVID. Yes. Yeah. That's, I say to people that this is gonna be my TED Talk. I've been saying this for years and I just have to actually try and do a ted talk. The last flight out of Los Angeles and unreal. It was I was supposed to go in April of 2020, my wife called me up. She goes, Hey, there's the news is saying this COVID thing. I go it's the flu. It's not a big deal. She's no. I think you need to bump up your flight. I go, oh God. Alright, let me just look. And then when I went to look for my flight, it was gone. It was wiped off the computer like I never made it. And I got on the phone and I said, where's my flight to Australia in April? And they said The prime Minister of Australia is saying that they're gonna shut the border hard. And so all the flights are being canceled. I'm looking at my computer and she's everything is just being wiped. And so I was panicking.'cause at that point I had been married to my wife. Yeah. We had kids. We, they're my children now. So I was like, I gotta get to my kids and my wife in Australia. Yeah. And she said, there's nothing. She goes, there's okay. She goes, there's one flight. And it leaves today in a couple hours. Unreal. Unreal. She goes, do you want it? And I like, look around at my little house, my little beach house with all my stuff in it. And I go, yes, I still had dishes in the sink. I was like, yeah. And she goes, okay. So she booked it and I got a friend to take me to LAX, which friends who take you to LAX at the last minute, lovely. There's a place at Evan for you. Yes. Uhhuh. And then I we bolted to LAX and it was like, it was empty. And now LAX is one of the busiest airports in the world. Yeah. And it was hardly anybody there. So I did, luckily got on that flight. It was very weird. Everybody was masked up. I had, we had gloves on. It was just the weirdest experience. And when I took off that tarmac I had that sinking feeling like it was the weirdest, unusual feeling. That I was not gonna be home ever. I didn't think that I was ever gonna be able to come back home. I have since then, just I did a trip not too long ago, but it was the weirdest feeling. And when I landed here, I landed at night and at midnight they closed that border for two years. Could you imagine? It's just, I, you told me that story when we first talked and I thought, if that is not divine intervention, I don't, and the universe like propelling you to get on that plane and go, I don't know what is you've heard stories, but the last flight out before they shut the border hard for two years would've been insane to me. I would've gone BS crazy. But that also to me, talks a lot about, to wrap this story wraps everything in a package of who Christine Blazedale is. One of the things that I love about you in watching you and also getting to know you now in a couple conversations. And I, again, like I said, I hope you'll come back'cause we have lots to talk about. One of the things that I love about you is your storytelling and your ability to create a narrative that lives your truth and lives who you are for your clients is really rare. There are a lot of people out there that are coaches that talk a big game that don't necessarily. Maybe following a manual but haven't lived that experience. And what I love about you is that you not only have lived that experience and you've been through an amazing journey that now you take that which you've learned and you help others be their amazing selves is a gift. I am a firm believer in what I call my posse which are my coaches, whether it's my life coach, my nutritional coach, my physical training coach. I've got a friend who helps me dress'cause I'm colorblind. I have my posse in my team, I belie. Otherwise, I'd be like a today matching my backdrop all day, every day. But I really wanna say thank you for who you are for the world, because you bring to it and also to the community a really amazing energy and a commitment to make sure that people live their authentic lives. What's next for you? What's next for Christine? I heard a couple things in there, but what's next for you? Oh, I, I really love bringing others up and showcasing really talented people. So what I'm doing right now is I'm gathering up experts, strategists, coaches, who I think can really help a lot of people and creating showcases for them so that they can reach more people. I don't believe in the scarcity mindset thing. I don't believe in oh, that, she's gonna take my clients. I don't believe in that at all. I believe that if we are able to as a coach or as a a thought leader, if you're able to bring. More value, more important things to help people, to actually help people in their business to become self-sufficient and to become successful and bringing those people who can help them. I think it just, it's a good karma type thing as well. So you don't do it for the good karma, but you do it because you know that it can help people in their business. And so that's really, that's the next step for me is that I wanna have a bigger platform for that. And I am wor I'm beginning working on that right now, but I do love that. And I do really love I love when the light bulb goes off with people. Oh yeah. They go, isn't it amazing? You mean I can do that? I'm like, yeah, you can do that. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It's giving them the gift of who they are really meant to be and why they were put on this earth. I believe we were all put on this earth to be of service to everyone, to, to others. And a lot of times we find ourselves on very different paths. So I love that light bulb moment. I think that's really cool. Yes. If you could go back to your young self, to your elementary school, Christine. Yes. What would you tell her about her life today? First of all, I would tell her to drink more water along the way. And to not worry, I was really worried as a kid. I was, I think,'cause I was that hypervigilant kid, but, not to worry. It's all gonna work out. It's all gonna be okay. Because too, for the longest time, I felt, and I think, I don't know if it's all kids or if it's because, in the queer community if we feel this way, but I always felt like I was, I always felt like I was plopped on a planet with people that I didn't understand. I was like, even though I love my, and I love my mom and my grandmother. Yeah. But I was like, I get it. Who are these people? Yeah. I get it was, I adopted and you look at, and then also I was, I came into a time, it was right, right after all the assassinations and shit. Sorry. But and I think Nixon was in and I would be looking at all this stuff going on politically and the racial, all the injustice. And I was like, what am I doing here? Who are these people that are in war and their, all, all this crazy stuff. Racism, all this stuff. I was going, what? And so I always felt like I was plunked out of some other world and just deposited here. And I felt that I didn't belong for the longest time. And I want to let that little Christine know that it, I know it feels like you're alone, but you're not alone. And when you actually come from your heart and you are that authentic person, it's like magic. And you will attract those people, that are meant to be with you. I, like I said, I didn't find my human until I was in my mid fifties and for a long time I thought. I am I my, it's gonna be me and my little toy poodle, and that's all it's going to be. Exactly. Because I didn't wanna, I didn't wanna, at a certain point, I didn't wanna be with men. I didn't wanna be with women. I don't wanna be with anybody. I was like, I just wanna be with my toy poodle and we're gonna live a good life. And and then poof, some chick found me on Instagram. I said the same thing. It's me, the dog, and my Kelly ice cream from down the street. I just, there you go. Do you need anything else? So I'm hoping mine comes poof around the corner here soon, because you never know. Oh girl, it's a show out there. Lemme tell you. It's interesting. What is your one piece of advice for somebody who may be standing as we wrap this conversation up? The one piece of advice for someone who may be standing in the conversation of, I don't know what to do at this stage in my life. What's that one thing that they could do to take that next step? I love talking to people, especially if it's about about their business or about the next step. If they want to really come out of the the career closet, so to speak. And that can be even, not just so much creating their own business, but if you if you wanna leave a legacy, if you wanna be a speaker, if you wanna create a, a TikTok channel and things like that, I love to have that opportunity to talk to people. So I have a discovery call that I ha I offer folks absolutely free, and we sit down and we have a chat, what we have here, but I find out what the jewels of the crown are. So we go after. What, and you may not notice it, you may not realize that you're sitting on a really, a multimillion dollar idea or business. And so that's my skillset is that I can take a look at what you're doing, I can take a look at what you're not doing, and I can give you some really amazing ideas and opportunities. And then it's up to you if you're gonna take action's. Because a lot of times that's the thing if you just go one day, I'll do that. Yeah. One day I'm gonna do that. One day doesn't happen. For those of you who are take action people, then I invite you to have that that chat with me. Yeah. And you can you can go to my website, you can book that with me. Again, it's free. It's a discovery call. You can do that at my website, expert authority coach.com. Or you can go directly to my booking link, which is chat with christine b.com. We're gonna put both of those on our social media, and I'm gonna encourage our listeners around the world if you find yourself in that spot where you just feel stuck and you need to take that next step. I'm telling you, with the amount of time I've spent with Christine, which has been very little, I am energized and excited and yay. I am so grateful we met. You have a new friends. Me too. I wish you lived next door, Rik. I know, I do too. Do too. We would have so much fun. I'm not sure we'd get a lot of work done, but I think we'd have a really good time. Oh, no, we would. We would. No, we would. We're gonna talk. You've inspired me to be thinking about a few things as we talked about in the onboarding call. And you'll be definitely getting a call from me. But thank you for your time today. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. Don't worry about us not doing enough work. We are very powerful, creative scorpions. So we would definitely work. We would just make sure we'd have a lot of fun doing it first. Yes. First, then get to work. And perhaps a cocktail. And perhaps a cocktail. Oh, I can't remember that one bar that I went to in Sydney. That's a whole other conversation we'll talk about another time. Thanks for your time today, Christine. Thank you. Love all my best to you and your wife and we'll chat soon, okay? Okay, I hope so. Thanks for being here. Bye. Alright, everyone, thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode. Directly with your friends and if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at just Do you pod as you go out into the world today. Remember to just do you. Alright, talk next week.