Packaging Etcetera Podcast
The Packaging Etcetera Podcast is by and large a forum for discussing events and trends in the packaging industry. While packaging is the focus, Etcetera is a reference to an occasional wild card - maybe something serious and career focused, or something scientific or maybe even something fun and playful.
Packaging Etcetera Podcast
Beyond Manifesting: Real Strategies for Getting Unstuck with Life Coach Bridget Meadows
Bridget Meadows shares her journey from a 20-year career in packaging-adjacent roles to becoming a life coach who helps technical professionals get unstuck and create practical, strategic plans for change. Through her own experience of corporate burnout and personal tragedy, she discovered a passion for helping others reconnect with their values and make seemingly impossible changes possible.
• Using project management and risk assessment principles in life coaching
• How to overcome feeling stuck when professional success doesn't bring satisfaction
• The power of shifting from "what if" (fear-based) thinking to "even if" (possibility) thinking
• Breaking down overwhelming problems into manageable parts
• Creating contingency plans that make big life changes feel less risky
• Working with skeptical clients from STEM backgrounds who need practical approaches
• How to recognize when your career path no longer aligns with your core values
If you're feeling stuck and would like to work with Bridget, you can find her on LinkedIn and Instagram as Bridget Meadows Coaching or visit her bio site to book a free discovery call or a decision session.
http://bio.site/bridgetmeadowscoaching
https:www.instagram.com/bridgetmeadowscoaching
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridget-archibald-meadows/
Greetings, welcome back to another episode of the Packaging Etc podcast. As I had previously mentioned in my intro episode, this podcast is mainly focused on packaging. However, as a quote-unquote nod to the Etc, I'd also like to include interviews with small business owners and entrepreneurs with interesting business ideas. Today's guest is my first attempt at honoring that initiative. She is a life coach and change management expert and a personal friend of mine for over 20 years, bridget Meadows. Bridget, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, matt, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So, as I like to start out with all my guests, if you wouldn't mind, just kind of take a minute or two and tell us about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So I, as you mentioned, I'm a life coach and change management expert. This is a personal career pivot that I made about a year ago. Prior to that, I had 20 years of a career that I would describe for your listeners as packaging, adjacent as I was in innovation, quality, different regulatory type roles in food companies, and so I was always working with packaging experts Sometimes I even had them on my team but really launching new products, managing risk and just driving change through organizations. Now, with my career pivot, I'm driving change through people's lives on more of a one-on-one basis, but using a lot of those same skills that I learned in that long career in innovation.
Speaker 1:That's really, really interesting. First off, congratulations on the pivot. I'm very excited for you and you know, going through a similar process myself, mine was maybe a little bit more forced into that career pivot, but I couldn't be happier with how things have turned out or are turning out. Excited for you and wish you the best of luck with that. Yeah, thank you, but I am curious if you wouldn't mind kind of expanding a little bit on the genesis of your decision to get into coaching and kind of walk away from that corporate initiative or corporate career path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, it's one of those things that happens. It always makes more sense when you're looking backwards than when you're looking forwards. But it sort of happened actually really slowly over time and then suddenly all at once. So I had been for a long time kind of feeling like the roles I was in weren't quite fitting. I have had roles in my past that I loved, and trying to recapture that energy and that enjoyment has always been a big priority of mine, because I just feel like we spend so many hours at work. We should enjoy the time we spend at work. Life's too short to be miserable at work or really anywhere else.
Speaker 2:So I had been kind of feeling a little bit of disconnect in so many other areas of my career and was feeling really stuck. I actually started working with a coach on my own to sort of make the plan for what was next, because what was next that made sense on paper, that like traditional okay, first you're a manager and then a director and then a head or a VP, and eventually like there's a C-suite there if you want to go get it Like that kind of traditional ladder, was just sort of burning me out. I had gotten to that head role and I still wasn't happy. I still wasn't satisfied, it didn't feel right and it was like, well, wait, that was supposed to be the goal. So what's going on and why don't I feel good about this?
Speaker 2:And so I had been working with a coach to kind of talk about what was it that was creating this misalignment for me. And at the same time, in the background of my personal life, I actually had a very dear friend who passed away very suddenly and that was a catalyst for just bringing this belief to life of like, yeah, it's so short, it's way too short to be miserable and it's it's way too short to accept anything other than I'm going to have a good day today. My work is going to fulfill me, not that you won't ever be stressed, but like I just can't drag myself into a miserable job. Um, and so that all kind of happened at once and at the same time I was feeling more and more disconnected from just the roles I was in, and that became very obvious very quickly. That was mutual and so that became a moment to be like okay, this is the moment I have already kind of laid the groundwork for doing some coaching.
Speaker 2:I had started coaching some people in my personal network, just reaching out and asking like hey, can I coach you? I'll give you a couple of free sessions and let's try this out. And that went really well and in fact all of them signed up for additional coaching to actually pay me after just a few free sessions and they were like you are really good at this. I'm like, oh, this is great, this feels like the right fit, this feels fulfilling and, frankly, as part of my job I had been a coach for over 10 years because I hadn't been a scientist in a while. I was always in a manager or leadership role, so coaching people was sort of natural, and some of my best mentors take a coaching approach, so it was a very natural transition in a lot of ways. But yeah, at the time it happened it felt very like, ooh, this is big and new and different. But really it was probably only about a one or two degree pivot from where I had been.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting. You kind of alluded to it already, but you know, getting into that management level position is is kind of like running an adult daycare that's kind of how I describe it or or herding cats either either one, right, you know, trying to join to work with the, the personnel side of it, and and you know you're not only accountable for yourself and the and the work that you have to do, but now you're accountable for a team or multiple teams, and how do you coach them to get the best out of them? And so, yeah, to your point. Yeah, you've been, you've been coaching for a long time.
Speaker 2:Now you're just getting paid differently for you know, and, frankly, the, the, the, the experience of being on those teams and then those leadership roles. I always enjoyed my team. I always enjoyed my team. I always liked helping my team. I liked helping them feel empowered and like what was the problem? And let me help you get it out of the way.
Speaker 2:I've never been a micromanager. I don't like that approach. But what I found was often the approach I had with my team. I wasn't always getting from senior leader for myself, and so it was always as I sort of was looking around like I got to change something.
Speaker 2:It was almost like I need to interview senior leaders that are right for me. Not I need to find a job that I know how to do, because I know how to do these jobs, but I need to find the right senior leaders. And eventually it just became I can be that leader for myself, at least for this short period of time, and let me go set up something that runs the way I want it to and runs in the way that matches with my strengths and that has been incredibly empowering and that's sort of my. That's become a little bit of my coaching purpose too. A lot of coaches say you end up coaching a previous version of yourself and so thinking through you know how can I help other people get their enjoyment at work back and help them realize things that they didn't realize were possible, because that's what other coaches have been able to do for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's interesting. You talk about some of the qualifications or life experiences in your professional career that have led to this moment and to this new initiative. You know what kind of qualifications formally exist out there to get into this type of role.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are actually a lot of different formal types of qualifications from a couple different certifying bodies. Most of them require a big portion of hours coached to show that I'm currently pursuing a trauma-informed coaching certificate through a class that I'm doing. But a lot of the coaching, the modalities that have tens of thousands of hours and things like that. Those programs can be quite expensive and they're really only needed if you're going to be working as an executive coach with a large company that has a vendor base or something like that. That's just not my business model. That's not what I want to do. So I'm very transparent with people about hey, this is who I've coached and the results they've had, and letting those speak to themselves as I sort of work my way towards. You know, whatever certification makes the most sense for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, so do you have like a target market or something that your target clients have in common, like, is there a space that you're a niche market or something, an area that you're looking to operate in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't. I don't know if niches is right, because a lot of people, when you look at coaching, like they're promising. They're promising this, or I am for this small group of people. I am for, you know, vegans who want to lose weight on a paleo diet, whatever, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's probably not going to fit together very well.
Speaker 2:I specific. For me, it's more about the result and the feeling. So most of my clients right now well, I'll start with even this Most of my clients are skeptical about coaching. It feels very like live, laugh, love, very touchy, feely, like. That's not for me and that's a legit form of coaching, but that's not the kind of coaching I do. So I end up with a lot of sort of skeptical clients that have careers that tend to be more technical, a lot of STEM folks, because my coaching takes that sort of aspect of coaching and applies risk management and change management principles so that we can actually make a detailed, strategic, risk-free plan to help enact change in your own life in a very sort of process driven way. So it's a lot less like how are you feeling and more about like what are we going to do about this? We do touch on some of the feelings stuff, though, too. So for people who are feeling stuck and a lot of these folks are incredibly capable, they are brilliant women Um, I have a few male clients as well.
Speaker 2:They are high up in their careers, they have figured most stuff out on their own, but right now they are struggling and they are stuck and they are feeling like their pro-con lists aren't working for them and some of these things are not working and it's because they're missing a couple pieces of what it's going to take to get them unstuck. They've already decided these changes aren't possible. I wish I could do this, but I just can't. Maybe I should just be satisfied with what I've got. But that leaves them feeling very stuck and very hopeless, and so my role is to look at those things that they value, get them reconnected to those and make those things we thought were impossible potentially possible by going through a little bit more systematically and kind of getting them reconnected to what matters to them.
Speaker 2:So that can vary a lot. Some of my clients have left roles and gone and started their own business. Some have just changed jobs or changed locations, industries, and even still I've had a couple who have decided to stay right where they are, but they have shifted their mindset and shifted their sort of like where they're spending their time and energy so that they can last longer, not burn out, and sort of look at a longer arc of change in their life. So it's hard to say like, oh, I'm going to help people who want to change careers in the next two weeks, because that's not who I'm helping. It's that sort of broad base of like yeah, folks in STEM feeling stuck and looking for some help to figure it out, but, as a coach, I'm not going to figure it out for you. We are going to figure it out together, based on what you value, what's important to you, what are your particular challenges, and we work together to make a plan for that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I would imagine it's a very collaborative effort, obviously, and I would think that for potential clients or for existing clients, these are people that may already have a pretty good idea of, maybe, where they want to go. They're just not really sure how to get there and you're basically helping them bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're feeling stuck because where they want to go doesn't seem possible or there's too many options and none of them are the obvious win. You know they all have problems and so which one is it going to be? And you know, when faced with that much change, frankly our sort of like nervous system lizard brain just shuts down. It's like, nope, too much change, too dangerous. I stay right here. This is much better, and so I can help them get over that fear that is just natural in our own systems and help kind of look at like how could we make those things more possible, more achievable? And it becomes very clear which path they want. Once we start working together and I think just even the process of having someone on your side as an advocate you start feeling better almost immediately because you know someone has your back, Someone is listening to you and you just you're like, oh, I'm not alone with this anymore and that that in itself can make you really enjoy your days a lot more.
Speaker 1:So, as a life coach, kind of akin to the you know doctor, patient privilege, you know, obviously you're not going to want to share too much information, but if you wouldn't mind expanding on maybe some theoretical or or whatnot, some some things that you've got going on right now and kind of what's your approach and how do you? I mean, obviously there is no boilerplate method, I would assume right, obviously, everybody you speak to they're going to have different challenges and different personalities and you have to be able to evaluate early on to understand how you're going to help them progress, interim goals, long-term goals, et cetera, et cetera. But if you wouldn't mind just talking a little bit about some of the things you have going on right now and your mindset and how you approach those obstacles, For sure.
Speaker 2:And let me also tell you, yes, I do treat all my sessions confidentially. Anything I share, I have gotten permission from the person who I worked with to share it so but I can do that because I do have a couple testimonials from folks. I have a couple different types of programs, so I'll share the results from one. I have one program called a decision session and it is a one hour, one session, guaranteed money back. We will get to a decision at the end of the session. This is for someone who is struggling with like this one thing.
Speaker 2:The client that I had last who did one of these was struggling with a move. She lived in Florida. She wanted to know if she should move back to the Northeast to help some family. She really liked the distance she had in Florida and that was some of her rationale. She had created a life in Florida. She didn't want to go. She felt like she should go. She was back and forth. She couldn't figure it out, and what we did as we talked through in the session is we reconnected her to what does she value? And what she valued was faith, family and a lot of like personal security and peace in her mind, like her own boundaries, from like some toxic things in her families. So as we kind of went through, you would think, looking at this on paper, no way should this woman move. You just like like she's got her own kid, her own life and whatever. But as we sort of looked through both scenarios, what we found was that the reason she had for staying the peace of insecurity, of her little boundary bubble that she had created far away from her family. If she didn't go to help this beloved grandmother, that peace evaporated because she was constantly going to be on the phone. She was going to be feeling guilty, she was going to feeling like she wasn't living up to her family promises and all the reasons for her staying just evaporated.
Speaker 2:So she actually did decide to move. She did move and we spent, I think, the last half of the hour practically talking about how could she reestablish those boundaries and those things she cared about her faith, her family, her boundaries in the new place in New England where she could set up a new life, and that's where we spent our time. So, practically speaking, the decision was there. She just didn't want to make it because she didn't believe it was possible to have what she had there. But once we created it, that was a lot more peace of mind for her. And we also created some plan B sort of like exit strategies, like what if this doesn't work? What if this is bad? Well, this is whatever. And remembering that, like most decisions are undoable. So you know, she had a way to back out, like she had a plan. You know, I could live somewhere else, I could live with my sister, I could live down the street, like we had a number of options so in case things didn't go the way she wanted, the decision was still a good one, it was still a right one for her. So that's one example. And that was, again, that was just a one session, sort of very pocketed little issue.
Speaker 2:Another one of my clients who I worked with for six months, which is one of the longer arcs of time she had started her own business before we had started working together. But she needed some help to establish how was she going to make sure this business was successful, because a lot of her old practices that she had done, that had served her well in academics and research, were not going to serve her well in a consulting role. She didn't have any deadlines that people were pushing on her. She had way too much, you know, doing too many things at once, way too much multitasking, and so setting up her own sort of rhythm to establish the business the way she wanted it to run. She needed help, and so we set up those boundaries again, sort of building it off of what were her values.
Speaker 2:She wanted flexibility to work with her kids, you know, to have her kids around. She wanted flexibility to be able to support her family, who was getting ready to move, as well as some sick family members she wanted to go visit while they were getting some cancer treatments. So she had all these life issues that were creeping into her work reality, and so we built a plan around. How did that work best for her? So setting boundaries around the time she wanted, using calendar tools, some very practical tips that really even gamifying and like rewarding when she did the things she was supposed to do, to be like that's the treat, that's the moment, that's the time to get that little reward for her own you know, sort of dopamine system there to make her be like oh yeah, this is great. You know, pat yourself on the back that you didn't multitask this week, that you focused on these things, but setting up the things she wanted to take with her into the new role and leaving behind the things she didn't, and so that was where the majority of our work focused.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we just concluded our work about a month ago and she's she's doing really well in her business and, because her business is in health care and research, it shifted a lot in the last few months with some of the, the funding questions. Uh, so she, um, she. Also we spent some time on that like how do we insulate her business model from that and just de-risk that section? So, yeah, a lot of sort of project management, you know, risk management type tools in in combination with that. Like what do you value as a, as an individual? So it's kind of that one foot in in STEM and one foot in, uh, you know, the the sort of manifesting traditional life coaching mindset space that most people think of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, listen, it makes. It makes a lot of sense. It's interesting because this conversation is the first one I've really ever had where I'm, you know, starting to. You know, peel back the layers on the world that you're operating in now. You know, it's not something I've ever really been or had exposure to in the past, but what I'm hearing because you know I have a very heavy engineering project management background is that a lot of the same principles that you apply to, you know, project management you can leverage in your coaching space. You're talking about contingency planning and I would imagine having that plan B, having those contingencies in place, knowing that you have fallback options on a personal level, is very reassuring for your clients. I would imagine I know it would be for me personally.
Speaker 2:It is very comforting because even just that reminder of like, hey, no decision is final, every decision has an out, has a, has a backwards plan, and we talk a lot about those kinds of things in in the conversations I have or in trainings that I do. I also do you know trainings for corporate offices or small women's groups or things like that, where we talk about you know a decision is a haircut, a hat or a tattoo? You know a? Hat you just take it right off a haircut.
Speaker 2:You might have to grow out for a little while, it's gonna take a while, you might look a little foolish, but it's ultimately reversible. And a tattoo even a tattoo is reversible. It's just a lot more painful to reverse it.
Speaker 2:So you know tattoos are like do I get married or have kids, you know, but even those you can, you know, kind of reverse some of those in some ways, as painful as they are. But most decisions we think of as super painful, like, oh, moving or changing a job or whatever, they're just haircuts that they take a while to undo, potentially, but it's really hard to decision yourself into a bad place but we fear it so much. Our brains are just wired to keep us safe that way. So, yeah, I use a lot of that sort of you know, neurobiology with project management to just work, work with the nervous systems of my clients to make sure they feel comforted and like these things are now possible, not scary, impossible dreams that I should not even want to have. It's like, no, actually that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about why you want that, let's talk about why you like that, and it's almost always because it's so connected to a deep value they have. You know they value being included, or they value having a voice in the room, or they value something like that that just makes that path make so much more sense. But they just can't see around the risks of the change. Okay, so earlier you had mentioned, or before before our podcast, you had used the phrase self-help skeptic, and I was. I was curious about that a little bit because I would imagine that, would you know, for your clients to be self-help skeptics, that would make your job potentially a little bit harder.
Speaker 1:I would liken that to a scenario where myself, as a perfect example, I've always been a skeptic of hypnotism. I always felt like that was hogwash, that was BS, that was just. You know, you see a video of a hypnotist hypnotizing an entire crowd of people in an auditorium and I'm going, that's ridiculous. But then I went and I spoke to someone and I realized that it's not necessarily hypnotism, it's almost kind of speaking to you subliminally. I wasn't quite asleep, but I wasn't fully awake, but I was still hearing that person's voice and somehow what she had to say still resonated almost like an Inception type. You know, if you're into those types of movies, you know, like planting the seed, you know three levels down in a dream. So I would imagine, you know sorry, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but you know, self skeptic, I would imagine would be a challenge for you, above and beyond someone who is just genuinely like Bridget please, please, help versus someone saying Bridget, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 2:No I was gonna say.
Speaker 2:I think the skeptic part is it's not like well, no one can ever help me. It's not so skeptical to be like I do everything by myself. If you are a rugged individualist who believes that help is weak, then we're probably not going to work well together anyway. But if you are someone who is like I just I am smart and I'm struggling and like surely there's someone else in the room who has something here that can help me, that's where I can come in.
Speaker 2:The skepticism around self-help though is I think that that misunderstanding of like what coaching is? Like I'm going to manifest my dream and I'm going to just turn off my computer, go sit on my couch and just manifest, manifest and all things will come to me. And that's not how it works. My coach was always really good with me about saying you know, take what resonates with you and ignore the rest. So you know that would apply to your uh, hypnosis example or anything else. Take, take what feels relevant for you and ignore the rest. And so when I think of stuff like manifesting, I'm like look, the universe isn't going to give me what I want. But at the same time, if I operate from a place of positivity. If I operate from a place of like you know what, this is possible. I can run my own business. I've run some numbers. Yeah, there's a little uncertainty, but I have plans to deal with those and I am ready to do it. That's not manifesting like the universe is dumping it in. That is just keeping myself open to the possibility of good things happening and preparing my nervous system that good things can happen, so that when that option comes up, when somebody calls me or I feel more confident to call someone and say, hey, I noticed you posted about this and I actually have a tool I think can help you and I would love to work with you if you're interested. And suddenly I have a new client, whereas if I had said that wasn't possible, I'm not going to even look into it, I'm not going to do anything.
Speaker 2:It's not manifesting, it's shutting down possibilities before they even happen. So that's where I think the self-help skepticism of like yeah, I'm not a coach that's going to tell you that's not happening because you don't believe in it enough. Like oof, what a, what a painful and just awful thing to say. But they're out there. There are self-help people writing that, being like you just have to believe and I'm like, no, you need to believe or at least have neutral thoughts that say you know what these things could be possible. I'm not going to shut down the possibility. And then you go make a plan and you actually go get it yourself. You don't wait for the universe to give it to you. No shade for the universe. If that works for you, great, but like for me, I'm like I don't believe the universe wants all those good things for everybody, if it wants it for anybody. So I'm going to go ahead and take the action that I need to drive those good things that I want to go after in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've. I've studied enough science in my life to say that that reality tells me that the universe is a very hateful and dangerous place, and so I'm not going to best neutral right.
Speaker 2:It's just a bunch of spinning rocks and dirt Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. Um, you know, take, take the spirituality out of it for a minute and just yeah, it's a, it's a. It's a pretty rough place and you know, I find a variety of beliefs on that.
Speaker 2:Some really are very big fans of like I think the universe cares about me. Good, that works. Laugh love my way out of this, you know, so you know. Or or gratitude journal my way out of this. And yet those things actually do have a place in helping us regulate our nervous system so that we can just get back to a place where we're not burned out, we're not fearful, we're not afraid of changes and we see possibilities.
Speaker 1:That's that's kind of where I like to say I'm kind of straddling that line between one. I would imagine to a certain extent, not necessarily 100% of what your clients are telling you is the actual truth. I don't want to say truth, that may be a bad way to put it, but maybe it's not necessarily the reality. It may be their reality and you have to then learn the kind of person that you're speaking with and kind of read between the lines a little bit and yeah, so that could be interesting. And kind of read between the lines a little bit and yeah, so I, I, I, I, that could be interesting. I don't. I don't know if I can do it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, one of my favorite things to tell clients, and probably one of the least favorite things that they like in the moment, is when they'll say something and I stop them. I say, wait, is that no-transcript scary? But our brains are also problem solving powerhouses and so if you can flip your brain into that problem solving mode, you know I've got a couple tips to do that. They're fun, that can really be powerful, and in fact I'll share one, if you don't mind, because this is a great one. Especially when people are making decisions, what if everybody is like.
Speaker 2:What if this fails? What if this happens? What if I don't do well in this presentation? What if? Like? We have all these what ifs that are all fears, right, if you have.
Speaker 2:If you find yourself in a moment running through the day with what ifs in your head, I encourage you to shift it and change that phrase to even if. So, even if is very different than what if. What if? Is all fear-based and freak out. And if you can flip that like what if I fail? What if I give a bad presentation? What if this podcast doesn't go? Well, matt fail. What if I give a bad presentation? What if this podcast doesn't go well, matt, we're going to flip it to. Even if this podcast doesn't go well, and it just leaves those three little dots for your brain to fill in all the possibilities, well, I'll have other episodes. I have another job to fall back on. I can keep going and learn anyway, like I can make it better on the next round. It just opens up so many more possibilities, and so shifting from what if to even if is a lot of the sort of pathway we take in coaching to to get unstuck and to see what's what's possible.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I guess I hadn't really thought about it before, but I'm just kind of hoping the universe manifests success with this.
Speaker 2:This podcast episode. So that's what I'm banking on. I hope that old unfeeling universe sends all the good things your way.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, because it's done such a bang-up job so far in my life.
Speaker 2:It's a weird time to be talking about joy and enjoyment, as it feels like sometimes the world is burning down around us.
Speaker 2:It is more important than ever for my own nervous system and my own like belief in I got to stay grounded if I'm going to be able to show up as myself and react to the things happening around me.
Speaker 2:I can't be in this like burnout, panic, freak out mode all the time, and part of that is enjoyment and humor and finding the little things that bring me joy with my family, and so that for me, the last you know year that I've been doing this has really been a very strong shift in my own like worldview in terms of like, oh yeah, this, I'm creating my own reality by freaking out about these things and, yes, they're still terrible, but like, let me, let me get myself back to regulated and figure out what's going on and being like, what can I do about them? Because flailing my arms around like Kermit on the Muppets and screaming is tempting but not ultimately very helpful, and so I can do a lot more good if I am grounded and helping other people and myself and my family sort of enjoy the time we have, whatever craziness comes through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great mindset. So thank you. When you are not coaching people, what, uh? What are you doing? What's what's occupying your time?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, right now I'm doing a lot of coaching, cause that's that's really what's happening. But I love spending time with my family. I love cooking. I'm I'm a big. I got into British baking show Like everyone has at some point in the last you know five years. It feels like I had a resolution last year to again it was a joy resolution. It was like more joy, not less. Take away something in your life. I had a resolution to make more pie in 2024.
Speaker 1:And I made. That's a good resolution.
Speaker 2:I made so many pies. I made 47 pies by the end of the year. I was giving a lot of them away to friends and people that I wanted to spend time with, which was super fun. I was making them for people's birthdays and at the end of the year I made a pie chart. Because of course I did. You had to.
Speaker 1:I made a pie chart show. There was a pun in there somewhere.
Speaker 2:I knew it, they were all made in and what types and things like that. So I love um, I love baking and playing around in the kitchen. I did not do a resolution this year for pies cause it was too many. Uh, I also like um singing and music. I live outside of Nashville so there's a lot of music in the area, not just country, but a lot of other, a lot of other um music, uh opportunities, and so, yeah, those are the things that uh fill my time. And so, yeah, those are the things that fill my time. And I have kids of varying tween and teen and college year ages, so they alone keep me pretty busy.
Speaker 1:Probably need a life coach of yourself. Continue just focusing on the kid aspect. I can sympathize, I'll tell you what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my kids have been incredibly helpful and positive actually because they, when I was struggling early on with like what should I do, actually my kids were really helpful because I was like what do I do that helps you, that like makes you feel good or that you see me showing up? Well, like what do I do? Because I interviewed a whole bunch of people to be like what the heck should I do next? And both my teenagers said you take problems that seem really big and scary and like break them down into parts that seem really easy. And I was like, oh, what a lovely thing to hear from a 19 year old.
Speaker 2:I was like okay, that's a moment and that that really was, and I kind of wrote that down and I found it echoed in a lot of my sort of you know, research and journaling that I was doing at the time to be like what, what, you know, what are my strengths here? So, yeah, so, but yeah, boy, teenagers have a lot of big, overwhelming, life ending crisis type problems that they need to be sort of talked down, and I am definitely the go to in our house for that. So that that takes a lot of time, yeah, okay, that takes a lot of time, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And then I always like to ask people about their philanthropic endeavors and any organizations that they like to support. I believe you mentioned something, actually not. I believe I'm going to quote you. You said rescue a lot of dogs, like an obscene amount of dogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is the plan. Yeah, that is that is the plan. Um, you know, that's the win, the lottery plan. You know, get some land and just rescue, like all the dogs. I have one dog currently and he is a doll and I adore him, but we just can't have that many dogs. You know, we've got some allergies, we've got space constraints, we've got time constraints. But yeah, if time, space and and money were no object, just all the dogs. I love following the Nashville Metro Animal Shelter's Instagram page. It's so great. She holds up these dogs and she makes up names like it's a northern biscuit muncher or it's like a floof ball from flooftown, or just the cutest. I just want all of them. I just want to go get all of them.
Speaker 1:It's funny because you may actually believe it or not, there might actually be competition in that industry as well, because my wife and I endeavor to do the same. That's part of our retirement plan is we have two dogs and they basically rule our house. They pretty much rule our lives. They dictate how long we can go away on vacation and where and how often, and and we I don't think we'd have it any other way. So we have talked about, you know, a dog rescue. Maybe once all the kids are off the payroll and it's just us. Then maybe you know small, half the house and you know 10 times the property and just surrounded by dogs.
Speaker 2:There are enough dogs out there that I think we could probably both operate pretty significantly, and it would be just fine, you've got the Southeast covered.
Speaker 1:We'll cover the Northeast and mid Atlantic. That's right, there you go.
Speaker 2:I adore the short stubby, smash based kind of like I'm. I'm a big fan of the snory, snorty dogs. My dog is a Corgi and French bulldog. I'm a big fan of the snorey, snorty dogs. My dog is a Corgi and French bulldog mix and so he's got this low, long round body with this little smashed face and he just my kids call him the turbo burrito because he lays on the couch most of the day and then he is absolutely like fast as lightning out in the backyard.
Speaker 2:He doesn't look it, but he is super fast. Yeah, he's a fun little guy. Yeah, but he is super fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a fun little guy yeah, we have German short-haired pointers which are bred to be hunting dogs. I don't hunt, I have taken them hiking. As a matter of fact, sammy the older dog, when my youngest was in Cub Scouts, we had a hiking club and Sammy was unofficially the leader in the pack with the number of miles hiked because he went on every hike with us and so if one scout missed one hike, sammy was in the lead and I should probably get him his patches. That's perfect. He probably did. He probably did over 50 miles. I think that first year, the first, maybe first two years combined, but I mean it was, it was Cub Scout.
Speaker 2:So we were only doing a couple of miles a month. My little guy's more of a short burst kind of uh kind of dog. He's not winning any distance uh distance marathons, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:So I did. I did want to make sure that we at least reminisce a little bit so our origin story, as to how we met. So I'm going to tee it up and I'm just going to ask you to kind of talk a little bit about what you remember. So we and this obviously ties in the packaging piece of it you know, I was finishing up my undergrad at Rutgers and I believe you were finishing your master's in food science at Virginia Tech.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to bring up the fact that Rutgers beat Virginia Tech in football this past season, but that's fine, that's okay, that's fine.
Speaker 2:There's always next year, always next year.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Allow me my brief moment, because you know Rutgers doesn't win too many big games.
Speaker 2:Historically I think it is brief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good point. Good point the Italian Trade Commission and, I think, uchima U to Italy for two weeks to tour these different machinery companies, and, and you and I were two of the six students selected I think that was actually the first year they did it it was.
Speaker 2:It was the first year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anyway, 2002, italy.
Speaker 2:I was at. So I was at Virginia tech and I was actually studying. I was in their food science department but I was actually studying wine chemistry at the time and, for whatever reason, the packaging students that they had that year I think they had two or three. One was like about to defend his thesis and get married. One had, I think, a visa from a country that was not going to be friendly. She wasn't going to be able to leave and get back to the U S. It was going to be a whole visa issue and so there weren't any really packaging students teed up.
Speaker 2:But because it was the first year, our professor really wanted to participate and he sort of pulled the department about like who had bandwidth to do this? Um, and I did. I just I was like, well, I could write a paper about wine corks. I could write, you know, or alternative wine closures. And he was like, yes, because I think it was like I don't know, it was like a 10 or 12 page paper. It wasn't a long paper at the time. I think about it now and I'm like, oh my God, but you know we were cranking those out three or four weeks at the time, so no big deal.
Speaker 1:Sure, I'll write, and the Italians loved my paper, even though I wasn't a full-time packaging student. Yeah, talk about target market.
Speaker 2:As part of that, I signed up for the packaging courses and took some packaging things to make sure that I was meeting the criteria of the thing. But yeah, so I got to go and Virginia Tech got to be represented, and what a great trip that was. We got to see what five different cities in Italy it was like Parma, bologna, milan, florence and Venice, Venice which has zero manufacturing, but that was great, just for my sightseeing.
Speaker 2:It was the manufacturing and the tourism right, and we kind of bounced back and forth and so, yeah, that was, I had never been to Italy. It was um a beautiful trip and yeah to to kind of get to go and to meet everybody. And they've done that. That, um, the Italian, uh, trade federation has done that. For what? They probably did it for another 20 years or something. Are they still doing it? They did it for a long time.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they're still doing it, I have to reach out. So your namesake, uh, bridget or Terry, she was our, our main point of contact and I've seen Bridget a few times. I think the last time I actually just saw her in Pack Expo Chicago last fall and see, that was the whole point that was the whole point of it is they wanted to turn grad students, which I thought was brilliant.
Speaker 2:They wanted to turn new students, new graduates not just grad students but undergrad and graduate students into future contacts and networks and fans of the Italian equipment and I had never seen some of those types of equipment that we saw, you know, and it was yeah, it was just a lovely trip and to get to kind of go around, and it sounds like a real boondoggle today when we talk about it, but we really did do a lot of touring and networking, mixed in with a lot of eating and drinking and visiting tourist sites and things like that.
Speaker 2:So that was, that was really kind of a magical time. Yeah to be so young to be able to go to Europe for the first time.
Speaker 1:Well, and ironically enough, it also turned out to be right in the middle of World Cup 2002. And you know, I grew up a really big soccer fan, you know, and it wasn't nearly as big here as it is pretty much everywhere else in the world. So to be in Italy of all places, I remember watching. We were in Venice for one of the group stage games that Italy was playing, and I sat at an Irish pub along a canal in Venice, italy, I drank, Surrounded by people from all countries right Australians and Italians and all the different Europeans, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was just. It was a moment for me, right? Because I'm half Italian, I'm half Irish. So here I am, I'm honoring, you know, both sides of my heritage, and I'm sitting here and I'm watching and listening to this game. I don't even remember where it was being played, it was just. It was a surreal experience, but, ironically enough, so, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So the the marketing ploy there was.
Speaker 1:These companies all chipped in money to pay for the program because they were hoping that we would then get out into the workforce and buy Italian made packaging machinery.
Speaker 1:So, fast forward to 2015, I joined a company working on a project to build out a couple of high-speed packaging lines for an OTC product and, lo and behold, one of the companies that won the bid for these three machines that I was sourcing was one of the companies that sponsored us in Bologna, full circle. 13 years later, here I was, and that's not why I bought the equipment. Obviously, they won the bid outright, but it was an interesting initiative for them to start, and I would be curious to see if they've ever done the math on just how much potential business over the last 20 years those types of trips have generated. Obviously, it's a long game, right, that's not an instant gratification type program, that's a hey. We're going to lay the groundwork now and who knows for the next 20, 30 years what this is going to bring back. But I'm wondering if they've ever quantified what they've generated business-wise out of those trips.
Speaker 2:I think, just the awareness of what kind of marketplace leaders they are in a relatively niche space of that equipment-to package things. You know, like that, I definitely ran into some of the manufacturers as well. I wasn't ever a purchase decision maker but I was always on the projects as, like you know, one of the people running the new product or, you know, checking the quality or whatever of what we were producing. And so, yeah, I definitely ran into those brands as well and was like, oh yeah, I recognize these guys, I knew I worked with them at one point. Still, those brands as well, and was like, oh yeah, I recognize these guys, I knew I worked with them at one point. Uh, still, the market leaders, clearly. So, yeah, I think it's a great type of investment to. I thought it was very forward thinking to, yeah, be able to sort of pre-select the people who you wanted to be working with in the future yeah, yeah, no, absolutely and hopefully and we didn't cause too many international incidents while we were there not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, without going into too many details, I know that we may have cost someone their position or maybe he may have gotten a little bit of trouble at work our bus driver because we were out a little late late one night. But you know we can look back on and laugh about it now. But yeah, there was something.
Speaker 2:I mean, how are an Apple 20 something year olds to know that you know we that? How are an Apple 20 something year olds to know that you know we, that our, that our livers were going to process that alcohol a lot faster than the uh, the 40 something year old bus driver, I think we can all relate now to be like oh, if I drank like that today, it would. It would wreck me for several days too, and I wouldn't show up to drive the bus of kids around the next day, either I would be in bed with the hangover.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, dinner the next two nights, I think, was suspiciously wine-free. There was no wine on the tables. Yeah, I'd like to think we had nothing to do with that, but I'm not really sure.
Speaker 2:I think we both know that's not the case. So we're just like, yeah, we'll just scale back a little bit. These kids can sure hold their. I mean, we weren't getting into any trouble, we were fine, we could hang, but unfortunately we were outpacing the folks around us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So we're kind of running up against time here, but I definitely wanted to circle back, so again wanted to wish you the best of luck with the business with the coaching.
Speaker 1:I think it's great that you've taken this leap. Sounds like you've really got all your ducks in a row and, hopefully, better things to come. I want to give you an opportunity real quick to just kind of mention if anybody out there listening wants to reach out. How do we get a hold of you? Is there a website? We should go to email address. What do you suggest?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a number of places you can follow me on LinkedIn. I'm Bridget Meadows on LinkedIn and my company is just called Bridget Meadows coaching, so that's my Instagram Instagram handle, bridget Meadows coaching, as well, as I have a bio site. It's just a real easy. It's just HTTPS, slash biosite, slash Bridget Meadows coaching, and you can see everything there. But my link is everywhere. If you go to my Instagram, if you go to my LinkedIn, anything like that, you can click there and it'll take you to the bio site as well.
Speaker 2:And there's the place where you can you can book a decision session. That's that one off session that I mentioned. That's just. You know we'll work together to make that decision and it's money guaranteed, so you really have nothing to lose on that one. If we don't make a decision, I'll give you your money back and it or we can keep working on it beyond that initial hour, but I haven't had anybody have to go past the initial hour yet. So that's, that's kind of nice.
Speaker 2:And that's also a place where you can see like I'll post actually this, this podcast episode, as well, as if anybody wants to work together and is curious about like, how would we work together, anybody wants to work together and is curious about, like, how would we work together? Um, the best way to get with me is with a free call. I just do a free, what's called a discovery call and that's how you kind of apply to work with me. Um, see if you're better suited for like a one off call or one of my longer packages, and? Um, take one of those one-on-one slots.
Speaker 2:Um, I do have a couple of one-on-one slots open right now, so it's a good time to get with me and see about getting on my calendar and we can just talk through. You know, it's a no cost call just to hear about your specific stuckness. Then we can sort of talk about what it might take to help you get unstuck. But I would love to help people if they're interested, and yeah, I've got a lot of tips and things that I post on Instagram or LinkedIn. So, whatever your preferred social media platform is, come over there and give me a shout and I'd love to see if I can help.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Again, congratulations, best of luck with everything. Listen, it's been great catching up with you. I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you too, best of luck with this podcast. I've listened and really liked the episode so far, so thank you so much for having me on here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely All right, everyone, take care. Feel free to dip in next time. We've got some more great guests coming up soon, so that's all Bye for now.