Unlock your zone of genius: Stop doing everything & start doing what matters | Cindy Van Eeckhout (Alegria Coaching | Joy of Life Method)

What if you’ve built a life that looks successful… but feels empty on the inside?

In this episode, Frank Zaccari sits down with transformational mentor Cindy Van Eeckhout, founder of Alegria Coaching and creator of the Joy of Life Method, to unpack a question that can change everything:

Do you know your Zone of Genius, and are you living in it?

Cindy shares her journey from the corporate world in Belgium to building multiple businesses in the south of France, then facing the reinvention curveballs of COVID, burnout, and misaligned success. Together, Frank and Cindy explore how high achievers can look “fine” outwardly while feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and disconnected inwardly, and what to do about it.

You’ll learn:

• Why “slow down before you fall down” is more than a quote, it’s a strategy
• The 4 “Joy Blockers” that quietly drain high performers (mental overload, emotional suppression, physical depletion, and spiritual misalignment)
• The difference between happiness (external) and joy (internal and lasting)
• A simple exercise to identify your Zone of Genius (and what to delegate, automate, or dump)
• Cindy’s 5 pillars to turn success into true wealth: clarity, self-care/boundaries, prioritization, mindset, and purpose/impact

If you’re tired of hustle culture, done with “busy,” and ready for a life that feels as good as it looks, this one’s for you.

Connect with Cindy Van Eeckhout

• Website: alegria coaching .eu (Alegria Coaching  “in one word” + .eu)
• LinkedIn: Cindy Van Eeckhout
• Also on: Instagram + Facebook (search her name)

#BounceBackPodcast #ZoneOfGenius #JoyOfLife #HighAchievers #Leadership #BurnoutRecovery #Mindset #SelfCare #Boundaries #PersonalGrowth #EntrepreneurLife #ExecutiveCoaching #WorkLifeAlignment #Clarity #PurposeDriven #EmotionalWellbeing #Resilience #Transformation #Coaching #FrankZaccari

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you ever feel stuck in pain, weakness, or failure, wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again, then bounce back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sicardi.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Well, welcome to Bounce Back and Business and Life podcast. I had a question for you. Do you know what your zona genius is? Do you have one? Let me ask you a couple more questions. Have you built a life that looks successful? You look successful outwardly, but you don't feel any joy. Are you one of these high-energy, high-achieving people that secretly because many of us are there? My guest today is Cindy von Eckhart. And she is someone who can help us. Okay, let's meet her. After owning multiple successful businesses, she created Allegria. Did I get it right? Allegria coaching, the joy of life method. And Cindy is just a wonderful person to interact with. Cindy, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Frank. And I'm really excited excited about this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Well, we're thrilled to have you. Cindy, for the people who don't know you, share some of the highs and lows in your journey with the with the listeners, how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Okay. My name is Cindy van Ecoert. I'm originally from Belgium. And after my master's in business engineering, I started to work in the corporate world. And I started to work as a sales manager. I did it for eight years. I learned so many things there. And I had great uh bosses, great colleagues. But the most important thing is that I met my husband there. So after eight years, we just asked ourselves, is this really what we want to do in our lives? And this is the first time having the success that we had in our job, being successful, like you were telling, from the outside, everything looked great. But you just ask yourself, like, hmm, does it feel like it really needs to feel? And it felt a little bit empty. There were some things of misalignment and some values that are not 100% aligned the company values with our values. But having that said, we decided at that time, for the first time in our lives, to follow our heart and to just take a bold decision and quit the corporate world. So this is one thing that happened more than 20 years ago. Then both of us decided to move from Belgium all the way to the south of France because we wanted to have some sun and some nature. And we wanted to create the first company that was completely aligned with that, and it was a BMB, a hidden gem in the beautiful Provence. And in the meanwhile, we created four different businesses. And it started all great with BMB. We did that for 20 years. Ten years in, we started with an art boutique. And then while you were talking about highs and lows, these were the highs. But then the first low came when COVID hit. And I suppose I was not alone together with my husband, experiencing like a very challenging time. But this was a real unexpected challenge. And we really tried to do things differently, but we were just not allowed to work anymore. So we just used the period to understand things and learn new things, and we developed a third company. And that was the most interesting part for me. It was like a year that was financially very, very challenging, but also repositioning yourself, reinventing yourself, but also be open and be creative again. Like, what else is there that I would like? What else can be my zone of genius? Because we're sometimes doing our thing without thinking anymore. We're just following our routines. So it was interesting as well. And with that, in 2022, after the challenges of 2020, we had three thriving businesses again. We were so happy, we were really very grateful as well. But then it hit us again that all of a sudden we were again successful, like we were in a corporate world, but something inside was missing. And we didn't understand it well. We were we felt exhausted, we felt like the passion was not the passion was gone, but the joy was gone. And we couldn't realize why it was because these were our companies and this was what we wanted to do. Anyway, we took again a bold decision more than 20 years later after Carbon to stop two of the three companies at that time. We stopped the B ⁇ B after celebrating the 20th anniversary, we stopped the art boutique, and we continued with the third one, which was real estate. And while stopping there and slowing down, because when I talk about slow down, it is so important sometimes to stop things a little bit. And when I did that, I started to study again. I started to study everything concerning mindset, concerning neuroscience, neuromarketing, neurosales, but also health and finance and so many different things. And this is where I create together with my husband the Ford Company, and this is Allegria Coaching. This breakdown became a little bit my breakthrough of just using the things that I use today and the things, the method, my joy of life method that helped me to help other people to be not only successful, and this is what I do today. It's like the women who come to me, they are successful. But they realize at a certain time that they're rich on their bank account, but they feel poor on the inside. So as a transformational mentor, I help them to turn financial success into true wealth, where life feels as good as it looks, and where you don't have the stress and the overwhelm anymore. So this is what I do today. And these are a little bit in a very, very short uh way. Explained what I did, and the most important thing, all the four businesses we had together, my husband and I, they had one thing in common. It was the word allegria, and allegria is a Spanish word for joy of life. And when we started that, we didn't know why this was so important, but now I understand it just comes all together.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

That's wonderful. Now you uh you said something very important there about slowing down. When we spoke a few weeks ago, you mentioned you tell people you better slow down before you fall down. Okay, expand on that. What do you what do you mean with that?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

I like to say it like that, but I believe that we are sometimes in this hustle, this hustle culture where we just push, push, push, and we don't see anymore what we want. We don't see what we don't want, we don't feel what is draining us, we don't feel what is energizing us. And the only way of making sure that you understand again who you are and what you want is just slowing down. And slowing down, it can be for a moment, meaning five minutes, an hour, a day, a week, whatever feels comfortable for you or whatever you need at that time, because every season in life is different and everybody's in a different uh space in their lives. But just slowing down, and it's I always recommend going into nature, if you can, if there is a possibility where you live, because it gives another energy, it helps to slow down deeper because you just see the trees and the birds and the sun and whatever, and you don't have to think about all these to-do things that are going on in your mind. So if you slow down and reconnect again with yourself, this is where things can shift. And it can be a small shift, a big shift, whatever the shift is, but then be in this present moment and I'm pointing like your gut feeling. This is the inner thing of you, and nobody can tell you what you have to do, what you have to think, or whatever. And maybe it's just like this little slowdown moment is great for you to have some extra energy. That's already great. But if you don't do that, I can guarantee you if you don't slow down, when I say you fall down, I mean with that if you continue to live on your energy and you never energize yourself, this will lead to burnout. And some people say, but I don't have the time to slow down. And I say, if you don't have the time to slow down, then you certainly don't have the time to burnout. It's better to take a little break now and do know that rest, it's not a weakness because some people think like a little moment of rest is like, oh, this is not okay. It is not a weakness for me, it's a strength, and it is so important. And slowing down can help you afterwards to speed up again. It is like fundamental, especially when you feel that things are not energetically okay with you, you feel exhausted, slow down a bit, whatever it may mean for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Perfect. I love that. I read something you wrote, right? I read something you wrote. That's a terrible way to introduce it. But uh you see talking about limiting belief mindset. And you said that comes from being misaligned. Is that what we're talking about here? Is you're you're so focused that you're you're missing things.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

There are two things. There is the mindset and the limiting beliefs and the misalignment. Maybe first one little thing about the misalignment. When I talk about misalignment or misaligned success or whatever, for me, this has everything to do with looking great from the outside, but feeling not so great from the inside. This is something that is misaligned. And it can be in your career, it can be in your relationship, relationship to yourself, to your partner, to your kids, whatever. It's misaligned because it doesn't feel good. If you have this feeling, no, this is not what I want, or this is not what I expected, then there is something that is misaligned. And what is the cause of it, this misalignment? It can show up in different ways. The misalignment is for sure, but it can show up from, and and I call when we talked about it, I talked uh about the joy blockers. And the joy blockers, there are different, so these are the but there is one thing about the joy blockers, it's again concerning alignment. I don't know if you'd like me to go a little bit deeper into the joy blockers.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Please, that's the next question I was gonna ask you. Tell me about joy blockers.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I call them, I it's not known like that, but I just call it because they're blocking your joy. And again, blocking your joy is blocking a feeling, and it's the feeling that you don't have this inner vitality source of joy inside of you. Anyway, one of the joy blockers is the mental overload, and the mental overload it will lead to overwhelm. And this is like you have like endless to-do lists, but you don't have clarity. At the end, it will give you overwhelm. And this is one of the ways that you won't have joy anymore because you're so overwhelmed, you're so in your mind that you don't feel anything anymore. A second possible joy blocker is the emotional suppression, and this is also very typical for high achievers. High achievers they will minimize their emotions in order to be more productive. But while they're doing that, they're suppressing all kinds of emotions, like the stress or the guilt or whatever, and this will lead to burnout. So, also there, if you're in this way, you will block your joy because you're not thinking about joy, you're sacrificing your joy, you're just wanting to work on productivity. There is a third one, this is the physical depletion, and the physical depletion, this is all about your rest and skipping your rest. It's ignoring all the signals of your body. And I have so many clients, they know it already beforehand that their body is giving them signs. It can be little headaches, it can be whatever, pain in wherever. But all these little signs make that your body's communicating with you. And if you're like then over-scheduling on top of that, you will be exhausted. And this is the result of the third joy blocker. And the last one, this is a little bit more spiritual. It is a spiritual misalignment. This is when your actions, they no longer are in alignment with your personal values, meaning you're doing things that you don't want to do, you're doing things that are not aligned with your values that you say, like, this is not who I am, but you're doing them anyway. And this creates this dissonance inside of you, and also that is a blocker for your joy. So, all of this, I'm talking here about the joy blockers, and it's so important to know that joy, joy is really something that comes from within. It is something that can be, of course, lasting, but it's soul-driven. And there's a big difference with joy and happiness. If we talk about happiness, joy for me, it's a way of being, where happiness is more a way of feeling, and it's like an emotional reaction to an external event. And having that said, happiness is great. I don't mind happiness, but the the beauty of joy is that it's lasting, and happiness is with a peak. If something happens in a positive way, you've got this happiness, but it goes away very soon. And with joy, the beauty is that it's not an end goal, it's just a journey. And if you enjoy your journey, professional, personal, health, relationship, whatever, you will have this way of being inside of you. You will have this joy. And if you enjoy, you don't have to go for the goal of joy because you will have it along the way.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I love it. It is perfect because I talk to so many people who will say, you know, when this happened, I was happy. No, I'm not happy. So you're on you're on this roller coaster. Completely happiness is like this, but and they say, Well, well, Frank, how can I have joy if I'm not happy? And we tell them joy is internal, right? You're not worried about if you're like in my case, I was a baseball player. If I if I came up to bat and struck out four times, I was not happy, but I still wanted to play baseball, right? So the joy was playing the game, the happy, unhappy was what happened in those intermediate moments. Love how you explain it. That was wonderful, Cindy. You talk about zone of genius. How do you define someone's zone of genius?

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Oh, you can do a very, very easy exercise. And zone of genius can be large as well. It can be in your career, it can be in your personal life. You just take a piece of paper and you write down what is giving me energy and what is draining me. And all the things that are draining you in general, these are not always your best talents, and these are the things that you're mostly not so good at, and they're draining you. This is not your zone of genius. These are the things, especially professionally, but also personally professionally, that you need to consider to delegate, to automate, or to dump. The 3Ds, this is out of your zone of genius. Then your zone of genius, this is everything that is energizing you. And energizing, I mean like you like to do it, you're good at it mostly, and you love it. They're linked together because you love it, you're good at it, and the other way around. And these are the things you can do for hours without knowing that you're doing it. They give you a smile and you're like, yes, you can't stop with it. This is your zone of genius. And if you can combine and make out of your talents of your zone of genius, your profession, your passion, or work with this zone of genius, everything will go so much smoother, faster, and better. It's not always possible for everybody, but even if it's not your own company and you're working in a corporate world, it is so much easier to work on your zone of genius. And if somebody's asking, like, how can I know? Write it down and see whenever you're smiling, this is your zone of genius.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

That's great. I love that answer. Because I was coming up and I became a CEO. First thing I did, hire a chief financial officer. Because I hate doing the accounting, I just can't stand it. Um first thing, hire somebody to do that. That was obviously not my zone of genius because I just couldn't stand doing it. And then delegating it to someone is important. You you're still responsible for it, but you don't have to be in the minutiae out in the weeds trying to figure it out. There are other people that are better than you are at what they do, correct? And bring those people into your circle. If even if you're not employees, they can be contractors you work with. Is that is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

This is completely correct. And and the nice part is as well, it's a relief. Some people, they're so used, especially entrepreneurs and solo entrepreneurs, doing everything. And while doing everything, because they think I know it's best because it's my thing. I know I created it, it's my thing. And I fully understand. And yes, it's not always easy to delegate it to somebody else, but knowing that you don't have to be good in everything in life, it doesn't exist. We're not Superman and Superwoman. It's okay to delegate. And then I see people like, oh, it's okay to delegate. Yeah, I say to my clients, yes, it's even more productive to delegate, especially what you were telling about the accountancy. If you don't like it, you will push harder every day and you will take this energy out of your body for something you don't even like. Life is too short to do the things you don't like. So having there again the relief of saying, Wow, I can delegate it. And some people say, but how do I do it? I always say, when somebody else can do what you all the tasks you have to do, but you take the ones that are draining you. But if somebody else can do it 80% as good as you, delegate it. If you're at 100%, this is your thing, keep it for yourself and make it your top priority.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Great answer. I love that. And it takes some of us so long to figure that out. Because I talked to some executives uh that started their own company, and they said, Well, Frank, it's faster if I just do it. And I say to them, You're the highest paid clerk in your company. Is that what you wanted to be? And they would say, No, I want to be. And I said, Well, you're the highest paid clerk because you're doing clerk's work.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

But I agree what you're telling, but I do understand your client, but I know that if it feels like that, it is because I didn't hire the right person for it. And it can happen that you hire somebody and you have to not only tell what they have to do, then you have to check it and it's not done, and you have to do it all over again. And then he's right, like, well, why can I delegate it? Because it will take me at the end more time, but then it's just the wrong person. You just have to find the best person. And even if it takes a little bit longer in searching for this right person for this thing, they need to be better than you. And you have to explain it once and really well that they know how you want, but then you just leave them. And if you have to control them all the time, you just have to hire another person.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Exactly. Exactly. Now you talk about in your writing, you have five pillars of success. Five pillars. Share with us what these five pillars are.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

I suppose you're talking about the five pillars of my joy of life method.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

They help you in general. Maybe I explained the women I work with, they have some things in common. In general, they feel overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed, guilty, and unfulfilled. And why do they feel yeah, not always everything at the same time? These are some symptoms that I see coming back all over again. And why? They are like that because they're a little bit out of alignment. We talked about out of alignment already, and they feel that they're poor health on energy, on time, on freedom, or relationships, or quality of life. These are the things that are in common. So they feel these negative feelings and they feel what is empty inside. I help them then to create again a life that feels as good as it looks, to create again fulfillment and a joyful, meaningful life. And life I mean business and personal. And there I use my joy of life method in order to create what I just said. There are five pillars. And the most important number one, that's clarity. But it's for everybody and for everything in life. If you have the clarity of what truly matters to you in that specific area, everything will go already better because overwhelming stress will go down and you have a path. You don't know maybe how, and it's fine, but you have the clarity, what is important for you. So this is step number one. The other four pillars, depending on where the per people are, I just sometimes juggle a little bit, but mostly number two, it's all about self-care. It's all about rebuilding your energy again. Because this is what mostly is missing with high achievers, because they give and give and give, and you can't pour out of an empty cup, and at a certain time they're just empty. So it's all about self-care. And with self-care, which helps you boost your energy, it's also very important to protect it. So boundaries are also a very important part of the number two pillar. Third one, this is all about prioritization. Sometimes it's if it's professional, it's work smarter, not harder, but you can do the same thing in your personal life or in your health life or wherever you want to do it. And prioritization is going and focus on the top three priorities. And these are the priorities that are your zone of genius. These are the things that you're great at and where you want to focus on. Because if you focus on that with the right energy, you will have results. If you do everything together, it's not. There, that it's going to happen. And the idea of the third pillar of the prioritization is that you can gain some extra time and freedom to do the things you love. And again, this will fuel your energy. Pillar number four, it's all about the mindset. And it's like an upgrade of your mindset and mindset in life. 80% in life depends on your mindset. It's only 20% skills, and everybody can learn the skills. And the mindset, you can train it, but we can all do it. But it's like a continuous training, like training the muscle in your brains. And this is also about the growth mindset, about turning every challenge into an opportunity and being ready. Because we all know, especially as an entrepreneur, and also as a big company, challenges will come. But be ready when there is one. Say, okay, how can I turn it into an opportunity? And also a growth mindset when things are not working like they should. Just saying, okay, if there's a pain point here in the company, why? What can I do? Because if you can solve the pain point, you will grow again with your company. So being open with pain points, being open with these challenges and letting them help in not only the wins of your company, but most importantly, these are the learnings. And the learnings become the biggest wins at the end. And then the last pillar, it's all about impact and purpose. And make sure that you realign your daily activities with your values. And if you do that, you will feel like energy is going well. You will feel fulfilled again. And this is what life is all about.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I love particularly when you said about focus on your strengths. When I was coming up, they would always say focus on your weakness. And I thought, well, that's pretty stupid. You know, I'm not very good at this. I'm spending all my energy over here on something I'm not good at and I don't like it. Then you're saying no, focus on what you're good at, become more and more of an expert at it, and then go get somebody to do that other stuff. Completely.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

And I'm so happy that you're saying that, Frank, because at school, they focus on the things that are not going well because then they want you to become better in these things. There is nothing wrong with personal development and always learning. I'm a big fan, I'm I'm uh a professional learner because I think it's so important for me. It's the best investment I can do in myself. But I decide what I want to learn and becoming better and better in the things you're great at, it's so good. And if there are some, what you say, it's not a weakness, but it's just not your zone of genius, like we talked about. It's not your best skill or talent, being okay with that and saying, I don't have to be perfect, because this is also a little thing. Being perfect, it's like a big blocker in lots of things, and just embrace the progress and embrace what you're good at and be happy that there are other people just great at other things, and that together you can partnership, you can shift uh some activities together, uh, saying I do this, and whatever the possibility or the solution can be, work on your zone of genius, and this is uh how it works out best.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

What I loved about education going through college and through UCLA was I knew what I didn't want to do. I remember one of our professors said that's the best thing you can leave your education with is knowing what you don't want to do. You'll figure out what you want to do, but you know I don't want to do this. That's perfect. I love that. So Cindy, of all the things you've accomplished, and you've accomplished a lot of stuff, what makes you the proudest?

SPEAKER_02 25:32

That's a beautiful question. What makes me the proudest? I think there are lots of things that make me proud, but the fact that I always chose together with my husband to follow our hearts, even if it was not the most easy decision, but it just felt right, we did it. We always took that decision. Even if society was saying, Are you sure to quit the corporate world? You have like a beautiful career there. Then when we stopped with the B and B, everybody was saying, like, are you sure? Everything's going well. We had the courage to do it because it felt right. And I'm not going to say that everybody has to do that, but I'm quite proud we did it. And in the long run, I do believe that this is what every time again gives me this energy and passion again to start something else. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

It's being invigorated. And change often will do that. You know, you get into something so much that you get stuck, you don't even realize that you're stuck. And then you you make a make a shift, or I I hate the term pivot, I would call it career correction. Right. And then you feel that burst of energy again. Yes, okay. Now I feel good again.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

And this is when I say that I help other people uh turn their success into true wealth, this is what it's all about. This is this wealth and having this freedom and this courage to do and take bold decisions in order to go just further than the success that you have, whatever if it's a financial, but really go much further and going for this true wealthy life. And this is what always inspired me to take that action. And this is what I hope that others are inspired to do as well. And this is what I see with my clients as well. They they just feel it, that it's possible. I'm not gonna say that everything is easy, and it's not because you take decisions that okay, because it's from the heart, it will go and flow and everything will go. No, there it is not always easy, but it's worthwhile doing it. And you're always paid, but not in money, but in something else that is so much more has more value than that.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

I love this conversation. How can people get a hold of you, Cindy?

SPEAKER_02 27:52

They can find me or on my website or on my socials. So the website is Allegria, it's a L E G-R-I-A, coaching in one word.eu. So allegria coaching.eu. And they will find everything about me, my services, my story, the podcast I'm doing, and everything. And then I'm on LinkedIn with my name, Cindy van Ekhout. I suppose it will be mentioned under your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Many times.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

And I'm on LinkedIn on Instagram and on Facebook, so they can follow me there and they can hear and see all the tips I give to my clients. And I work with women, but of course, all the tips are as valuable for men as well. I'm more than happy to share all these things because it makes me happy and joyful if I see that people just remove evolve in their life in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

I love it. It's very good. Well, we're just about out of time. I want to thank Sydney again for sharing how we can slow down before we fall down and live a life with joy, not frustration. We weren't put here to be frustrated. We were here to be joyful. So let me leave you with this. None of us are in this alone. And the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. And today Sydney showed us where many, many of those rocks are. And together during this podcast, we will find more rocks and we will bounce back better than ever. Share this message with a friend, and please subscribe, and I'll see you next week. Cindy again, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize dribbling to win a $10,000 private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to Bounceback Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.