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In This Episode
Catherine Gray aims to bring value into this world. By seeing how G-d is involved in our day-to-day lives, and even in business, she is able to help others as a coach and entrepreneur. She and her husband, James, run an engraving business. There isn’t one right way to be in a marriage, or run a business. Catherine shares the learning curve of figuring out who was in charge of what in their business by being self-aware and having a vision.
Highlights
1:08 Catherine Gray is a coach and entrepreneur. She and her husband, James, have an engraving business, which they started in 2017. It was a learning curve figuring out who was in charge of what, but they knew their strengths and had a vision.
11:20 Lately, Catherine has been taking more of a back seat in her business with her husband so that she can focus on her coaching business. James is very supportive of her other business.
13:07 It can be challenging for Catherine and James to compartmentalize home-life and date-life but she gets help from other friends or couples in businesses on how to adjust. However, Rebbetzin Bat-Chen emphasizes that there is no right way. It is important to find what works for you.
19:11 It is not that difficult to find time between being a mother, wife, and business owner for Catherine because she knows herself well. She is aware of her work ethic, and believes her brain works strategically naturally.
21:14 As a Coach, Catherine’s main audience is made of entrepreneurs, churches, and charity leaders. She uses the Clifton Strengths Assessment and help people find their calling. She sometimes uses the Clifton Strengths Assessment on her husband as well.
33:27 G-d is involved in a lot of things in our lives, and has even impacted Catherine’s businesses in one way or another.
Links
Catherine Gray: Upside Down Creations | Coaching Website
FLOW Mastermind – A Business Mastermind for an Integrated Life
FLY Mastermind – A Marriage Mastermind for a Fulfilling Life
5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Marriage
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REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Welcome to the Connected For Real Podcast! I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business, and my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage, and into your business. Let’s get started. The following is one of the many conversations I had with experts and professionals about real life and how it affects marriage. Let me know your takeaways on Instagram or Facebook, @connectedforreal. Enjoy.
And we are live. Welcome everyone to the Connected for Real Podcast. I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman and I am a marriage coach for women in business. Today we have Catherine Gray who is going to tell you all about what she does and why she’s here. Season three is all about couples working together. So, you’re gonna hear about that and the ups and downs and the fun parts so, Cat take it away.
CATHERINE GRAY
Thanks. I’m Catherine or Cat. People equally call me both which I know is a bit unhelpful. I am married to James and we have two birth children and the occasional foster kid or sibling group as well. And yeah, in on my own effectively, I am a coach but together with my husband, I also run a laser engraving business. So, we make personalized presents for people. We put business logos onto things. We make people’s drawings into stuff. It’s–the possibilities are endless with that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That is so cool. And we were talking a while back. I love that you were saying how the engraving business started. So, could you tell us a little bit about that?
CATHERINE GRAY
So, yeah. We, hilariously we’re just chatting of when did we actually start this business? Does anyone know? We should know these things as business owners. But yeah, so the back story is, I was staying at home with the kids and James was in a traveling sales job so he would be away hours and hours and I was at home not having a great time. And we, he’d always wanted to be an entrepreneur but hadn’t really found the idea yet thought he was learning a lot from his employer so he’d stick around for a bit longer. And then a friend just pointed us in the direction of someone that she knew who was running a laser engraving business and said, “This looks amazing. You should look into that.” We knew nothing about laser engravers. We didn’t know if it was what we could get excited about. And so, James who is big on research and finding out all the background information, looked into it and was, “I think we can actually do this.” So, yeah. There was a day, it was a week before Christmas, and suddenly someone had driven halfway across the country to bring us this laser engraving machine which we had no clue what to do with. Took three of us and it was harnessed up as if you were going rock climbing. We’re dragging it up the stairs and putting it in our spare room in our house and we were like, “Oh my gosh. What have we done? There’s this industrial machinery in my house.” Yeah. And you know it sat there for a while because it wasn’t we could go from immediately being employed to doing that from overnight. And James started learning how to do all the designing. How to use the software. What other people were selling? Which at that point I was kind of on par with him. I was doing what he was doing at that point and then we realized actually it’s just sitting there in our spare room and for this to be a real thing one or both of us are gonna have to make it our full-time thing. Yeah. So, then, we were working out. I think, so we officially opened for business in 2017 but I think James was doing a lot more behind the scenes probably in the six months running up to that he’d quit his job and was, “Right. This is it. Now we’re lasering people.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
[laughs] Oh, my goodness. So, you have this thing in your spare room and you’re like, “What do we do now?” Was that causing any stress in your marriage? Who, what, how do we deal with this?
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. So, the way that we learn and the way that we describe and communicate to things is very diff—hugely difference. So, the software that we use is not that dissimilar to what architects use or how someone, if someone’s come around to design your kitchen. They’d show you all these drawings. It’s kind of like that. How we make the designs. And we literally had no background in that. We were teaching ourselves and James is very methodical and just sticks at it. Whereas, I’m a bit, “I’m going to give it a go and if it doesn’t work, I’m gonna get bored so I’ll probably try something else.” [laughs] So, there was a bit of a trickiness around that whereas because James, he was just dedicated to it or just being, “This is it. Then we’re gonna sort it out.” And I was a bit, “Oh, gosh is there something else I can do. How can I be more helpful or can you teach me what you’ve learned?” But then he’d be trying to teach it to me in the way that he loves learning and I’d just be, “I don’t get it. I need to explain it a different way.” [laughs] So, yeah. At that point it was just kind of really being much more explicit with each other about what our learning styles are and how we’re dealing with that and I mean this is still in our spare room. We’re doing it around the kids. We’ve got people coming to stay and we’re like, “Here’s the bed. You’re staying in next to a thing that says caution radiation.” [laugh] We’re like, “perfectly fine because it’s not turned on.” [laugh] So, I mean it didn’t make it easy or if James gets in the zone with something, he’ll just carry on till it’s done so sometimes the machine will be on until ten or eleven or o’clock at night and it’s only a wall away from where the kids are sleeping and I’m like, “Oh, you just need to like, we just need to turn it off now because the kids are asleep and we could do something else.” And yeah, so often lots of progressions like that.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah. So, towards the beginning, the learning curve and figuring out where everything is and how and all of that stuff, at this point who’s in charge of what?
CATHERINE GRAY
So, I think at that point we were still really kind of scrabbling around figuring that out. What we did know is that our skills and just kind of what we’re naturally gifted at and what we get excited about is very opposite and because we had a big vision for what this was going to look like. We were actually, “This is going to be amazing.” Because when there’s departments within our business and we have all these employees, then we can basically just head up different departments and not have to work together twenty-four-seven. That would be ideal because we yeah just play to our strengths basically. I’m very high support, high involvement with people but also can do all the data and all the details. James has been trained in sales and is very good at learning new processes but then it’s all kind of in his head and he just kind of gets down and gets on with stuff. But he could also really what we had a hilarious, it was meant to be a date night then we decided it was a business meeting then we were like maybe it’s a bit of both. We’re like, “We’ll see what happens.” And so, [laugh] because we realized having a chat about everything while we’re still at home had stopped working so just been in each other’s face too much or like a child would appear and need something and so we’ve gone out and I think we’ve had a bit of a frustrating week and I’d said to him, “Right. What are we actually aiming for? What’s the vision here?” And he said, “Well, the thing, is in ten years I want to employ a thousand people and we’re going to change our city. And we’re going to create all these jobs that actually bring value to people and that they like and they’re looked after and they’re paid a decent wage, and we’re just going to make a difference.” And I sat there, waiting for my food to come and I was like, “Okay. I wasn’t, I’m really on board with that, but I was kind of my question was kind of about next week. Not like ten years top, like ten years?” [laughs] And then, so then we it started getting interesting because I’m actually, I love planning. I love looking ahead but I need to know what’s happening tomorrow as well and what we began to realize is James is a “what’s happening today and what’s happening in years” person and I kind of zoom about in the middle. And that’s probably why we haven’t settled into some kind of routine of what it looked like, role-wise in business day-to-day. Yeah. Then kind of quite organically I guess as we actually started having many more customers, our kids went to school and weren’t around all the time. We did then get a bit more formal about who was doing what. So, what was quite interesting what James would probably tell us quite frustrating is I learned how to use the machine but quite like a bit of trial and error or I’ll just put it in and see what happens. He is like, “Oh my gosh. You do not put the thing in the machine until you know exactly what is happening. And you have measured everything. And you’ve double checked.” And I’m like, “I’ll just shut the lid and go. Let’s see what happens.” And he’s just like, so yeah. We kind of fell into a bit more of him being in charge of the machine and the design and me being more bookkeeping, social media customer care, researching new ideas, and then kind of giving them a bit of a prod if there was a deadline because we’re quite different on how we work, time frame wise as well.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Wow. So, would you say that you pretty much fell into your different roles and now it’s smooth or are you still figuring it out?
CATHERINE GRAY
So, I think we had a little window of it being smooth. Then, because we weren’t being super structured about it and we were both in the same house all the time and you could just walk into the other room and ask someone a question. We probably, it could have been more clear. So, we did have quite a lot of days where I’d be doing something else because I run my own coaching business as well, I was trying to build that up at the same time. I’d be kind of in the zone doing that, he’d come and ask me a laser in question, I’d be like, “No. I’m in coach mode. Stop asking me lasering things.” [laugh] Or he’d get excited talking to a customer over on this platform and I’d already been talking to them via email or something and then we’d just be, “Oh, this is really annoying. I thought you were the customer person and now you’re doing this.” And yeah. So, there’s been lots of niggly things that we’ve kind of been working out and getting more systems in place for because obviously the idea is to employ someone, we actually need many, many people. Yeah. Just formalizing some of the processes so that we’re clear and then it’s super clear whenever anyone comes on board. But more recently, I’ve kind of slightly been taking more of a back seat so that I can focus on my coaching staff and he’s been taking on more of the kind of admin side that I’ve been doing as well.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Oh. So how do you find that shift from being full on the laser thing and then suddenly sort of just focusing more on your own coaching, being more intentional about building your own thing. Is he resentful or frustrated with that or is he supportive? How do you feel it’s going?
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. He’s probably a bit of everything about that. It’s partly a personality thing, okay. So, you know there’s a business. It’s a book I think out called the One Thing and everyone’s going, “What’s your one thing? Just focus on one thing at a time.” and I’m like, “I don’t. I just, my brain’s never done that. Absolutely not like, we bought a house that needed updating and everyone said just pick a room do one room at a time. Don’t trash it and I walked in and I’m like, “I’m pulling wallpaper off everywhere. I’m doing the whole thing.” I just, I, yeah. –
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I’m in the same way–[laughs]
CATHERINE GRAY
Change everywhere, not just in one little bit. So, I kind of flit around in my business world, in my head like that anyway. And so, I’d, we’ve maybe not had the full conversation of what you are, what your hours looking like, what’s the balance of your, you doing this versus this but we also knew that coaching was always going to be there. I was never gonna be able to give that up because I’m so passionate about it and James is super supportive of that. So, he’s in on one hand going, “Go do that, that’s amazing. I want to hear all about it.” And the next minute like, “Where did you go? I needed to have a chat about a lasering thing. Good luck. I haven’t seen your day.” And I’m like, “Sorry. I mean [laughs] –
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Do you find it really difficult to compartmentalize home-life and date-life like you were saying it was a date night and a business meeting? Do you have a hard time with those lines? Getting off of work and just shutting off everything and being –
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. We have not sorted that out at all. So, we know other people who work together and are married and I’ve tried to get tips from them. One of them says you just don’t talk about anything after ten o’clock at night because you’re gonna be confused or argue so you just sort everything else out beforehand and then you don’t talk about work or anything too deep that late on which I do agree with but it doesn’t always work either because sometimes we haven’t seen each other until ten o’clock at night and need to debrief on something. We’ve got some other friends who if they bring, if someone brings up a topic and the other person isn’t in a place where they can respond to that, they’ll hold them up an imaginary red card because they’re a very sporty family and they’ll literally be like, “Red card. You need to stop.” [laugh] Which I love the idea of but we– yeah, I’d still feel a bit rude about doing that, I think. [laugh] So, we do try and compartmentalize. It’s not working right now. I was trying to describe to someone else as well because then, I don’t understand how I see you on the school run, and then I see you having a coffee, and then I see you doing this, and then you say you’re not free, and then you’re there in the evening and I’m like, “I think I basically do split shifts”. So, almost like, I’m trying to think of an actual job description where you’d have that I think I feel like it used to be more of a thing when I was growing up in the UK where you kind of do a few hours in the morning and then you’re not working for a few hours and then you do a few hours again but that is what you’re contracted to do. So, it’s definitely more like that we’re very structured with who’s tag teaming, school runs, and clubs and getting to our own fitness stuff but when we’re actually talking about work, that’s still just whenever it comes into someone’s head and you walk into the room to find the other person and similarly actually with when we want to be focused on work, so we haven’t had the conversation recently but we probably need to again at some point, James is a big fan of setting his alarm early. He wants to get up an hour before the kids but it keeps failing because they get up earlier and earlier the stairs. I thought I’d be in it. [laughs]. He would love to be up an hour earlier have done –I don’t think he wants to go for a run at that point but do a lot of like do kind of morning routine stuff that he wants to do and I’ve got a load of work done before he even sees anyone else in the house. And he would love for me to adopt that mindset as well. That’s literally my worst nightmare. I love sleep. I also struggle to sleep and I’m like, “I’m just gonna sleep.” But then, I find it quite a lot easier to work in the evenings whereas he probably doesn’t so that kind of stuff we’re all–
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that because we have it very similar too. I’m a night person my husband’s a morning person and in the beginning, my husband just didn’t understand why I was sleeping in who would bother sleeping in. It’s the biggest waste of time and it’s the sweetest part of sleep, right. Between that six to seven is like, “Don’t wake me up yet.” Oh, so great. Now, I have you know a baby wakes me up very early so I don’t get that but I think I also matured a little bit and realized that I can overcome and get out of bed even before I want to or I’m ready to. Which was also a very interesting thing but I love doing things at night so as soon as there’s quiet and it’s dark that’s when I thrive and I totally get you and I think one of the things that gets in our way is when we think we should do it a different way. Other people who are married do it this way and it must be that’s the right way and it’s, “No, find what works for you,” Right. Because you are living this life and your husband is your husband like nobody else has to get involved or be, have a say or that’s something that I really help women find their space, their thing. What works for me because for some people it works not to talk about work at all and just, “Okay, I’m in family mode now,” And I personally can’t do that. When I see my husband at night and I need to really get it all out of me. He is my safe space for how I feel about the day and what happened and all the things and the dramas and whatever and I’m like, “Thank you for letting me get that out. Okay, now what’s up,” Right. I need that and he’s able to hold that space for me. I think that’s amazing, right. I don’t feel like I need to create a cut line. It actually is, it’s what makes me feel so connected is that he’s able to listen and give me that time.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. And actually, I think we had quite a good start of not ever having any comparison stuff going on. So, we got married when we were nineteen. It was the start of second year of university. Everyone had already freaked out that we were the weird getting married people. So, we’re always doing looking a bit different and then we still carried on look looking like normal students and I’d be out on a Wednesday night and he didn’t really want to and we didn’t act like people expected a married couple to act and then we went traveling and no one else ever all our family were still in the same place and we’ve gone off on an adventure so, yeah. We’ve always kind of been the ones doing something a bit differently anyway which has been quite helpful. We don’t, I think and that’s that, yeah.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s really great. That’s amazing. How do you find time between being a mother, being a wife, being a business owner for yourself?
CATHERINE GRAY
That’s a good question. So, I, personality-wise, I’m always looking for the next fun thing or the next new thing I can be involved in or the next coffee I can have with my friends. Probably to the point where I would just replace all spare time with those things [laughs] anyway. I always have to reel it in and go, “This is a working day. Make sure you do some work and don’t sign up for a new course or end up walking for hours with lots of lovely people.” Which is amazing that hasn’t actually earned you any money. Yeah, so interestingly, I don’t actually find it that hard. It’s more, if I have been in real work mode and I’ve had back-to-back stuff going on, and then the kids have got loads of stuff going on, and then James has talked to me about a load of lasering stuff, it’s then that I kind of feel the pinch I think that my brain is just going, “I want to watch something terrible on tv or I want to read a book.” And I might not have the energy for that. Am I just fall asleep anyway or I don’t know when that’s happening because there’s just people around me all the time and I don’t know, I need to go hide somewhere. [laughs] Yeah, so again, it’s a bit of I’m, I am actually quite good at kind of seeing snippets of time. My brain works quite strategically naturally anyway and it almost works out for me in the day. I’m kind of constantly checking my calendar going, “Oh, that’s moved. This is moved. Okay, there’s a little window there. What am I gonna do?” So, yeah. People are often, “How the heck do you fit all this stuff in?” And I’m just like, “Just my brain just maps it out and I find all the little spaces of what I can put in there for fun or rest or yeah.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s amazing. Oh, my goodness. How, do you want to tell us a little bit about your coaching because I want to hear what your niche is and what is your special thing?
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. So, I started off having some amazing training in coaching that was just very general. So, I used to just say, “I’m a coach. I’ll catch you on anything. I can coach anyone who’s ready. Let’s go.” And then obviously that doesn’t really work when if you have to do marketing in your business or if someone actually goes, “what do you actually do? I don’t know what this is.” So, I’ve done lots of other kind of professional development– I guess, is the brief way of explaining it and at the moment I’m finding myself working with a lot of entrepreneurs, churches, and charity leaders, and small business owners. So that would be my official answer of what my niche is however, I don’t ever anything being static so I’m fully expecting that to probably not be the case in a few years’ time. That’d be quite interesting. So, I’m still a firm believer that actually if you need to see something change and you just feel really stuck or you don’t have a space to reflect or process something with someone, then find a coach and they will create that space for you and make sure that you are thinking in a different way or have got some breakthrough in something by the end of it. That’s meant to be the point of coaching. However, I do kind of then have more specific things I can feed into that because of the tools that I’ve built up. So, for example, I’ve been trained in taking people through their Clifton Strengths Assessment, it’s a forty-minute questionnaire that you take to find out what talents you have inside of you. And then I do a lot of coaching about, “So, what does that actually mean. Let’s not have this as another bit of paper that’s technically telling you what kind of person you are and it just sits on your desk forever.” Yeah, it’s really cool and then I do a lot of stuff helping people to find out, “Do you know what your purpose and calling is? Do you believe a lot of stuff about that that’s not true? What do you need to change?” So, that things are actually in alignment and then more recently I’ve been doing a lot of goal setting and accountability with people that’s much more been focused on business obviously involves your whole life anyway of if you could describe what your best year yet looked like, what would that be? Let’s actually write that out and talk about that and then put all the goals in place to make sure that that actually happens and isn’t just something nice that you say and then don’t really believe you’re gonna have it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah. I find that the hardest part is knowing what you want. We’re very good at knowing what we don’t want, right. It’s like, I ask women, what do you want from your marriage and it’s like, “I just don’t want to be this way anymore. I don’t know. I can’t deal with this,” Right. I’m like, “and he has to stop being this way and he has to do this that the other,” And it’s either all about him or all about what he shouldn’t do and usually it’s both, right. So, we have a hard time thinking what do I really want? What do I even want because one thing I think is because we don’t believe it. We don’t believe it’s possible so we don’t even let ourselves think about it. Almost not to let ourselves down which is really self-fulfilling prophecy type of thing. I don’t think it’s possible so I’m gonna try so then I’m not gonna get there because I haven’t tried, right. So, that’s really interesting. Do you use the assessment on you and your husband?
CATHERINE GRAY
Yes, although can I just say something before we get to that because I’ve just thought is that what’s been really interesting in my more recent goal-setting work with people is that we spend quite a big chunk of time talking about where was I a year ago. If I can’t think past next week when you’re asking me to think about next year, let’s actually go back a step and be like, “what did I actually achieve or I’m super pleased about from last year in any realm of life and what am I really disappointed about,” and actually let yourself feel that and talk about that and think about that and go, “Okay, so what am I? What I’ve actually learned? Where have I come from? And therefore, are there different beliefs that I need to have and kind of reset what I’m thinking and responding to certain things, and obviously I do this all for myself as well my own business, my own life, as well as doing it with clients and I have this little, I have a plan. I check on my goals. I check on my, what I’m aiming for, and there’s a sentence there which is called My New Belief for 2022, and it’s that for me, that I always bring some kind of value because I realized I wasn’t doing stuff because I was like, “I’m not, I don’t know enough about that. I’m not, there’s other experts on this. I don’t explain things well enough. I’m gonna do people a disservice.” And then I was, “Oh, actually I do have some value. So, let’s go bigger than that and say I always bring value.” And I just read the sentence enough times there’s one some point; I will believe it. But, without us even having a full conversation about this or me even asking him to, my husband literally listened to me saying effectively this that I’m saying to you explained it all to him and he realized instantly how key that was to me and my success and every time I’m like, “I’m going on a call now or I’m going out see you later.” He’s literally in the background going, “go break value.” [laughs] Turn into my little cheerleader. “You will do this.” Yeah. Which I’m just really amazed. I didn’t see that coming. Found it really funny to begin with but genuinely it’s been massive. It’s completely changed stuff because I’m like someone else is saying it out loud to me now, I’d better start believing it.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And here you are bringing value so we’re all good. Everything’s aligned on the world. I love it. Oh, it’s so funny you reminded me of something funny also. I have a reminder on my phone that said, “G-d is right here, right now.” And it rang sometime in the afternoon usually when I’m like having that slump and I’m feeling really overwhelmed or frustrated and it vibrates and so you’ll hear someone from the other room be like, “Ima, G-d is here.” And it’s so great because it’s not just from within you start having it also from the people around you and it’s very funny. So, you reminded me of that it’s like, “G-d is calling you. He wants you to know he loves you. This is very it’s very cute. It’s also good for the atmosphere in the home. It’s so fun when you get everyone else involved in what you’re doing I think that one of the biggest things that hold us back is when we’re so embarrassed of shining when we’re so uncomfortable with our own shine that we don’t share it because we don’t wanna , “What are people gonna say and what are they gonna blah blah.” All these stuff that’s going on in our head which was holding me back for years, “What are people gonna say?” And it feels really intimate to open yourself up and show who you really are but when you do, you’re surprised at how amazing everyone around you is receiving it and also reflects back their own shine when you do it. So, I love that.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. It’s cool. What’s been also really helpful–so I hate the fact that explaining coaching is so hard. you actually need to experience it really to understand what it is but what is quite helpful, is when your seven-year-old goes, “So what is your job? Do you drive a bus? Is it that kind of coach?” And I’m like, “No, [laughs] I’m not just not just driving around the UK in a bus all day. That’s not what happens.” [laughs] So, yeah. having all the kids style questions to try and get to the bottom of what you’re actually wanting to say and do is super helpful. But sorry you were asking me about strengths, and whether we use that in our marriage when you so, obviously because I believe so much in coaching, I have a coach for me. I ask my husband if he would like coaching style conversations around when we’re having business star conversations and thankfully, he is up for that because I’m like, “Whoa! Lunch new thing. Let’s give it a go.” So, he does early on, he was kind of my guinea pig on practicing a load of my coaching skills. Now, we actually use it a bit more formally when it’s appropriate and just try and get a bit more in sync with what we’re envisioning business stuff looking like or to try and overcome some problems, we will have it in a coaching style conversation but because of the Clifton Strength stuff and I don’t think I said but before, I love finding out about people and learning more about myself and just figuring it all out. I did sociology as a degree so it’s just fascinating people stuff just fascinating and I’d done every kind of assessment and personality test you could find whilst also doing my coaching training and none of them described me. None of them. I started getting really freaked out. I was either they’re broken or I’m like really weird anomaly of a human that is not on the test. I don’t know which is more scary. [laugh] And then I did Clifton Strengths and actually it totally described me so I was like, “Okay. Phew. I exist somewhere on someone’s bit of paper.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes. You are real. You exist. Everything is safe again.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. But super helpful language to explain why I actually do what I do and how to describe to people what I find useful and not useful. So, I asked my husband if he wanted to do it as well. He did, we did a bit of coaching around what that meant for him and we now, I can’t it might be back to front actually. I don’t know if you can see it. “Oh yeah I know. There we go. Look we’ve got a Tim Gray Clifton Strengths chart so we get to see, okay you’re really talented naturally at this but actually I’m over here doing that and when do we need to rely on each other’s strengths, when are we both on the same wavelength, and really going for it. And when is that a super helpful thing and when do we need to reel that in and go, “Oh, dear. We’ve both gone super futuristic and now we need to calm down.” Or where are the gaps and actually interestingly so we haven’t gone down the employment of staff route yet but I would be very interested to know where are our gaps already and what does that look like with bringing new people into the team so it can be the most successful. Yeah. So, we’re both very, I’m just looking at this now because I haven’t looked at it for a few weeks and we’re both very high in Belief– that’s the name of one of the talents on the assessment so that means we need to know there’s a purpose in every single thing that we’re doing. If there’s not some higher reason for something we’ll both basically just check out and be like, “I don’t know what it is.”
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Right. Money isn’t enough of a of a motivator.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That’s really powerful.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. And then we both have strategic and restorative and futuristic. So, it basically means we’re very good at looking ahead being, clever about how we’re going to get there and also, it’s, the definition on some of the things that I bring my clients through Clifton Strengths for restorative is bringing things back to glory. So, it’s seeing something broken and knowing that that’s not the end and so I think although that might not be in our top strengths, it’s always underlying of, “So, what we’re going to do about this then?” There’s a better way or there’s a better version of this person inside of there or yeah, just what can we, what can we do about that. What does G-d want us to do about that because actually he’s pretty involved in everything that we’re doing as well.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Of course. I was gonna say how do you guys find G-d in your business? How do you bring him in? What do you feel is the way that you’re able to implement everything?
CATHERINE GRAY
Do you know what? Thinking about that, I’m not sure that we’ve done that with lasering as much as we could have at all because that’s such a practical–you buy this, you find out what someone wants on it. You engrave it. You post it. If it breaks in the post, you send them a new one. And then we might have a few days where we get excited about design or something. It’s not a day-to-day conversation that we have and we probably should. However, I ask questions all the time. Almost coaching style questions which sounds super weird because he doesn’t need coaching but it’s just my style of chatting that I think is so ingrained. So, if I want to buy someone a present and I’m a bit stumped as to what to get I will just say to G-d, what does that person need or what’s going to bless them, so we have ended up engraving things because I had a random idea or chat with G-d about actually that person would really love this bible verse or this phrase on a candle or on a whatever. But yeah, we, it’s that is a very good prompt that actually we do just need to sit down and I’ll score a load of stuff, actually going forwards because we’ve been in a phase of let’s just, we kind of need a recovery period from Christmas because Christmas is always bonkers. Everyone wants a laser engraved gift at Christmas and then we’ve kind of gone into design behind the scenes mode so we do definitely need to find out what G-d’s got for us next but coaching wise, I, it seems a lot more, I need to be so responsive and so on it with what’s happening next. What does every client need? What does, who should I be getting in contact with next? Who should I not be getting content with? There’s just a lot more day-to-day stuff that I can’t figure out. There’s no logic. There’s no foresight that I would naturally have. So, I just involved G-d in loads of that and then obviously our business stuff is impacted by what else is happening in life so anything else that we might feel like G-d is speaking about outside technically of work, it’s it then immediately impacts work because it’s in our house. It’s in our, it’s everything.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
For sure. I love that you’re being aware of the amount sometimes we’re like, “It’s okay. I got this. Don’t worry about it.” So, okay she thinks she got it. We’re so in control that we forget that he’s actually in control and he’s got this way better so. I think that there’s something really nice about being able to connect and you know integrate G-d into everything that we do because it’s the only way I know how to succeed. I, and like you said something about how certain things are natural to you and then certain things aren’t but even the natural things that are to us are also from G-d, right. So, just being really intentional about that is so powerful. Oh, so much good stuff. See, it brings so much value into the world. Okay, let’s hear where can people find out more about what you do. Tell us a little bit about the coaching and also about the laser cut, laser not cut and grave.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. I’ll say to someone else there it does need to be a new word for that because it doesn’t just engrave, like it fractures the glass and it burns the wood and it cuts through stuff. It’s really not just engraving. It’s a lot cleverer than that but no one’s come up with a good enough umbrella term. [laughs]
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I think you’re good. That’s it. It should be amazing. Give me a right word to describe what we do.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Don’t worry I already asked him it’s on its way. That’s really cool. So, yeah so tell us about where people can find you?
CATHERINE GRAY
Yes. So, our laser engraving business is called Upside Down Creations. So, we’re at upsidedowncreations.com. We also see a lot of people on Etsy. “Oh, someone else had that business name first. That’s so sad on Etsy.“ So if you search in Etsy, Engraved pint glass. We turn up with a kids of super cute, oh my gosh it’s literally the best thing at the moment about laser engraving. We get kids drawings that we then get to put on presents for people and literally every drawing that we get, we’re like, “No this is our favorite. This is amazing and then we get another, joke no this is our favorite.” [laughs] Yeah. It’s really cool. So, yeah. We’ve got a website, An Etsy. I am being a terrible social media person on that as well so you probably won’t see much at the moment about the laser, “terrible consistency.” And then coaching wise, it’s all the business stuffs under my name so it’s catherinegreycoaching.com. That tells you a bit about what I do. I’m also on LinkedIn under that name and Instagram and Facebook. But what I really love to do is actually just find out who are you, what do you need because actually coaching is very flexible. Really. It should be client-led. It should be exactly what do you need at this point in time even if we thought that it was something else last time we talked. We’re going to check in and go, “What is it actually today?” That’s going to get you somewhere new and somewhere a better version of you or your business. So, it’s a tricky one, you can just come out with all the cliches of being like, “Look at me breakthrough. It’s gonna be best ever. It’s gonna unstick you.” All of which are true but I just, you need to find someone who you know you’re gonna have rapport with and then just try it out for a bit is right, it’s mine.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I always say you need to find someone who is comfortable enough saying it is to you because you can’t face it on your own and it’s going to make it safe enough and fun enough to actually go through it together. As I, like you said, you have a coach I have a coach it’s one of those things that’s so important to be able to help other people but also be helped and feel how it feels and really get in touch with that so that you can then resonate with people and you can be relatable, right. We are all human. So, I think this is one of the things that is so important about doing the podcast is I want everyone to know that they’re human and they’re doing it and they’re fine and they’re exactly where they need to be like you’re saying, “Oh, my gosh. I’m not consistent on social media or whatever.” I found it very consistent that all your names are the same all in all the platforms that’s consistency right there, right. You’re exactly where you need to be and that’s okay and when you need to, you are going to figure it out and click into it because the structure is in place and then the funniest thing is that when I was, the first client I got, I did all this work to set up all my social media and to be everywhere and I’m trying to get all over people’s faces like, “Look. Hire me. and I’m on Zoom and I’m on Youtube and I’m on this and that and I was on a podcast and a listener heard the podcast through her phone because she doesn’t have internet and she asked there’s a way to press something to leave a message and she left a message, “I’d like to speak to the guest in the interview.” And somehow, I got her number. I spoke to her. She doesn’t have internet. She doesn’t have Facebook. She doesn’t have Zoom. She doesn’t have anything, and she ended up being my first client and we worked together already for I don’t know maybe a year and a half because she was so committed to finding who this person was. She never saw me. She never saw what I look like. I have no idea what she looks like but we have such a good click on the phone. We could sit and talk and I can help her through the stuff and she trusts that I want the best for her, right. That’s the power of coaching.
CATHERINE GRAY
And I do say to people it takes a bit of getting used to because you don’t normally have someone responding to you in the way that a coach will respond to you because actually if you meet up with me and we’re in friend mode I absolutely want to hear your whole life story and everything you ever want to tell me. If I’m in coach mode, I’m literally going to say to you I apologize in advance if I come across as blunt but I don’t want the back story because that’s not actually helping you get somewhere and if I butt in and go, “Is that really what you think or is that a true statement?” It’s not because I’m suddenly getting really judgy, I want you to change your answer it’s because I’m like want you to actually think through the words that you’re saying and go, “Oh, is it is that true? Do I think that?” Yeah. So, it’s just, it’s an interesting style of conversation. Isn’t it? Which is what I touched on before and it’s just massively valuable. No one else in any kind of area of life gives you that space and that challenge in a nice way. [laughs] isn’t it?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
It’s yeah. It’s so funny. I cut people off all the time like, “Wait one second. Can I just interrupt? That’s not true. Let’s redo that. Say that again.” Because we’ll say things about ourselves be like, “Ah, no re rephrase. That not nice. You can’t say mean things about yourself just like you can’t say mean things about other people.” So, yeah. It’s very funny and I think that’s also why it’s so powerful when you pay someone to do this for you because now you’re committed to listening to what they have to say as opposed to one of the biggest things that I was having a hard time with in the beginning was, I was trying to give all these people advice because I knew that I can help them but they weren’t interested in hearing it so they wouldn’t take any of my advice. They would just smile and I’d be like, “Oh, you’re right.” And then they wouldn’t do anything about it so I was like, “Ah, I can’t stand it. I know you can. I know I can help you and you’re not gonna take it.” And it’s so, it flips the whole situation around when the person actually is ready –
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Ready to hear.
CATHERINE GRAY
Yeah. And in most situations, you, I find myself saying that to people all the time about my own stuff. It’ll be really nice if someone else could fix that or that would just disappear or this would happen or I didn’t need to put the effort in to sort that out so I want to just you know download the information to me or give me a book that answers all those questions but actually that doesn’t happen to sort anything else out long term until I’ve been on the journey of learning what that actually looks like. Yeah, so it’s just having–
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
–funny so in my coaching things that we can’t control and we just wish things would just be different. We bring it up to G-d and we’re like, “Okay G-d, do your thing. Show me what needs to be.” And a lot of times reality will just show us G-d will show through reality what it is that he actually wants and sometimes all he wanted was for you to turn to him and then thing will just disappear. So, it’s very interesting. It’s very fun like that. I actually use that, “Let It Be Easy” as my big my big motto is you don’t have to do it all. You just have to want it and you have to be willing to receive it. So, it’s so interesting. Oh, my goodness. This is so fun we could sit here and talk forever. I I’m having such a good time but before anybody loses interest or forgets to do all the important things. I will just tell you that I am having a retreat, a virtual retreat. It’s going to be amazing it’s at connectedforreal.com/retreat you should go and sign up and make sure that you are watching out for it because I’m going to be sending out an email with all the information very very soon and it’s going to be very awesome. This is the fifth one I’m doing. You talk about consistency. I did not see myself as consistent for years, I just believed I couldn’t keep anything going and when I committed to doing the virtual retreats which is a seven-day, one hour a day on Zoom, man it’s so powerful. It motivates you to do it again. There, the feedback people say it changed their life is so fun and it’s free! That’s the way that I get to serve the world so go to connectedforreal.com/retreat. Make sure that you are with us. I am so happy and let me show you again katherinegreycoaching.com. Make sure you go check her out because she’s awesome. Any last words? Any advice you want to give are awesome listeners? If somebody is working with their husband, what do they, what do you think that you want them to know?
CATHERINE GRAY
I think you’re never going to feel like you’ve got to the optimum bit. I think is what we’re learning together because it’s like with anything else, there is constant change. We would rather things didn’t change. People talk about not liking change actually. There’s always change and if things didn’t change, you’d actually be saying the opposite and you’d be pretty fed up. [laughs] So, I guess just approaching things with a learning mindset and a coaching kind of approach of just question everything gently and listen well. Shut up as much as you talk, [laughs] and just yeah, just keep reassessing stuff. Figuring out where if you’re both actually where you want to be because it’s all right to reaching things. I think that’s one of the things that I say a lot to clients is, “You make a decision that doesn’t mean it’s a lifelong thing just because you’ve decided to do this in business or move to this place or switch something else up, that doesn’t mean that that’s discarded every other option forever.” Change is still something you can choose to do or you can go back to what you were doing before. It’s not the end of the story so [Music] yeah just keep talking basically and there’s buttons all over my website to book a call with me. I love meeting people and just finding out about who they are and where they’re at. So, please do.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that. I love it and I want to add to that, don’t forget that it’s your life and your marriage and you get to do it any way that works for you and if it’s not working for you, reach out for help there are so many amazing and wonderful people and next season is all about the professionals that I’m going to be featuring because I feel like it’s so important to realize how many amazing people there are and how many approaches and how many different angles you can take in order to fix something. Sometimes, it’s coming from a self-love thing, sometimes it’s a marriage thing, sometimes it’s parenting sometimes it’s time management but any help you get is going to get you further. Is going to get you a breakthrough. It’s going to get you to actually be where you want to be so make sure you get help. Make sure you get it to a point where it works for you and where you’re really in touch with what it is that you’re doing and how it’s working. Thank you so much. Make sure you come back next time. Listen to our awesome interviews and I will see you next time.
And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm, this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now, take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com. Thank you so much for listening, and don’t forget, you can be connected for real.