Unlocking Brilliance: Christine McIver's Journey

In this engaging conversation, Sherisse Alexander and Christine McIver explore the journey of Christine from human resources to becoming a successful coach and the founder of the Inspired Choices Network. They discuss the challenges faced in HR, the impact of AI on the industry, and the importance of values in recruitment. Christine shares insights on the evolution of her network, the myths surrounding podcasting, and the significance of personal development. The conversation emphasizes the need for authenticity and connection in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Backstory
• 7:27 Challenges in Human Resources
• 13:19 The Role of AI in HR
• 25:00 Inspire Choices Network Overview
• 31:38 Growing Hosts and Elevating Brilliance
• 39:30 Navigating Challenges in Live Environments

Transcript

Sherisse Alexander (00:11)
hello, Christine. Good afternoon. How are you?

Christine (00:15)
Hello, how are you? I am really good. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Sherisse Alexander (00:19)
I

know it's been a long time coming and this is my first video. It is, it is. It is my first video cast. So this is a huge, huge deal for me. And so, you know, I think a little bit of back, okay. I don't even know where to begin. So maybe what I will start with is a little bit of backstory on how I met you.

Christine (00:26)
This is your first video podcast? Your video cast, your first video cast. I love it, Sherisse.

Sherisse Alexander (00:46)
you and I met through Ranchelle Van Bryce and it was Ranchelle and I were doing, we were chatting right before a podcast I did with her and she was telling me about her decision to move to Inspire Choices Network. And, you know how ideas are, right? There was this little thing niggling in the back of my head that was like, you should do video. You should do video. And I was like, Ranchelle, who was, what was the name of that network that you were telling me about? And can you put me in contact and.

you entered my life at that point. And so please tell us about yourself. You've many, many hats that you wear. So share with the audience who you are, what you do.

Christine (01:14)
we go. That's right.

So this is my

challenge is my challenge is how do I make it concise and that's a bit of a challenge. But I'll give you as quick story as I can. I started in human resources and really tough industry. People don't realize it's very, very tough. I had a mental breakdown and during my time in healing, I really looked at what I wanted to do.

And what I loved about human resources was connecting with people and supporting them. And I could see where they could go. I could hear their dreams and I could see how they could get there. A few months later, I started my own business, took a professional coaching training throughout coaching people. Personally, a lot of people started to say, I'd like to start my own business. And I'm like, well, I did that, I can help you with that. Hence my business coaching started to evolve.

I did a ton of business before I was in human resources, so this was kind of real natural for me. Two years into my coaching, I was approached by a company and they asked me if I'd ever thought about having a radio show. My whole body lit up. You know those moments that you have where it's like the universe God is saying to you, listen, you need to listen. So I said,

Sherisse Alexander (02:28)
Yes.

Yeah.

Christine (02:38)
Yes, actually I couldn't not say yes. It was one of those striking moments. I get on to do my first show and I am so over the moon excited and grateful and nervous as can be that I cried for the first 15 minutes of my show. I cried. Nobody has done as terrible a job as starting out as me.

Sherisse Alexander (03:00)
you

Christine (03:00)
And I also have this thing where if I've said I'm going to do something, I'm going to continue to do it. So I got off that show and I'm like, okay, I don't know how I'm gonna continue, but I am going to continue. And that was in 2011. So I've been doing my own show ever since then. it was three years into that, the platform that I was on, the owner asked if I'd ever thought about producing.

And I was at one of those moments in my life where it was, okay, take this opportunity on, because my ego didn't want to. My ego was like, you're a business coach, what are you doing? And this is not something you do. And she was very loud. And it was do this, or go get a job at, you know, McDonald's. So I'm like, I'm gonna give this a try first, before I go put on my outfit at McDonald's. And six months later, I was the least owner of that platform.

Sherisse Alexander (03:49)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (03:56)
It was really a niche for me to step into that I didn't know, but it brought back, Cherise, that whole thing about I could see people's dreams and I could show them how to get there. And hence, my production hat came into play. A couple years after that, my own, my...

Sherisse Alexander (04:08)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (04:16)
business wanted me to start my own platform. So I talked to my business. I teach people how to talk to their businesses. I launched the Inspired Choices Network. And so over time we've evolved. So it's a live radio streaming platform. And then we also have the video. So we turn that into TV and then we turn the audio into podcast and we mass distribute that to over 350 platforms.

Two years later, Ranshel Van Brice as well was hosting a summit and asked me to be a speaker on the summit. In the midst of this, the production company they had really dropped all the balls and she hollered, I need your help. I jumped in technically to help with a bunch of the things so it could continue to go off smoothly. Post-production, she said, you you'd be really great at doing summits. And I'm like...

What? I sat with that like you do, I know. I sat with that for about six months. I really needed to be with it. I wanted it to be different. And so I came from the perspective of how can this be a benefit? How can it be honoring of the hosts, honoring of the speakers and honoring of the participants? I wanted to do it differently. So then we launched Summits. That was two years ago. About

Sherisse Alexander (05:15)
wow.

Oh, you guys have

known each other that long. Okay, I didn't know. Okay. Yeah.

Christine (05:37)
Yes, yes, yes. I can't even tell you now how long it is. And then

six months after we launched the summits, no, it wasn't six months. It was probably two months after we launched the summits. We then wanted to look at how could we also turn what we do into the publication industry. And so then we launched ICN Publishing. we take people's, everybody that's in a summit.

Sherisse Alexander (05:57)
Okay.

Christine (06:01)
we turn all of their talks into a chapter, into an anthology book. And we also work with people one-on-one for their books. So we're bringing people's messages to people in the way that they like to consume the content. So some people like to listen, some people like to watch, and some people like to read. And so now we fulfill all of those desires.

Sherisse Alexander (06:07)
Hmm.

Great.

Christine (06:26)
I'm thrilled because the biggest thing that I love to do is to see the brilliance in someone and to really get their message out to the people that are looking for it. Because you can be brilliant, but if you're sitting in your house talking to yourself, what are you doing with that brilliance? And so I nudge people and I encourage them and sometimes I...

Sherisse Alexander (06:45)
Okay, stop, I'm gonna pause here.

is not. Don't deceive the people.

Christine (06:49)
I was just gonna add, and sometimes I kick.

Okay, it's truth be told, I'm Irish background and I don't hold back, okay?

Sherisse Alexander (06:59)
Thank you.

Christine (07:00)
There you go.

Sherisse Alexander (07:00)
You know, I love that because that's absolutely what our experience has been like, right? You and I have been talking, we're in Fab. And I think we started talking in about June, July of last year. It's been a while. Yeah, we are. But you know, it's been one of those things that I'm really glad that you have continued to just gently poke me every now and again.

Christine (07:12)
Yeah, it's definitely, we're definitely past our six month anniversary.

Yeah.

Sherisse Alexander (07:28)
And this is

the result is here we are on video. Right? Yeah. So thank you for that. I'm curious when you were in HR, just to go all the way back to the very beginning, what was the biggest challenge?

Christine (07:31)
I'm so excited for you.

my gosh. The biggest challenge was marrying my heart with what I knew people needed, both management and the staff, with the expectations that were being pushed on the department. And the biggest piece was HR is not a revenue generating department.

And the value, when I first started, and I'm gonna age myself and whatever, but when I first started, when I came out of college, it was called the personnel department. It wasn't called human resources. And it got about, it was hiring and doing the paperwork on hiring people and doing the paperwork on firing people. That was as much involvement that we had. Then we kind of started to do the benefits and so on. HR had evolved to...

Sherisse Alexander (08:20)
Yeah.

Christine (08:29)
you know, when I had my last position, to the point where we were buried in work and buried in expectations. So as organizations and countries have ever evolving human ethics, health and safety regulations and so on, all of that, like all of this gets put on HR and nothing gets taken off.

So it was managing, yes, I understand that these regulations are important and I agree with them. It was managing trying to fulfill all those needs with we're missing the human in human resources. And so there are a lot of human resources people who have left the profession, who have had severe breakdowns, severe burnout.

Sherisse Alexander (09:08)
Yep.

Christine (09:19)
And so for me, it was a gift. When I honestly had that breakdown, it was a gift. I got out of that organization within just a few months later, for the most part, it imploded. And so I was able to get out and take care of me and move in the direction of where I needed to be.

Sherisse Alexander (09:38)
The only reason I asked is because you know, lot of the work that I do with Watt is it's so much human resource management on a daily basis. And I know over the last year, I would say, you know, I was reaching out to people everywhere. Like, are you experiencing this? Are you experiencing this? Are you going through this? Is it just me or, you know, because of these challenges and always coming

Christine (09:46)
Mm-hmm.

Sherisse Alexander (10:01)
into the office every day, really trying to show up as my very best self and give people the very best parts and learning how to balance organizational needs with the humanness of, you know, compassion and empathy and all of these things and really struggling with it. So that's why my idea, which we won't talk about here yet, but I'm really excited about it because I think it'll be a way to really help.

Christine (10:19)
Yeah.

yet.

Sherisse Alexander (10:28)
maybe bridge that gap a little bit more because I was trying to do, think what you're talking about, right? How do I inspire people to not just look at this as somewhere to come and make a paycheck, but really find that fire in your belly and bring the best version of yourself every single day. So thank you for sharing that. didn't, I thought, always thought I was just the only one.

Christine (10:49)
my gosh, no,

it's everywhere. It's in all organizations and human resources is expected to hold the people up, have the organization's needs met, and also have the legal in their head at the same time and balance those two. And I think it's an unfair expectation and

I ultimately, in most organizations, ultimately the organization outweighs the human needs because of bottom line. And it's very short-sighted. It's very short-sighted because when we burn the people, we burn the company.

Sherisse Alexander (11:23)
Yep.

100%. And it's often something that I've said within our own organization that our people can make or break the organization. So we got to figure out. And it's, it's laughable. But at the same time, I'm dead serious when I say it until AI gets to a place where it can, which is kind of a scary place. And I was giving my kids an example, not that long ago, where I was talking about something about actually, I was talking about when ATMs

Christine (11:38)
Yes.

Sherisse Alexander (11:57)
ABM's use first came out. And the example that I was giving was like, people need to be able to see, you know, how do we wrap our arms around technology? that's a question that I'm going to ask you here in a moment, so that we can learn how to use technology to help us with those very monotonous and mundane tasks, so we can free up time for people to like, really bring the things that inspire them. And so the example I had given him, my son was that

You know, when bank machines first came out, my dad would go to the bank and he'd walk up to the teller to pay his bill. And a teller would be like, no, sir, we've got these beautiful new machines now where you don't even need to come in and see me. And my dad looked at this lady. He was like, lady, do you know you were encouraging me to put you out of a job? Because if I, if I don't, if I just go use that machine, then why does the bank need you? And fast forward,

Christine (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

Good for him.

Sherisse Alexander (12:51)
All these years later, and now there are branches that you go into where there's one person and it's a virtual banking center kind of thing, right? then the point that I'm trying to drive at or the question I would pose to you is how do you see the rapidly evolving environment of AI and continued innovation and how it works with human resources moving forward? And especially given some of the challenges with current

human resource needs where folks don't want to come in, they want to work remote, they want to make six figures, all this other kind of stuff. How do you see that impacting?

Christine (13:28)
So I'm going to give an example. If I never wash a dish in my life, I'm good. I'm totally good. I have a dishwasher. I put everything in the dishwasher. I possibly can. There are people who raised families on a dishwasher salary. Not a robust salary, but yet a dishwasher salary. Evolution is always going to continue.

Sherisse Alexander (13:34)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, me too.

Christine (13:56)
Our responsibility as, let's say, let's talk about as a creator, as a business owner, and as someone who supports other people in the world, is to know where that begins and where that ends. One of the biggest struggles that I have with AI, and I'm still learning, I am still learning and I am still balancing it in my mind.

is how much do we rely upon that as a support tool, like a dishwasher, and how much are we farming it out and it's gonna be cookie cutter.

Sherisse Alexander (14:26)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (14:32)
When I have hosts that come on the network and I've seen this, they go out and they use an AI tool to create, maybe come up with some titles, maybe come up with some ideas to speak to. If those ideas are not something that they would be like, yeah, of course I do that and I've done this and I can totally speak to that. And they use it as a bullet point example.

Sherisse Alexander (14:32)
Yeah.

Christine (14:56)
They cannot sustain that knowledge in their speaking. So it becomes a space where you're no longer a creator, you're a puppet. are, what's the bird that just repeats everything? Sorry, a parrot, you're a parrot. You're parroting AI, you are not actually a creator. You're not tapping into your genius.

Sherisse Alexander (15:01)
Yep. True.

parrot.

Christine (15:21)
One of the things, and I know I shared this with you, one of the reasons I love that our shows are live is because the speaker, the host, cannot go back and edit the content. And what that does is it holds them accountable to really, really show up and expand their capacity for speaking and tap into their gold, to tap into their brilliance.

Sherisse Alexander (15:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (15:47)
And so when we are forced to show up, the best of us shows up. The best and the best. beyond our doubt, beyond our insecurities, it really challenges us. And I have watched with such mother love parenting, watched these hosts evolve into such their deepest brilliance because they...

Sherisse Alexander (16:05)
You

Christine (16:13)
they allowed themselves to be challenged. So when we look at the human resource in an organization, we've really got to come back to values and we've got to look at what does, start from the employer, the owner, down through the management, what is it that you want to be known for and what do you value? What's important to you? If money is the only thing that's important to you, you're going to be out of business before you know it.

Sherisse Alexander (16:40)
Mm hmm. Yep. Yep.

Christine (16:40)
I don't care, use AI, don't use AI, that doesn't matter. We've

got to bring our values into this. And we've got to really look at where are the limitations in AI, in technology, and where does the human come into play with their greatest capacity.

Sherisse Alexander (16:58)
Mm-hmm. And

I agree with you. You know, I encourage people in our office or in our company to use it. It's a tool. Why not use it? And I've definitely consumed some other content that talks about like as we move forward, what we should be doing is exactly what you've talked about, right? Recognize it for what it is. Use it for what it is. And you know,

if we can automate some things and again, for me, it boils down to those things that are monotonous, time consuming, prone to human error. How do we reduce that to free up what you rightfully call allowing people's genius to come through in their workplace and really be inspired by what they're doing? So yeah, I'm always looking at ways that I can include it in the workplace. Yeah.

Christine (17:46)
Sure,

and if it can save us some time and it also can educate us. So we can go out as we do today. We've normalized Googling it, right? Like that's a term that we know means go research. So of course we do research and development in our positions and research and development in our organizations. But if you're going out and you're not just using it to learn and grow yourself, but you're using it to rely upon it,

Sherisse Alexander (17:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (18:15)
as the knowledge, you're gonna get tripped up. You are guaranteed. So can you imagine, Sharice, that you go out and you research a topic you wanted to talk about and you come up with all of this knowledge and you've memorized it, whatever the case, you got the bullet points, you're reading it, you're creating a podcast. And somebody says, wow, that chick is brilliant. Let's get her to speak at our conference where she'll be on stage in front of

Sherisse Alexander (18:18)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (18:43)
20 or 20,000. You could not pull that off because that's not your genius. That's a machine's generated information. And that's where we fall short. That's where we fall short for ourselves, that we're not actually supporting ourselves with this information that we're pulling off of AI. And so we've got to see

Sherisse Alexander (18:53)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (19:11)
Does this make sense for me or do I need to go do some more training, some more, some more learning? That's great. Absolutely use it for that, but be very careful what you put your name behind. Be very, very careful because it can come back to bite you.

Sherisse Alexander (19:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you know, I never thought about it quite that way or never really considered it that way, but I've definitely seen, I never put too much thought into that. Let's say it like that. I've definitely received things from people where I'm like, okay, so this was 100 % generated by AI. You know, for me, it's like, it's like a baseline tool. Let me just get some ideas flowing and let's see what, what I can come with if you're having like a block of some sort. So

Christine (19:50)
Right.

Sherisse Alexander (19:56)
Well, thank you for sharing your opinion on that. Yeah.

Christine (19:59)
Tell me, I have a question for you, because you know that's what I do.

What was your sense of that individual that sent you an email that was AI generated? Where did your value with them go?

Sherisse Alexander (20:10)
It went down. It did. Because I was just like, because I was like,

Christine (20:12)
because

Sherisse Alexander (20:15)
For what you were sending me, you didn't need to use the tool. It almost came across as just being lazy.

Christine (20:22)
Right and insulting to your intelligence. Right? Yeah, we've got to be very careful. We need to be because we can ruin our own reputations.

Sherisse Alexander (20:24)
Yeah. Yeah.

100%.

And I think actually I was having a conversation internally and I didn't even, I should have known this was obviously a thing, but I was having a conversation internally and part of our hiring process is, you know, there's some assessments that need to be done, case studies, cetera. And one of the guys was like, you know, maybe what we're getting back has been done by AI. And so they'd said, you know, we want to get the original document. Like we want to see, was

some spreadsheet work. So they were like, we want to see the formulas. Like, how did you do the work? Right? Back to basic math, like, show me your work. Right. And so when they got it, it was like, oh, yeah, this was like 100 % done by AI. I was like, oh, my gosh, I just would not even have never thought to like submit that I would never have thought myself personally, for a job that I was applying for to like have AI do because it was like a financial model. I would have never even thought to do that. But

Christine (21:04)
Right. Fact-check basics. Yes, yeah. Show the work.

We've gotten to the point, and I know this for a fact because I speak to people, we've gotten to the point where we are in such competition because people are using AI and maybe they're smoother at delivering it so it doesn't appear to be AI. We've gotten to a point where we're nearly forcing people to do that in order to compete, to be able to get a job, to be able to pay their bills and to feed their families.

Sherisse Alexander (21:37)
Hmm.

You know, could be true, and I'm not going to disagree with you there. But you know, our hiring model has really evolved since we've been, you know, actively engaged in in human resources. And for us, you know, when I'm interviewing somebody, I will always say to them. And I have now learned that this doesn't work. So she's like, just level with me. Can you do it or not? I just do the point.

Christine (22:16)
Yeah, right.

Sherisse Alexander (22:17)
And because what I'm trying to get them to understand is I don't need you to have all the knowledge. There are some other ingredients that I need that I can't teach you. that's desire for learning, desire for personal development, career development. They're like, there's these intrinsic values that I can't teach you. But the technical piece, anybody can learn that. And as long as you have these core things that I can't teach you, then the rest I don't care about. We can cross that.

Christine (22:32)
Yes.

Absolutely.

Right, doesn't,

those don't matter.

Sherisse Alexander (22:45)
So that's why I say like, and you talk about getting back to the values. For me, that's valuable. Like these other intrinsic non-quantifiable things that I need you to have, I will value that all day, every day. So now even as part of the assessment, right? When I'm looking at it, I'm like, I don't really need your technical knowledge to be up to snuff there. Let's...

Christine (23:03)
I have

a program I have to share with you now that we're deep diving into HR. I hated recruiting when I first started in HR and my boss, he was a great boss, he sent me to this training and I was like rolling my eyes. I came out of that going, my gosh. And it teaches you how to filter for their traits, which is what you're referring to, something that it's inherent in you.

Sherisse Alexander (23:07)
Yep.

Christine (23:29)
how to filter for their traits, and then the rest doesn't, like it will come later. And it's such an amazing process that you can filter down to nine questions that I can ask you over the phone and I can rate you a zero, a one or a two. With no bias, well, of course there's always gonna be a slight bias. You can hear the person's voice.

Sherisse Alexander (23:34)
Yeah, absolutely.

Hmm, please share it.

Christine (23:54)
You can maybe pick up on their, you know, male or female, white or black. Like you can, you're always gonna be able to do a little bit of that, but it does take out layers of this. And it is fantastic. And I used it in this company and the managers fought me, fought me, fought me, fought me. And I'm like, well, we're doing it, so get over it. And we did it and it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic because what,

Sherisse Alexander (24:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Christine (24:20)
what we were really looking for was that what we absolutely had to have in them that they would be such a match for the position and the department and the organization. just, love it. I absolutely will share it with you.

Sherisse Alexander (24:33)
Please share it. Please share it.

We are constantly recruiting and like you, it used to be something that was very exciting for me. Like, we're doing interviews now. It's not as exciting. But yeah, please do share it with me. So sorry to go down this deep rabbit hole of HR. It was just that statement you made in the very beginning. And I was just like, I want to know more about that. So thank you for sharing. I appreciate it.

Christine (24:45)
Yeah, it's tough.

That's okay. Hey, we dance where we dance. It's

all good.

Sherisse Alexander (25:00)
Yes, absolutely. I wanted to pivot more to Inspire Choices, the network, and I want you to share more about what the network is, what you're, because you spoke about a niche market. So what is it that you are bringing to the masses through Inspire Choices?

Christine (25:05)
Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Well, Inspired Choices Network is all about bringing people's heart and soul and what really moves them to the airwaves, whether it be audio or video. I love, we've had so many different shows over the years and I just love to hear people's hearts. We don't have one niche where, you know, this is the type of host that we're looking for.

I definitely want to make sure that we are a match as far as values go and the direction that they want to take, what they're doing and how they bring their brilliance to the world. But what we do is, it's a turnkey operation, Sharice. So for the people that are out there that they have got something on their heart that they want to share with the world or they have a brilliance that they know.

they could contribute to the world, but they don't know how to do all this technology. They don't know how to do the marketing. They don't know how to do the mass distribution. That's what we do. I love computers. I absolutely love technology. I love systems. My brain just goes to town on that. And so everything we do, we have a system set up. So it makes it much easier and much more fun. And what we can do

Sherisse Alexander (26:07)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (26:28)
because I started out learning every single step. What we do today with somebody's show would have taken most people, it would take them probably a month with one hour recording that they wouldn't know how to do. We simplify it down and we make the content available immediately. When someone's done their show,

Sherisse Alexander (26:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (26:50)
So let's say you and I right now, right? As soon as we're done talking, a producer would take the content and start to mass distribute it within five to 10 minutes, it would be available online everywhere. So I love that part because I know that when I'm turned on about something and I really wanna talk about it, I wanna get it out there. And I could never understand people that would do a recording or they would do several recordings and then it would be in a bank for months. And I'm like,

How do you do that? here's the thing to know about me. Don't put Christmas presents under the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, because I can't hold back for more than 24 hours.

Sherisse Alexander (27:28)
Makes sense. I understand what you're saying. mean, being the podcaster that was doing it exactly the way that you're talking about where it's like storing all this content, being like, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to bring this one here and so on and so forth. It's not readily available right away. Right. So yeah.

Christine (27:38)
Yeah.

Right.

So that's what we do and we support. I love to teach and guide and educate hosts that, you know, I've had hosts come that they didn't, literally did not know how to turn on their computer. And, you know, I have hosts that come in, they're very frustrated, they're overwhelmed with technology, and I try to really help them to see it's just a tool.

I can teach you if you know how to drive a car, can teach you how to do this, no problem." And we do. We get on calls and we go through and, okay, touch this and do that. And then they have a support person in all of our producers. When they come on, the producers know how to guide them. And it's really a close group that we support each other. And we know when somebody's having a bad day, how we can make them laugh or help them to move them forward.

Sherisse Alexander (28:12)
Yeah.

Christine (28:35)
So it's really great because it allows people to show up and again, mine their gold. I did a show called, Your Own Gold. And we teach people how to mine their gold and we make it fun and easy and fast. So that's a big part of it.

Sherisse Alexander (28:48)
Yeah.

I do love that. And so, I mean, I know that I'm not on the Inspire Choices Network, but you certainly gave me the push. Yes, yet. You certainly gave me the push that I needed in order to, because I know I had been speaking to you one day where it's just like, oh gosh, just, I gotta go home and I gotta edit. I was just like, so exhausted by it, just even thinking about having to do it. you know, for me, this was like the next,

Christine (28:58)
Yet.

That's a lot.

Sherisse Alexander (29:21)
obvious step was going to video. And so even though I'm not yet on ICN, I have made this next step. So we'll celebrate that win. Yes, exactly.

Christine (29:24)
for you.

That's great. I love that.

I love that. Well, here's the thing. Here's something to keep in mind. And I think that we fulfill a need in that 80 % of podcasts that begin and before their 12th episode.

Sherisse Alexander (29:46)
Really? So I'm really doing good.

Christine (29:48)
You're really doing good. So your sustainability

is high, excellent. Your persistence is high, excellent. And I think that there's also a big myth, and we also talked about this a bit. There's a big myth that you're going to make money from a podcast. And I know if I spoke to some of the big podcasters out there that talk about making money, I know I would be in a big fight with them. I've been doing this for 15 years. It's...

Sherisse Alexander (29:54)
you

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Christine (30:17)
Can I swear? It's bullshit. Stop telling people that. Stop

Sherisse Alexander (30:18)
Yes. Yeah.

Christine (30:23)
it. It makes me, I get infuriated. Ranshell and I have deep conversations about this. It's not true. You don't make money from your car unless you are driving a cab. Okay? You don't make money from a podcast. What you do is you leverage your business with your podcast. You don't make money from a book.

Sherisse Alexander (30:28)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (30:46)
Over 95 % of books that are out there, nobody makes money from these books. And I mean money, money. I don't mean like, hey, I got made a dollar off that book. You don't make money from a book, but we all know that it is like your, it's like your calling card. And what it also does, and any author will tell you this, is that you mine your gold as you're writing your book. You become more professional.

Sherisse Alexander (30:51)
Mm-hmm.

You

That's true. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (31:15)
you become more of the brilliance that you're meant to show up in the world with. So when you are doing a podcast, a video cast, a production, and you're doing a book, those come together to have you elevate as a global authority in your interest. And that's what I wanna do. That's what I do. When I speak to people, I wanna bring their brilliance to the world. And I know how to do it.

Sherisse Alexander (31:19)
Yeah.

Christine (31:39)
and I know how to mine them. The biggest thing I do, and this sounds a little cheeky, is I grow hosts. I grow hosts. How we do it? Because that's what's the most important thing for me. Whether it was in human resources and helping somebody step into their brilliance or really stand up and say, know what, this is not the industry for me or this is not the role for me, I would champion them. I mean, I've had people come in for job interviews and I would sit there and say to them, you know, this job is not for you.

Sherisse Alexander (31:47)
Yeah, you know what it makes sense. Yep.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Christine (32:08)
but tell me about you, let me help you to try to go in the direction of your brilliance. That's what's on my heart and I know that we've created the organization in all the different things that we do to help people to move in that direction. That's the gifts that I bring to the world and I, through those, I support other people to bring their gifts to the world.

Sherisse Alexander (32:30)
Well, I celebrate you. You're doing a marvelous job. I mean, here we are again, a video cast. How many shows are you guys at now? How many do you have?

Christine (32:32)
Thank you, love.

Here we are. I love it.

my God. We have more than 10,000 episodes on the platform. Like we have a lot of episodes and yeah, it's a lot. We have anywhere between 10 to 20 live hosts on the platform and people will come and go. People will, you know, take a pause or as they evolve and then they'll come back and yeah, we have returning hosts all the time and it's...

Sherisse Alexander (32:45)
Mm.

Wow, yeah.

Christine (33:06)
I'm thrilled about it. Same with our summits. We have a group that we work with. We're just moving into their fifth summit. We did four last year. We're on schedule to do another four. And a number of their speakers are repeat speakers. So it's a...

Sherisse Alexander (33:09)
Yeah.

Excellent.

Christine (33:26)
It's definitely what we've created is allowing people to continue to grow. And I think that's why they return again and again.

Sherisse Alexander (33:33)
You know, another I'm curious because you know, part of my resistance is what did I say to you? Do you remember my biggest resistance?

Christine (33:40)
Well, I think part of it was, which is normal, your insecurities about people hearing you and you thinking you're not brilliant when you really friggin' And hey, but you did say something to that effect. You did, I remember that very carefully. Well, and you're human to have that, that's a normal response.

Sherisse Alexander (33:51)
Okay, she's really putting it all out there, that wasn't it!

Okay, maybe I tucked that away.

Christine (34:07)
especially when you're gonna show up on video and then we're gonna put that out on 450 platforms, that's a lot.

Sherisse Alexander (34:07)
For sure.

You know what, that's fair. I think the way I would have summarized that, and I understand what you're saying, right? When you talk, pardon me, about insecurities, my biggest thing was it's live, right? And so, right? And what I mean, so it does tie in because when we're live, when shit happens that is unplanned, like unplanned, it's like something just happened and I...

Christine (34:26)
Alright

Yes.

Sherisse Alexander (34:39)
I'm not gonna be able to edit it, because we're live and I gotta just keep going with it, right? But that ties into the idea that we need to be perfect, right? Yeah.

Christine (34:48)
Yes.

And what do we do to ourselves when we have that expectation of perfection? We do.

Sherisse Alexander (34:53)
we really hold ourselves back because we'll never

ever get in the arena of life if we're always worried about being perfect.

Christine (34:59)
I

am telling you, the woman that you see here today is not the person that I was growing up. I believed I was stupid. I was told I was stupid. I spoke about this in a networking group yesterday that I went all the way through high school and I thought I fooled them all. I fooled them. They don't know how stupid I am. I carried that with me for more than half of my life. And so that was a big

Sherisse Alexander (35:20)
Wow.

Christine (35:23)
big piece for me to get over. So I know this, I can recognize this in people. And it's something I truly believe that all of us have that in some way in some area of our life. And when you show up live, and you haven't practiced speaking or you haven't, I don't know, I don't lay out my shows, I don't have them memorized, and I just allow the energy to guide me.

Sherisse Alexander (35:29)
Mm-hmm.

Christine (35:50)
and go there and if I swear, I swear. I'm not concerned about that, but I've been doing this for a long time. So of course, you know, there is insecurities and before I start any show, I still have a spring of nervousness will come up. And that's okay because it has me show up fully.

Sherisse Alexander (35:52)
Yeah.

Well, it also lets you know you're alive and you're You know, even before today or normally what I'll do before, you know, a podcaster said video cast is, I'll put it out there. Guide me in the conversation that you want me to have today. What is the message that needs to be shared? And interestingly enough, I was doing a like leadership workshop yesterday.

Christine (36:12)
Here's that. Here is that. Yeah.

I love that.

Sherisse Alexander (36:37)
And so in this particular type of leadership workshop, we talk about all of the things, the limiting beliefs and the saboteurs. Yesterday was we were talking about saboteurs. And I had actually never gone through the exercise of actually assessing what my saboteurs are. And yesterday I did. Yesterday was the first time that I'd actually done it, right? I can recognize when, you know, we'll say the common ones come out to play like, you know, victim or

Christine (36:53)
really?

Sherisse Alexander (37:04)
you know, whatever they are, inner child, so on and so forth. But these were this was, I can't even remember what, pardon me, the Institute is called. But anyways, my top two were the avoider and the pleaser. And I was and so of course, one of the questions in our breakout rooms was like, okay, exactly what you just said, what happens when we allow your saboteur to come out and play? And I said, well, obviously, I don't show up.

Christine (37:19)
Yeah.

Sherisse Alexander (37:32)
because I'm avoiding so many different scenarios. And I've never really considered myself to be a conflict adverse person. I feel like I can navigate conflict very well, but I'm always worried. So here's where the people pleaser comes in. I'm always worried about hurting the other person's feelings that they're going to misunderstand what I'm saying because that often happens where I'm speaking my mind, I'm saying something and people just totally take it in another direction. But then I realized

If I know genuinely where my intention is coming from, and I know that it's heart centered, and really with so much unconditional love for the other person, how they receive that is based on their lens, their story, their own limiting beliefs. And I'm not really responsible for that, especially if I know how I'm delivering it. I'm so mindful of how I'm delivering it. So it was just such a great exercise to do yesterday. so now when I have these moments,

Christine (38:25)
That's cool.

Sherisse Alexander (38:28)
my task for myself now for the next week or two is whenever I feel the pleaser or the avoider coming out to play, I'm going to challenge it and I'm going to do the exact opposite.

Christine (38:37)
Good.

And if I can add, you are underestimating their ability to receive when you're worried about them. When we worry about somebody else, we believe that they have something to be worried about. And that is short selling who they are. Right? People are more brilliant than we give people credit for. And it's our own insecurities of something that's happened in the past that has planted that. Let it go, girl.

Sherisse Alexander (38:57)
Mm-hmm.

Yep,

Christine (39:08)
Like you've got

Sherisse Alexander (39:08)
it's very true.

Christine (39:08)
brilliance to bring to the world. Come on, let's go. I love it.

Sherisse Alexander (39:12)
I'm here, I'm bringing it.

With your, okay, so I think what I was asking was biggest challenge with the live environment. Any other big challenges with the live environment?

Christine (39:30)
Well, mean, technology can always be that, but I can tell you honestly, in all the years, I was actually saying this just the other day, I think we had two days where we were like, guys, sorry, we can't go live today. There's a technology issue, we just can't. I mean, people will, they'll have power outages on their end, and so they can't go live. For our, we had a power outage, when was that? It was...

Sherisse Alexander (39:31)
Yeah.

Yep.

Christine (39:57)
2022, remember when there was a huge power outage across Canada and a big, big one in Ontario. It was August, July, it was July of 2022, because it was the day of my mother's wake. You know how you have these things and I'm going to leave and leave the team in charge. And there was a massive problem like.

Sherisse Alexander (40:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Christine (40:22)
their everything was out. So we've only ever had that twice, but a lot of people worry about that. So, you know, we do all that we can to support people to avoid these issues and how they can do that and so on and so forth. But that for the most part is the biggest piece. If you can get over looking at yourself on video and knowing that people can hear you live, and it takes a minute, it does. Like look at my first one, right?

And my first one was live. It wasn't on video though, they didn't have it back then. that's the biggest piece. And I think also trying to reason why doing that with the, is it going to make me money? Those are probably the two biggest things. And I speak to that, as you know, I speak directly to that because I...

Sherisse Alexander (41:07)
Yes.

Christine (41:09)
I don't want to see someone go into something with a false belief. And unfortunately, there's too many people out there trying to make a buck and trying to tell you, should be able to make money out of the gate with your podcast. That is just not true.

Sherisse Alexander (41:24)
Yeah, I'm glad that that's not my reason for doing this. This is not my day job. You know, something else that my just to write on something you just said something that one of my coaches had said, you know, just kind of about you were talking about your first podcast and, know, it's not perfect or whatever. And she'd said, you know, sometimes people not sometimes but she's like, Why don't you step into the awareness that

Christine (41:28)
No, that's good.

Sherisse Alexander (41:46)
there's something really, really beautiful in watching somebody evolve, like actually watch the whole evolution from this is where I started to however many years down the road. And even just you saying today that what is it 80 90 % of podcasts don't last after the 12th episode. I'm going to celebrate that because I that's that's huge because you're

Christine (41:53)
Right.

80.

Yes.

Yeah. But for

the most part, it's not that they can't show up and talk. It's all the other stuff because it's kind of like saying, hey, I don't really need a mechanic. I can learn how to change the motor in my car. So you're changing the motor in your car every time you're doing. it's, you know, I always, I say to people like, why take up a new profession? Right? And a lot of people, that's what they've done to try to make money.

Sherisse Alexander (42:16)
Yeah, it's all the other stuff.

Yeah. Now I'm not. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Christine (42:40)
And unfortunately, I think that they've expended so much energy and time and money as in their own personal resource that they're frustrated. A lot of people walk away from it. again, I feel like people have been sold a bill of goods that's not true.

Sherisse Alexander (42:57)
Yeah. Just in wrapping up, you actually talked so much about all the stuff that you do. Like I knew you were a coach. knew about, you know, ICN. I didn't know about the books, the published, like I didn't know anything about that. So it leads me to the question of what's next? What else?

Christine (43:17)
And there's our friend that we've been talking about. There's Ranshell, and that's her first book. What's next? Well, I can't tell you because we've got a new project in the hopper and we're gonna be... I know. Well, I really, like to have it not perfect, but polished that I can present it. we cross our T's and we taught our eyes a lot. So...

Sherisse Alexander (43:20)
Yes, red shell Van Brice.

You and I with our secrets.

Christine (43:40)
I'm hoping that within a month that we'll be able to launch this next project. And all of the business streams that we have, they all come to support people getting their brilliance out to the world. So it's all under that umbrella. Yeah.

Sherisse Alexander (43:52)
I love it.

Well, never forget about me. Keep poking. Keep just, just keep. I didn't actually think I could. So anyways, I want to thank you so much for, cause you messaged me literally last week and I was like, yeah, for sure. Let's do it. Let's, let's jump on the cast. You are, you are, you are, you are, you are. So thank you for being with me on this very, very first video cast. I appreciate you and the passion that you have for helping people to.

Christine (43:58)
You can't get away from me if you try.

you

And I'm your first. I'm your first. love that. love that. Thank you.

My honor.

Sherisse Alexander (44:25)
step into their brilliance and thank you for encouraging me to put my you know glowing smile out here

Christine (44:30)
The world is excited

to receive all of your brilliance. Thank you too.

Sherisse Alexander (44:35)
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Sherisse (44:39)
Thank you so much for joining myself and Christine McIver today as we chatted about many, many things and hopefully you found value in today's episode. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions or if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please reach out to me at shreese at yourcollective.ca. That's S-H-E-R-I-S-S-E at yourcollective.ca.

And until next time, take care.