From Flying High To Leading Change: The Inspiring Transformation Of Walt Morgan

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone. This is Kathleen Flanagan and I'm here with Walt Morgan and you know, it's mercury retrograde. It's a live show and it never seems to amaze me that everything was fine and then we lost sound and nobody knows why other than somebody fed the gremlins this morning, that's how I look at it.

KATHLEEN: So Walt, let's get back into the show and tell us a little bit more about you and your journey of becoming an awakening spirit and how you made the transition from a Navy pilot to a coach.

WALT: Yeah, let me begin with a little gratitude though, Kathleen, I'm so grateful for your show first off and, and the important journey that you share with your audience and bringing the audience together so that they can share that journey with you. And also for allowing me to be part of your story and also to join your audience and to be part of their story as well.

WALT: So I am grateful for that. And you asked a very specific question about my story as a helicopter pilot turned awakening spirit. And I don't, I can't even begin to imagine where I am in my awakening spirit journey because I don't know what I don't know. So I am a spirit that feels as if it is awakening and I can talk to that a little bit.

WALT: But the story I think it most usefully starts in kindergarten. And when I was in kindergarten, Miss Burka, my kindergarten teacher asked all of us her kindergarten class to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. And I drew a picture of a helicopter and she helped me to write the word. I want to be a helicopter pilot.

WALT: And for all of the visions that might have been manifested. I'm not sure why my mom chose that one to frame. And that picture still hangs in my childhood room on a ranch in Oregon. And, yes, I'm not saying that there were other things I wanted to be in my life. But for whatever reason, that was the vision that manifested.

WALT: And so went to college, and was commissioned in the Navy and went to flight school and flight school is an interesting place in that. We all start off together in flight school. We all start flying the same aircraft as a fixed wing as the T 34. And then at the end of that T 34 training, then we're, we either did decide what we're going to do or we're told what we're going to do more often.

WALT: Than not. We're told what we're going to do. We're gonna go fly jets, we're gonna go fly transports or going to fly helicopters. Those are the basic choices.

WALT: And I had done pretty well in flight school and there was an expectation that I was going to fly jets and there is just something in me and I can actually, I'll even share another moment. It was early in flight school when I saw the movie Forrest Gump. And there's a scene where Forrest shows up in Vietnam and a couple of Hueys come in and land and I was watching that movie in the theater and I thought, oh, yeah, that's right.

WALT: I'm supposed to be a helicopter pilot. That's what I'm supposed to do and then it never really wavered after that like, oh, yeah, that's right. That's just a reminder. That's who I am. That's why I want to be. And so fast forward to that time when I was deciding there was some pressure on me to go fly jets.

WALT: I'm like, no, I really feel this strongly and the Navy was kind enough to support me and my desire to fly helicopters. Kindness might not be the right word but a little conversation with a couple of folks allowed that to happen. And so I flew helicopters and Kathleen knows everything that I hoped it would be.

WALT: It was such the right place for me. It was such the right role and function and job and connection with other people, supporting the mission and with who I flew with and to be all over the world and connect with other people all over this world. And I'm a playful spirit and it allowed me to emerge playfully in the work that I did.

WALT: Everything was perfect in that it was what it was supposed to be. And then I was drawn to the end of my Navy career and the Navy told me I was going to be a professor, teaching leadership and management at the University Of Colorado. Now the Navy has this idea that any officer can do any job without any training.

WALT: So if the Navy tells me, I'm a leadership professor, then I'm a leadership professor. That's what I'm going to do. And, that became a really exciting journey for me, a humbling journey because I thought I had leadership figured out I had been designated to be in charge of people.

WALT: I worked with those people to get missions done and sometimes ambiguous and uncertain and threatening environments. We always got the job done. I was generally nice to people. We built relationships, leadership done. Voila figured out. So now I'm in this role as a professor, teaching leadership and I'm realizing that I don't know anything about leadership.

WALT: It is so much more complex and intricate and it exceeds so much the the single and sometimes simple story that I was telling about it. And I became fascinated with how this idea of leadership began to unfold in its complexity and nuance and importance and its beauty.

WALT: And then I found a love of sharing that journey with others to meet people where they were on their leadership journey and to acknowledge with humility where I was on my leadership journey and then to explore together. And that's how I tried to approach being a professor. I still teach leadership at the university. By the way, that's something that hasn't gone away is I've been doing it for maybe 12 years.

WALT: So then after I'd done that for four years, it was time for me to retire from the Navy. I'd been doing that for 23 years. I could have stayed in longer, but it felt right. So then I found myself at a crossroads. Do I do what I'm supposed to do?

WALT: Most of my squadron mates have gone on to the airlines. So they're flying commercial jets or they're doing defense consulting or contracting. Those are kind of normal things that I'm supposed to do coming out of the Navy. And I felt something different.

WALT: The experience of my exploration around leadership had been so powerful and exciting for me. I thought, I think this is what I'm supposed to do. I think this is what the universe has in store for me. Something about leadership development. So I branded myself on linkedin as a leadership development specialist and waited for the job offers to roll in.

WALT: They did not roll in immediately. And so I navigated that part of transition to civilian life. But then a healthcare company took a chance on me and it wasn't just any health care company.

WALT: It was a healthcare company that had a very intentional culture, very intentional, very devoted about the stories, they told the myths, the rituals, the traditions, all of it was very, very intentional, but not only was the culture intentional, it was very heart centric, it was very emotionally forward.

WALT: And so I learned pretty quickly that I had really neglected my spiritual self and my emotional self for decades that came into my awareness. And so I spent a little over three years with this health care company. And I had what I would describe as a powerful, emotional and spiritual experience and journey. And I think it's very, very rare to be able to go into the corporate world and have an experience like that.

WALT: So I feel fortunate. And the other thing that happened during my time with a health care company is they sent me up to Canada for my initial training to become an in or my initial certification to become an Integral Coach.

WALT: And as soon as I started that, it became clear to me why I was on this path? What that nudge from the universe had been, the next phase of my journey was to be an Integral Coach. And so, I left the health care company, I set up my own company 4.5 years ago and I've been doing my integral coaching ever since.

KATHLEEN: So explain a little bit more about the integral coaching that you're doing since it's different from what you were doing as the leadership side.

WALT: Yes, a great question.

WALT: For one, it's a methodology when I was doing leadership, I was building programs around leadership and facilitating those programs. A lot of what I was doing looked very coachy.

WALT: In fact, during that time, I became, I think pretty good at holding space, this magic that coaches bring to be able to listen with our bodies, to invite others to enter the space with authenticity and when we're in that space, we can all feel it together. It's just very powerful, this very powerful thing that we share. So let's say in the leadership work I was doing, I became good at that.

WALT: Yeah, I learned from my peers who had a lot of skill in that and I practiced and over time, I think that became a strength of mine and also inviting others to explore and to see things that they might not have seen otherwise. So these basics of coaching, these building blocks were emerging through the work I was doing even without the specific training.

WALT: But what the integral coaching training did for me was allow me to attach those building blocks to something important to attach it to a methodology that I embodied that allows me to serve and support my clients in ways that permits a path to unfold the way it's supposed to unfold.

WALT: But to bring meaning to that space, to bring purpose to that space so that I can support them in finding the path and moving down the path towards something that's important. So it just really amplified those skill sets and brought purpose and meaning and technique to it.

KATHLEEN: When your people, your clients know, have an idea of what they want and where they wanna go. But there's just that little bit of, I don't know how to get there type of thing. Is that what you're saying? That you can grasp what they're saying and then help them to navigate into that new phase.

KATHLEEN: Because right now I have a coach and after last week's seminar, I'm sitting here going, I have no idea, thinking like a week before I had a clue of what I was doing. And now I'm like, I have no idea. I really truly don't know.

KATHLEEN: I mean, I could have my client, my avatar, I can have all these things, but it's like, well, how do I find these people or what is the next step that I need to do kind of thing? So if I was a client coming to you and I said, OK, this is where I'm at. How would you navigate something like that or would you say? Thank you. But no, thank you.

WALT: So I would ask them what it is that they would like to be able to do better. Like how are they getting in their way if it's a technical training?

WALT: Because I typically always have a coach in my journey to get to get better.

WALT: I always have a coach, but right now I have a marketing consultant, same thing, you know that I and she is very, very good with the technical solutions, right? My coaches help me explore my own wisdom and bring it to the surface and they help me to walk a path that allows me to get better me. But my marketing consultant is very good at saying do this.

WALT: I'm like, ok, it's a completely different skill set first off, right? And, so understanding if what is getting in our way is technical or what I would call adaptive, right? Is this something that a place where we need to grow and evolve? Because that's where as a coach, I help people.

WALT: So if somebody came to me, I'd say, well, what is it that you would like to better be able to do? And, they may or may not have an idea, but we'll start with a, well, what's getting in the way? Where's the pain? Where do you keep tripping up? What's the thing that used to work for you? But seems to work less now and then they'll, the client will typically name their first idea.

WALT: A first idea might be, I want to be nicer to people in stressful situations like, OK, well, let's explore that a little bit. Like, what can you share a story of maybe a time when you weren't as nice as you wanted to be? And, if you could be nicer, what would that create in your life, what would that allow for? What would that make possible?

WALT: Usually what happens Kathleen is from that initial offering, we get about three layers below maybe two or three layers. So in about an hour and a half conversation, something will crystallize that's really important to them. The first offering is usually pretty superficial, but then it might turn into better be able to offer patience and faith in others or to better be able to sacrifice control to better, right?

WALT: There's something behind that initial offering that something behind that being nicer to people and it might be about control, it might be about managing stress to better be able to move into ambiguous situations with faith could be anything. I mean, for all the clients I've had, I've never had two with the same topic.

WALT: That's the exciting thing. It's always unique to that individual. It's always something that's important to them. So, at that point, it usually takes about an hour and a half to get to the topic. Right. This is what's important to me. Well, the exciting thing is in about six months from that time they will embody a new way of being that makes that possible.

WALT: That's the exciting thing. They're going to be able to do that in a way that's embodied and self sufficient and organic and sustainable. The process is very, go ahead, please.

KATHLEEN: No, I was just going to say we need to take a quick commercial break and when we come back, we will continue on with what you're talking about.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back everyone to the journey of an awakening spirit.

KATHLEEN: This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we are streaming on the bold Brave TV network and we have Walt Morgan in the room with us and he was just starting to talk a little bit more about his coaching practice and somebody who doesn't know exactly what they want to make a change, not sure how to get there, but within six months, they start seeing remarkable changes So if you want to continue with what you were saying prior to commercial break, love to hear from it.

WALT: It's just going to highlight the process in just really general terms. So once that topic is named or the goal, I call it a topic, but you can think of it as a goal, that thing that's getting in the way of relationships, productivity of focus of balance of harmony, probably some combination of all those things.

WALT: Once that topic is named, the entire program shifts to accomplish and to achieve that outcome, the journey itself is unique to each client because each client is so beautifully complex in how they experience the world and show up in the world. So the journey to get there will be tailored and individualized for the person walking that path.

WALT: And in general, there's going to be a process of illumination. There is a belief system that lives within that person. If I have enough control, then I can get things done. Or if I have enough control, I'll be safe. I'm using control as an example because I started off there.

WALT: But it could be anything if I achieve enough, I will have value if it doesn't matter, it's unique to each person. But there's a belief system that resides deeply within them that they probably don't have awareness of because it's so intertwined in who they are, it just becomes an assumption.

WALT: So part of the journey will be to simply illuminate that belief system. Right. Oh, look, there it is. And there's a method, there's a way to do that to really kind of pull it out of the person in a compassionate way and allow them to examine it. Build a relationship with it.

WALT: Understand it. It's there, it only wants to keep them safe. It's not a bad thing, but it is a limiting thing. So, building a relationship with that, what I would call the current way of being is really important. So they see it, they illuminate it, they begin to understand it.

WALT: And then there will be a new way of being a new belief system that has new behaviors and a new way of measuring success.

WALT: And so really the coaching program is from this current way to illuminate it, to pull it out a little bit, to look at it, to understand it, to build a relationship with it and practicing that new way, practicing trying on a new belief system, trying on new behaviors, trying on new measures for success incrementally over time. So that ultimately it becomes embodied.

WALT: And there's a lot of complexity on that journey. I manage the complexity. I hold the complexity so that it feels like an unfolding for my clients and it's very much a partnership and it's very creative and we're in it together and then in about six months, suddenly the things that they wouldn't allow themselves to do.

WALT: Suddenly they have choice around that they have freedom around and it shows up in so many unexpected areas of their life.

WALT: That's one of my favorite things in the coaching program, right around that five month mark, my clients will come into a session and they'll say I did this, I did this thing like it might be an executive client, it might be like a senior vice president and, or, and they tend to be very focused on work stuff.

WALT: And they'll say I called a meeting with my family and addressed how my, addicted sibling was behaving and how my parents were interacting with us and I've never done anything like that before. Where did that come from? I'm like, well, do you think that's in your new way of being? And they'll start pulling it back and they're like, oh, it's everywhere.

WALT: It's showing up everywhere and it, you never know. But this thing that was getting in their way and what they thought was just a very specific arena of their life is probably a stumbling block in a lot of places. And that begins to open up in a really exciting way.

KATHLEEN: Oh, I love that. It's what I've always said for people when I started to open my heart and I was helping people to open their heart. I always said, and this was from my experience that if you close your heart, you close everything else around you too.

KATHLEEN: You don't think you do because it's like, well, I only want to feel love and joy and happiness and peace and I don't want to feel anger, resentment, misery, grumpiness, you're putting a judgment on those emotions because as children, we're taught that. Why are you being angry? Or if you're screaming and ranting to get rid of whatever the angst is inside of you?

KATHLEEN: Because as children, we don't know any other way other than to be emotional. And then they put a squash on that, then we grow up as adults squashing it and then you have a volcanic eruption down the road eventually. And so I love that because that is so true that we don't know, we don't know what all that does and how much we limit all of that.

KATHLEEN: Because a couple of several weeks ago, I actually thought I had moved into my future self because part of what I teach is you come from your future self. If you want to operate differently, you come from the future self. What, would my future self think? How would she act?

KATHLEEN: How would she respond? What does she look like? How is she eating? How is she taking care of herself and really encompass that whole person, not just an element. And when I thought I was leaning into her, I found out it was actually more of my higher self that came into me, which was a whole new experience altogether because then it was like there was this illumination that happened.

KATHLEEN: And then I go to a seminar last week where is all heartfelt? Everything about it was heart. And when I left that seminar, there was this woman, she was a psychologist and had us read a poem and we take a line from the poem and it was about a healing.

KATHLEEN: It's about healing and we write it down. We don't think about it. We just emotionally feel it or put a picture and we write about it. And mine was about the distance of home and it was, and I wrote it and listened to a couple of people share and I thought I got this thing all wrong and at the end, and so the two gentlemen that I was sitting at the table with said Kath tell us what you wrote.

KATHLEEN: And I didn't want to tell anybody any of this because it was very personal and it was that I went home that heaven is on earth. I've always wanted to be home. I've never wanted to be on this planet. I've always wanted to be go home.

KATHLEEN: Because this is a very painful place to be for someone who's an empath. And when I realized that home is now because it was sitting in this room because this was people that were cooperating and everything I wrote was about cooperation, supporting each other, helping each other on their journey. There's no competition.

KATHLEEN: It's all a support system, you know, loving each other, being kind, being gentle. Everything I described what home was to me, I saw in that room and it hit so hard that, I cried the whole day. I called my coach and said, I got to tell you something and he's like, oh my God, I said, I know and he says, take it one step further.

KATHLEEN: He said, this is inside of you. I said, I know. So that's when I was telling you at the beginning of the show, this is part of this whole thing of this unfoldment that happens because, you know, I was riding this really cool wave and I know that the wave is because we go through life up and down and here I am doing this.

KATHLEEN: So what a beautiful topic because you're sitting here telling me exactly what happens as we process through. And then my whole perception of life changed is like overnight because of that because I allowed myself to feel I allowed myself to be open to experience.

KATHLEEN: And yeah, I was doing a lot of dialogue in my head because we still do that as humans regardless of where we're at. So what a beautiful thing to witness your clients do that except for I showed up in the whole room to everybody of what I experienced. So it was kind of wild but it's just such a beautiful thing to open your heart and to see that we are so much bigger than we think we are.

KATHLEEN: You know, and you're holding a space for people to see that bigger side of them. And it doesn't matter how much money you make or who you are in the world, you always can be bigger and better. Always. That's the joy of being human is we're always evolving.

WALT: If we choose, if we're intentional, Kathleen, I meet people that don't evolve and I specifically choose to coach people who are intentional about their journey, who are ready to take that.

WALT: And I'm so excited for the journey that you're on. I'm so excited for the journey that I'm on because I told you this is unfolding for me. It's still so very incomplete.

WALT: And the further I move into the journey, the more it expands, there's something that I like to say and it reminds me that for the idiot that I've been and I say that kindly and with compassion and the idiot that I am also with kindness and compassion and it's all right where I'm supposed to be, it's all OK. I like to say that with my dying breath or with my last moment of awareness.

WALT: I would like to be able to look back on my path on my journey and to see all the mountains, all the peaks that I've summited along the way and to feel the joy and appreciation for that journey. But I would also like to look ahead to the next peak, to the next summit that I don't accomplish and to be at peace with that. Also, I where I am in that moment.

KATHLEEN: Oh I gotta tell you something. This is so where I was last week, I think it was Monday.

KATHLEEN: For someone who's had a very challenging life and one who hasn't wanted to be here my whole life, I realized and this was a very empowering moment that I created the best life I could have ever created for myself because of where I was at on that journey.

KATHLEEN: So all the things that happened in my life was so perfect to be where I am and am I done. No, but it's just such an empowering place to be that I did it.

KATHLEEN: I'm at peace because that is the ultimate goal is to be at peace with who we are, what we've done, what our journey's been because we're the ones who created our life, nobody else did this for us, but we did, we chose specific lessons that we wanted to learn along the way.

KATHLEEN: And because we did that and we're going to accomplish them one way or another, we will accomplish them. But it's the being peaceful in that journey is what I think is the most important that you've acknowledged that you did what you wanted.

KATHLEEN: You did the best you could with what you had and you still came out on top of the hill with that. We're going to take a quick commercial break and we'll get some more final thoughts before we end the show.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone to the journey of an awakening spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we have Walt Morgan in the room with us and on commercial break, we were just having a quiet chat and I'm gonna bring out the vulnerability of Walt. At this moment. We were kind of talking a little bit about how sometimes we feel that we're stagnant within ourselves, that we're plateauing, things aren't moving.

KATHLEEN: We're feeling frustrated and I know that I have felt that probably in the last year and when I went to the seminar in February, everything started to change. But what I did in that period of time was I held the space. I looked at what I was doing. Where did I want to go got very crystal clear on what I wanted to say, who I wanted to be.

KATHLEEN: And when the opportunity arose, everything started to open up for me. And I just want to say that I think the same thing is happening for you is, you are moving. We're always moving. We just have to be patient sometimes with ourselves because you know, we know the microwave is too slow and we think we should be living in a 7-Eleven world and we are not 7-Eleven people.

KATHLEEN: We are humans that have to take time and be gentle with ourselves because I think what's happening for you is as you finish your assessment of where you are, everything's gonna change and you better be hanging on to your hat because it might be a little bit bigger than you were expecting it.

WALT: I've had a few of those I can't begin to explain how for a period of about probably six or seven years, how steep that journey was. And I do as I shared with you feel there's a little bit of a catching up to be done, a rediscovering myself in my new awareness, in my new grander sense, larger sense of connection and awareness of my connection and somewhere I might have gotten left behind in that.

WALT: And now I'm starting to filter back in more as myself but myself in a new way and that I don't know if that made sense to anybody. But it made sense to me as I said it.

KATHLEEN: No, it makes perfect sense because I think that's the truth sometimes. You know, we're so focused in on something that we're doing that we don't always pay attention to the little tiny things. And that quiet time is for us to go back and reflect and see what we might have missed because a lot goes on in our lives every day.

KATHLEEN: And as much as we try to be observant, we just miss things sometimes. So what is one piece of advice that you would offer our audience to help them move into a different direction to achieve their dreams or become a better person?

WALT: Oh For, for that, maybe two things. The first one is, I wanna circle back and touch on something that you said earlier about giving ourselves permission to feel and I know as an empath, that's a dangerous thing at times, right?

WALT: Because the floodgates open and this beautiful gift that you've been given might feel overwhelming, but in general, what a beautiful gift and opportunity, we have to feel it all to just to feel it without judgment, without just feeling it. So the first thing I would offer is an invitation to feel. And if do we have time for a story, a quick story.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, we got about four minutes.

WALT: Ok. I'll share a quick story and then offer another thing if there's time. But I started my corporate career. So this is me retiring from the Navy, starting a corporate career. So you can kind of imagine where I am in my life. And in my career, I found myself on stage in front of 4000 people delivering a program.

WALT: And shortly after, and it was like the first month of my new job. And shortly after I got a note from a very senior executive that said, I saw you on stage, I noticed that you were very much in your head and you were not presenting through your body, you weren't connected with your body.

WALT: He said, and it felt very strained and awkward and I felt it and the members of the audience felt it. I appreciate your willingness to get on stage so early in your time with us. And please let me know if I can help you grow. And so I shot an email right back. I said, feedback is a gift. Thank you so much for sharing that.

WALT: I will work on this and reach out if you can help. Thank you again, sent the email. And then like shortly after that, I felt this tightness in my chest, this tightness. And I was only then learning to be able to name emotions. This is a new thing for me is I was 47 years old at the time. So I'm like, ok. Is it fear?

WALT: No, it's not fear. Is it sadness? It's not sadness. It's certainly not joy. What is that emotion? And like, oh, there it is. It's shame. I'm feeling shame and my inability to meet the standard. And, Kathleen, the craziest thing happened as soon as I named that I just felt that tightness dissolve and go away. I was 47 years old. Where was that in my misspent youth?

WALT: When I was getting drunk and getting in fights, like I could have really used that, you know, before 47 years old, I learned this lesson of just allowing myself to feel the emotion that's surfacing in me and that's all it wants is to be felt and then it moves on and moves away. So, that was like such an important moment in my life.

WALT: And then moving on to maybe one more offer for your audience.

WALT: It's hard to find ourselves alone without distraction. It's hard to find ourselves away from our electronic devices. The invitation is be alone with yourself, just grant yourself that gift, you are worthy and sufficient of your attention and your time and to even sit in the boredom with yourself is such a gift, be with yourself.

WALT: And if you have an opportunity to be in nature even better, but put down the laptop, put down the phone, put away the Apple watch and just be with you. And that's enough.

KATHLEEN: I love that. I absolutely love that. I live my life by that a lot because it's that quietness that just brings joy and peace into my heart. So, thank you for sharing that because that is such a very profound message and one that our world does not do enough in my opinion, how can people get a hold of you?

WALT: Oh, they can email me directly because it's your audience, Kathleen. They can email me directly at Walt at T Lift coaching.com. That's the letter Tlift coaching.com. Shoot an email to me. I would love to serve you in your personal growth in your leadership journey.

WALT: And if you're curious about the work that I do, you're also invited to check out my website, which is T Lift coaching.com, the Letter Tlift coaching.com. And then you can learn a little bit more about me and my coaching there and and then please feel free to reach out. I'd love to support you.

KATHLEEN: Well, thank you so much Walt for coming on the show today. I'm glad we got the sound to work today. So I do really appreciate you coming on. It was a pleasure to have you here and learn a little bit more about you and what you're doing in your life.

KATHLEEN: And the journey that you're on and just know you're in the perfect place. Everything is perfect just the way it is and just be in yourself and take your fly fishing pole and go out for a walk and go. So do some fishing.

KATHLEEN: I want to thank all of our listeners for joining us today. If you liked what you heard, feel free to pass the link on to your friends and family. I would really love it if you would subscribe to my channel at Kathleen M Flanagan.

KATHLEEN: I want to also remind you that my books, Dancing Souls, the Call, the Dark Night of the Soul and Awakened are up on Amazon. Com and also at the Kathleen M Flanagan website and I am officially going to be launching the call come May 2nd. So I'm really excited about doing that.

KATHLEEN: So I'm getting out there and I'm finally ready to let the books come out to the world. Also, please check out Kathleen M Flanagan.com for a list of the services and products that are being offered there.

KATHLEEN: And then again, Awakening Spirit. Com, there's a 40% discount by adding bold, brave or Brave TV into the coupon code and grandma's natural remedies, there's a 20% coupon code and that does it for this week. I hope all of you have a fabulous week and from my heart to yours have a blessed week and I will see you next Tuesday at 4 p. m. Eastern Standard Time.