313 Christy Whitman & Frederic Gobeil: Quantum Success

What does it mean to balance masculine and feminine energies within ourselves,  within our love relationships, as parents, and within our businesses as we lead our teams?

I’m Melinda Wittstock and today on Wings of Inspired Business Couplepreneurs Edition, we talk about feminine or goddess power and how to balance the masculine and feminine within ourselves – and in business and in love.

We’re talking transformational growth and what it takes for any couple to create and evolve the most fulfilling and enlightened relationship in which both individuals are fully met, understood, loved, supported and encouraged to be and live 100% of their full potential.

And who better to talk all about this than transformational leader and celebrity Christy Whitman together with her husband and entrepreneur Frederic Gobeil.

Many of you already know Christy from her popular law of attraction courses and as New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Having It All and most recently Quantum Success. CEO and founder of the Quantum Success Learning Academy & Quantum Success Coaching Academy, Christy’s life-changing message reaches over 200,000 people a month and her work has been featured everywhere from the Today Show to People Magazine. Her husband Frederic Gobeil became  CFO for Christy Whitman International after exiting his own businesses, and now they are both co-creators of The Couple’s Retreat with Christy Whitman.

Today we explore more evolved states of being – in love, in business and beyond – plus how to balance the demands of work, parenting, romance and more.

And it gets even better by the way because Christy Whitman will be with us at both retreats to share her transformational healing so you can clear any blocks keeping you from Quantum success and abundance.

Christy is a celebrity coach, transformational leader and CEO of the Quantum Success Learning Academy & Quantum Success Coaching Academy, her work promoted by and featured with esteemed authors and luminaries such as Marianne Williamson, Marci Shimoff, Brian Tracy, Neale Donald Walsch, Abraham-Hicks, and many more. You’ve also heard her on Wings episode 201 – and if not, please go back and listen. It’s a transformational interview.

Frederic is the CFO for Christy Whitman International and as the main support for Christy and their two boys Alex and Maxim, he focuses co-parenting, co-creating and co-designing their lives together in their 12 year marriage and business partnership.

So are you ready for Christy Whitman and Frederic Gobeil? I am. Let’s fly!

Melinda Wittstock:         Christy and Frederic, it’s so great to have you on Wings.

Christy Whitman:            Thanks for having me back at least and I’m excited that Frederic’s with us.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yes. Thank you for having me here.

Melinda Wittstock:         I am so intrigued because you’re both entrepreneurs and you work together. You’ve been together for a number of years, 12 years now. You’ve got a family. You’ve got young boys. You’ve got a lot of stuff going on. So you’ve figured out a few things and you’re now helping couples with a lot of the stuff that comes up. What inspired you to do that?

Christy Whitman:            Well, I’ve been doing personal development work on my own for 20 years, but I’ve been a coach for over 15 and an author and all those kind of good stuff and I certify coaches and that sort of thing. So I’ve been in this industry for a long time and whenever we’ve done any type of events, whenever I did like Goddess work or I had my Quantum Success in Business event and people saw Frederic, he would always be my host and he would introduce me. People were always coming up to him saying, “When are you going to do something with Christy?” And he was never ready.

And I would even come back from my Goddess weekend saying, “Oh my God, these women are just so wanting the men to go through this stuff. And when can we do a couples retreat?” And he kept saying, “I’m not ready. I’m not ready.” And I let him explain why and when that light bulb went on for him, but this past summer we were in Montreal just spending the summer there and he came up to me and he said, “I’m ready.” And I thought, “Well, what are you ready for it?” Because it was out of the context. “What are you ready for?” And he said, “I’m ready to do couples work with you.”

I was so thrilled and happy. I’m a fast shaker, mover, action taker. And so I had our next our first couples retreat scheduled before his head could spin and it was thrilling to do it with him and he, I’ve never seen him so lit up and excited about anything since I’ve known him. You can speak to your own.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah. What was the change? What was it that made you thought that you were not ready and then suddenly you were ready, Frederic?

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, I kept on saying to everyone that was asking me during these events that we are at together. I just didn’t feel inside of me that I had enough of the experiences, even the baggage right inside, the wealth of expertise. Or if you want to call it that, I wasn’t going to be the guru of-

Christy Whitman:            Thank God.

Frederic Gobeil:               And maybe I was putting a little bit of pressure on myself, kind of saying, “Well, I have to know everything if this needs to happen.” Kind of like if you want children, you’re not too sure if you want children and at a certain point is that you can’t really say, “Now’s the time to have children.” You’re called to have the children. So after actually really exploring my inner growth and what my direction was with a therapist, I made some work, I did a lot of work with that therapist, which helped myself grow as a father, understand better what it was to be a husband, what it was to be a man even, growing up with family, with a wife and even other relationships around me, what those relationships around me meant.

After having those experiences and many years of therapy inside even our relationship, I felt like that was the calling that I had previously had in my other business venture and when I went to Christy and I let her know, “Okay, I’m ready,” it felt like I’m ready to serve these people, the people who are in long-term committed relationships that are wanting to have answers with whatever happens in their love life.

Melinda Wittstock:         What is the glue really that holds people together? I mean, we know so much about … We say when in business we talk about a team being aligned on mission and vision and everybody being in the right seats. Is that sort of the same way really in terms of making a great marriage work as well? Do you see correlations between creating a great marriage and a family and creating a great company?

Christy Whitman:            Yeah. Absolutely. What we say the secret sauce is really that both individuals have to be aligned with themselves, with their inner being and then from there, that puts them in a higher vibration, that puts them in a better state of confidence and security and feeling good about themselves, about life, about what they can create. And when both people are in that place then the energy between them is a beautiful flow of energy. There’s not this power struggle, power over. And it’s really getting clear on from that place then what are the things in a relationship that could be potential issues or problems.

For example, how do you manage the household? What roles are you playing in the household? Who does the cooking and the laundry and is someone clean and is someone messy? Or how do you team together when you’re parenting. And we’re very clear that when one says no the other one sticks with that no and we play it as a team and so our kids know that they can’t manipulate one to get something because we are solidified team together. How do you deal with the money? What is your vision for your future? How do you communicate love?

Because the way we all receive and express love is very different. How do you deal with the in-laws? How much time do you spend with them and can they come and live with you? What are the other things that could potentially … Friends, for example. What are the things that could potentially be those topics in life that can pull you off of center and how do you communicate so that both people are coming from what they prefer, what they want, what they desire and communicating it from not you must change in order for me to be happy but this is what I really prefer and then oh, well, that’s what I would prefer. So how do we find the common ground amongst all these different topics.

Melinda Wittstock:         And that, of course, presupposes a lot of self-awareness.

Christy Whitman:            Yes.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         One of the things that’s interesting about the entrepreneurial journey, and we’ve talked about this before so many times, that if you want therapy, just become an entrepreneur because it’s going to bring up all your stuff.

Christy Whitman:            Or a parent.

Melinda Wittstock:         Or a parent.

Christy Whitman:            Or both.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, or both at the same time because it’s going to bring up all this stuff. And so then how you react to it?

Frederic Gobeil:               We’re continuing. We’re continuing. We’re not there, but we’re still doing the steps.

Christy Whitman:            Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         This is the interesting thing. Do you ever arrive? Is there ever really a destination?

Frederic Gobeil:               No.

Christy Whitman:            Exactly.

Frederic Gobeil:               Quite a journey is what it is. When you understand that, it’s okay, but as entrepreneurs sometimes I guess we get caught up with a journey and so we are on a path of self-awareness no matter what. That’s the journey that we’re in.

Melinda Wittstock:         This is a question that I love to ask people. If you two had met in your 20s, would it have worked?

Frederic Gobeil:               Aha, good question.

Christy Whitman:            No. I can answer that right away. No. I was very attracted to the bad guys, bad boys, ones that were addicted to alcohol and drugs, ones that would treat me as well as I thought I deserved to be treated. And Frederic would have been not attracted to me either because I was as a smoker, I used to drink a lot and I was pretty wild. I was a wild girl and I liked the wild boys. So he would have been a little boring for me because he’s very centered and very even keel. I made him drunk and it was probably my fault one time in his life when we went on vacation with friends and never has done drugs. I mean, he’s always been very level-headed and literally is the most kindest person I know. So he doesn’t really qualify as a bad boy.

Frederic Gobeil:               No, yeah, in my 20s I wasn’t mature enough to even hold a relationship, even long-term relationship. I didn’t know what it meant to have someone important in your life and I keep on saying, the model that I had for relationships, they were my parents and it was only after a while that I knew that I was kind of repeating that model of once the relationship was a couple years into it, I was looking to sabotage it. So yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, because I wonder when we’re in our 20s, we don’t really know ourselves and we’re still acting like a four-year-old, a five-year-old, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old and all those beliefs that we formed back then. So the chances of relationships really working are limited without that self-awareness, like not even knowing, I suppose, what you really want or thinking you want something and all it is repeating the pattern that you witnessed as a kid say with your own parents.

Frederic Gobeil:               Exactly. And I think another thing is in my 20s I realized what I didn’t want in my life. Not necessarily what I wanted, but I realized what I didn’t want and who I didn’t want so that, I could be clear on that, but I needed to be clear afterwards on what it was that I wanted in my life, and that only happened in my 30s.

Christy Whitman:            When he met me.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, I see so many women in particular, Christy, I don’t know if you noticed this too, really coming into their own in entrepreneurship later in life and at the same time finding their real soul mate later in life too, as they step into what I’ll just call authentic feminine power, when we’re really in flow, when we’re just willing to be ourselves. We’re not trying to pretend to be anything other than who we are, we’re showing up in that nice hopefully balanced kind of masculine and feminine energy. And when we’re there, we create better businesses, but we’re also better wives, I think we’re better mothers. We’re stronger, but at that point though you attract, I think, the better guy. Do you think this theory is right?

Christy Whitman:            For sure and I’ll say it for sure for those women that are willing to look at their past and say, “Okay, I know I don’t want this. What is it that I do want?” And that are getting more and more clear that they have the power to create what they want in their lives and that they’re not going to settle, that they’re not going to play a victim, that they’re going to really tap into their own creative power if you want to say it that way and get clear that I’m not willing to put up with drama and chaos and struggle in bad relationships anymore. I’ve got so much life to live, I’m not here to live for proving myself or making excuses or trying to get please everybody or making somebody love me.

It’s like what you see is what you get, I’m going to go forth with all that I have now. And that’s what I see those women that are really stepping into I have what it takes to create my dream business and don’t have to work for somebody else anymore. I know I have what it takes, and then they go for it and that knowing, that strength of self is just you can’t compartmentalize that. So it literally steals into all the other relationships. There’s a confidence that’s built later in life that some of us women didn’t have when we were younger.

Melinda Wittstock:         I don’t know about you, but I grew up with my mom saying things to me like, “Melinda, if you’re a really strong woman, men won’t be attracted to you.” And I see so many women playing smaller or like almost like fear of success often in business. I want to get both of your perspectives on this because our men … I mean, Frederic, I’ll ask you like when you were younger, was it sort of off-putting? Did you want to be with a strong woman or was that something that was kind of like, not so much, and how has that evolved for you? Because obviously you’re with a very strong and amazing woman right now.

Christy Whitman:            Why, thank you.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yes, absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s true, right? But I think both genders, women have this little bit of fear, like if I really step up and I’m in my full power, will I intimidate a guy? Are there enough guys out there that will still kind of love me sort of thing if I’m really play all out?

Frederic Gobeil:               Right. Well, I think that you hit a point when you said the word feminine because that’s also very important. For me that is a quality that I see in Christy, is she exudes that feminine energy, which is very attractive, but one of the things that attracted me and her was her feminine energy, but another thing that attracted me was that strong presence of that being inside. I knew the first time I met Christy during that personal development seminar we were in, that she was meant for greatness.

Christy Whitman:            I need to hug you.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s so nice. You guys are just like, oh, I can feel the love.

Frederic Gobeil:               I’ve always seen her power and it just amazes me how comfortable she is in just this whole realm of being a business owner, because I was a business owner myself. And so yes, to answer your question, I’ve always been attracted to powerful women. I wasn’t looking for a woman who would, I don’t want to say serve me, but kind of not have any types of I would say vision for herself or even drive for herself. I like that conversation that I have with Christy when she tells me she’s got a new program that she’s working on. That excites me. That gets us going, we’re in the conversations together.

So yes, at the same time though I think that men don’t want to be pursued like in a masculine kind of way if you will is. That for me at least, if I were pursued by a woman, it was off-putting for me. So I want that feminine energy so that I can pursue her and I can see just the feminine beauty inside of her, which is what is attracting to me.

Christy Whitman:            It’s interesting because he went through powerful women and then really meek and mild and then powerful. So he went through cycles. I think his old dating experience, if you will, was like, okay, what’s it like to be with one that’s overbearing, over-controlling. That’s way too much. This one’s of the way other side where the woman didn’t have an opinion, it was all what he wanted and everything was about him and then that was boring. So then he found his way kind of in the middle, feminine and yet, powerful, but not overbearing, controlling.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right, I think the mistake a lot of women fall into and this is only because we didn’t have very many role models, did we, that were female. So many of the women … Well, first of all, I don’t know about you Christy, I was often the only woman in the room for years and then the few women role models who were a little bit older than me I think thought they had to be dudes. Certainly in finance and in tech and all the kind of industries that I was in, even in journalism and all of it. And so, so many women I think fall in this trap in their 20s and 30s if they’re ambitious and really want to succeed of thinking that power and strength is somehow masculine when-

Christy Whitman:            The book that I wrote, that my first book that hit the New York Times I wrote it with a co-author is called Taming Your Alpha Bitch.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that name.

Christy Whitman:            And it’s exactly that, Melinda, because so many women, at least it was my role model, and like what you’re saying, the women that … I didn’t want to be like the women that were in my family and yet, they were the ones that held the power, and the way they held it was not attractive to me and I could see that the men were emasculated. And then I go into the workforce and it was very much like these women took on these very masculine roles and they weren’t feminine, they were trying to be overbearing and competitive and very dramatic and theatrical and very controlling.

It was like that was our role models. It’s like okay, if you want the power, you need to be like a man. And it’s like no, that’s not the only choice, because we didn’t have … In Western society, not like in Eastern society we didn’t have goddesses. We didn’t have the conversation. It was very patriarchal of God. So there was no mention of the goddess and feminine energy and divine mother, any of that kind of stuff. And so now thank God, the younger generations are learning that they can stand in their true spiritual power and yet be feminine and be able to command a room and be able to manifest what they want not by trying to be a man.

Melinda Wittstock:         Christy, I couldn’t agree with you more and I think this plays into this dynamic that I don’t know, men are trying to figure out who they should be because women are trying to figure out who they should be. It’s very confusing, I think, to a lot of people. People kind of want that kind of clarity.

Christy Whitman:            And that’s just it, is that’s one of the things that Frederic and I brought into our own relationship is because our roles were very different from the traditional man does this, woman does this that we grew up with. I mean, in my family and also his family, the man went and they made the money. The woman stayed home or my mom’s case, went to the tennis club. So it one of those things that it was like they all had different roles. And for us when my business took off, we had some different circumstances. Frederic sold his business and he found himself early 40s trying to figure out what do I want to do now, now that I’ve sold my business and I’m not doing this business anymore.

So he started helping out with the kids and he was, I mean, really still to this day helps with their homework more than I even do and is responsible for their soccer and the athletics that they do and takes care of most of the meals in the house. And for us, we were fighting against that in our relationship where we were still trying to hold on to the old roles and when we just released those and I get to be Christy, he gets to be Frederic and we show up in our couple the way it works for us, not the way it should be or ought to be or has to be, but we really just allowed ourselves to kind of find that footing in our own relationship.

That’s when our relationship became so much more empowered and more fun and more creative and he’s more full, like full of himself meaning in a good way, more full of himself in becoming who he is and I get to be too because there’s no roles and “should’s” putting us down anymore.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right. Right, right, right. I think that’s so interesting. So as you see, as you’ve evolved in your relationship bouncing business, balancing both your own separate businesses and then working together and then having young kids and then all of this, what have been some of the toughest things to navigate?

Christy Whitman:            You want go for that? I would say Maxim.

Frederic Gobeil:               Go ahead. It’s for you.

Christy Whitman:            He had just sold his business and was kind of working with the company that bought him out and I was building my business and it was doing really well and yet, we had two small kids that are 16 months apart. And our youngest son, Maxim, when he was 2 months of age was rushed to the hospital and he had to be in the hospital for a month and have open heart surgery. And it’s just an amazing miracle story that like he shouldn’t even be here, it’s incredible, but having to navigate a business, having to navigate a little one at home because he was only 18 months old, so he was still a baby. Having one that was literally just still breastfeeding, that was in the hospital.

Having to navigate all of that was really probably the most difficult time in my life, in our relationship because we had to stay connected and yet both of us really wanted to escape big time. It was very difficult and we had our own ways of escaping and dealing with it and in surviving that time. And it took us several years to come out of that and to start really being present again and to start to really heal from all of that and to release any of the resentments and fears and all of that. So that was a really challenging time.

Melinda Wittstock:         When we have a stress like that or a real strain, sometimes it can bring out the best in us and sometimes not. So what do you recommend for couples who, based on your own experience, on how to navigate these things? Because sometimes we’re acting unconsciously, even the most conscious among us, right? What is the best way? What are some practical things that a couple can navigate these challenges, because we all have them no matter what form they take.

Christy Whitman:            Well, even though it was a really difficult time, I mean, for me when we got the diagnosis and knew that Maxim was going to have open heart surgery, I turned to Frederic and I said, “There’s no other vision I’m holding other than him growing up with his brother, the three of you wrestling, us taking him to Disneyland going on trips.” And I’m like, “There’s no other vision.” Don’t let any other thought worry, fear. As a matter of fact, we wouldn’t allow any of the relatives to come around him and see him in the hospital until he was out the intensive care just because we wanted to make sure that the energy he was surrounded in was just positive and really believing and having faith. No worry energy around him.

We would spend, it took us about 45 minutes to go from house to hospital, and we would spend time talking about where we wanted to take trips with the kids as they got older and what were the positive aspects of this situation because nothing is all ever all bad, nothing’s ever all good. So in any kind of situation you can find positive aspects. So we would list them, the hospital, the best hospital literally in United States and Canada for children and we’d say it was 45 minutes and we have our nanny that takes care of Alex. We have time together, he’s not working and we could be together and my business is being taken care of.

And we just would list all the positive aspects and just be there for each other in that way and apply what I was not only teaching, but what I was living in all aspects of my life. It was truly one of those times where it’s like I really had to practice what I preach. And what would you say, what is yours?

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, we made sure that we were using affirmation tendencies throughout this whole time where Maxim was on the verge. We didn’t know whether he would make it or not.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh my God. I just can’t even imagine.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah. Yeah.

Christy Whitman:            We don’t want you to imagine.

Frederic Gobeil:               No.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh.

Frederic Gobeil:               Everything happens for a reason. I’m a believer that for me, it shook me for a reason where again, I needed to look at who I was as a father, what kind of a father I wanted to be? Did I want to be more present? Because my father was present, but he really wasn’t there. So for me, it was important now to be there for my sons, both of them. And also, I mean, you were asking what is a piece of advice.

I mean, we started getting help as well. We started working with someone who was giving us proper advice to work within the couple so that we wouldn’t be just in the roles of mom and dad, because it’s very easy to stay in those roles of mom and dad or the roles of the entrepreneur and lose yourself in your business and just not see that there’s other aspects in life as well. We have to come back to Christy and Frederic and so were to do that as well. So that definitely helped us through that time.

Melinda Wittstock:         I guess what’s so hard, and I know this is true of my life and so many others, when you’re in the middle of something like that that’s a really trying circumstance, when you’re facing tragedy or you’re suffering from grief or you’re just have had a horrendous experience, how to kind of function and get up from that when it’s so easy to feel like, God, why me, and be a victim and end up feeling powerless in that situation.

Christy Whitman:            I heard a quote from Winston Churchill when we were going through this that when you find yourself going through hell, just keep going.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right.

Christy Whitman:            It was a mix of trying to stay in the positive, look for the positive aspects. Our son, who was 18 months at the time was comic relief for us. So thank God he was there and he made us laugh and giggle and all that so we were able to find a lot of pockets of joy, but it’s like we have to deliberately look for those things. And like you’re saying is … What I talk about in my own individual practice and through becoming an energy master and being able to heal and stuff is that whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, whatever the mind holds or perceives of something is we’re supposed to be in a place of receiving and being open and using the law of allowing, working with the law of allowing, being able to feel emotions and process them and the energy that is the emotions and process them.

And what happens with most people is they close their heart down, they shut down at a protection. And that’s one of the things that Frederic and I both, even though we wanted to escape, we did remain open and we remained connected together and we would process, I remember there was a moment where he was so frustrated and he just jumped out of bed and he goes, “I’m going to win.” And I looked at him like, where did that come from? So I don’t know if you want to speak to that when you were just like you declared that it was almost like you’re not a victim anymore and like you just declared something. Maybe you want to speak to that.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, that’s it. For me it just felt like I needed to take a stance because life was giving me a situation where it was really easy for me to beat myself up because this is my child, what did I do wrong? And it was really easy to go into the self beating. And at a certain point I felt well, there’s no use for that. I knew that there was no positive end in doing that. And luckily, we had done some of our work, a lot of personal development events that we went together and on each of our own.

So it did help me to create this pattern inside of me where I wanted to stay in a positive state of mind and keep the fact that my kid … And we were both saying that to each other our child is going to come back to us in a healthy state and with without any issues, basically. One morning I just stood up and for me, it was clear, I stated I want to be a winner. I felt throughout all my life I played sports, I was a winner in sports and I became an entrepreneur and I had some issues that came up as an entrepreneur, which is normal, but now that issue of having my child coming really close to death is and was really the deepest of places for me to go and search inside.

So when I declared, that’s enough, I’m a winner and my son is a winner, my family, I’m part of this winning family here and we’re not going to live like this. That also is part of the support system that we were establishing around us and the support for each other. I was making sure that I was there for Christy, just for any type of hugs. Those were moments that we shared together that deepened our bond even more.

Melinda Wittstock:         That is so, so powerful and it does deepen your bond. And I love that you’re just like okay enough, this is going to be a different outcome. Christy, did he shift some energy there somehow? Was there a big energy healing event?

Christy Whitman:            You know Melinda, it was crazy because right after that happened we were literally three days in a row, and I’m not kidding you three days in a row, we would go to these this restaurant that was near the hospital. So we were of hospital food and there’s one day we were at Baton Rouge in Montreal and he goes, “Hey, that’s Georges St-Pierre over there.” Who was like the-

Frederic Gobeil:               He’s a UFC fighter.

Christy Whitman:            UFC fighter.

Frederic Gobeil:               He was one of the light heavyweight champions.

Christy Whitman:            But he was a champion, right? So here he declares, “I am a winner.”

Frederic Gobeil:               Who’s a winner.

Christy Whitman:            He’s a winner. And so then he sees him at the table next to us and we’re like, wow, that’s cool. The very next day we go in and the Montreal-

Frederic Gobeil:               Canadian.

Christy Whitman:            Canadian football team.

Frederic Gobeil:               Hockey team.

Christy Whitman:            No, no, no. It was the football team. It was the football team.

Frederic Gobeil:               First. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s at the restaurant.

Christy Whitman:            Yes. So the what do they call the Montreal-

Frederic Gobeil:               Alouettes.

Christy Whitman:            … Alouettes. Okay. So kind of like the Super Bowl champions. They won for the Canadiens. So we come to the restaurant and all of a sudden he goes, “Oh my God, look at that trophy.” There was a huge trophy on this table. There’s tons of guys all around it and it happened to be the trophy that they had won their version of the Super Bowl. So Frederic went over and he took a picture with him holding this. It’d be like someone in walking into a restaurant holding the Super Bowl trophy because we were living in Canada, and he got to meet the coach and that kind of thing.

And he literally was joking with his with our brother-in-law and he’s like, “I got to hold the Cup trophy or whatever.” And he’s like, “Tomorrow I’m going to meet Carey Price from the Canadiens.” Jokingly, right? Jokingly. The very next day-

Melinda Wittstock:         I love it.

Christy Whitman:            … in the hospital room. I mean, Maxim literally, he’s just this tiny little guy and all of a sudden five of the Montreal hockey team, the Canadiens come in and are surrounding our son and Frederic’s like, “Holy crap.” So he like declares, “I’m a winner.” And in three days he’s got the UFC champion, he’s got the Alouettes champ trophies holding in his hands and then he’s got the Canadiens all around his son. And it was like, I mean what a declaration and what a manifestation of that declaration.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh gosh, that is fantastic. So when you work with couples now, what do you think are the biggest things that are holding them back? What’s their consciousness in terms of what they think is holding them back relative to what is actually holding them back or keeping them from really stepping into just the magnificence of love at its best?

Christy Whitman:            Well, the beauty about being in a committed long-term relationship is you have a history. The bad downfall of that you’re in a loving committed relationship is you have a history. And many people from history don’t know how to process old pains and hurts and resentments. And so they clog up, it’s like they’re holding on to this energy and so their buttons are being pushed and instead of reacting from an open-hearted place, they’re reacting from where the buttons are and they’re reacting from the way the person used to be or the way the person used to show up.

And it’s really important that as you continue to move into a relationship that you number one, align with yourself and you always have that deepening with your own inner being, but that you have the places that there’s been resentments, that you’re holding on to grudges, that when you have a button that comes up, that you own your own button and you release that button and do that type of work because it’s within yourself when you are an individual that’s clear of old past hurts, wounds, stuck energy, all that stuff, then you can be in a place to truly send out love, like a pure form of love and also be able to receive that love.

So it’s both people doing that inner work together and being committed to release the stuff of the past, heal from the stuff of the past, push the reset button and literally bring in a new energy and create a new vision together of where they want to go.

Melinda Wittstock:         What are some of the things that come up for folks? We all talk about oh God, work-life balance. How do we juggle all of this? How do we find time? Do we end up becoming working for our businesses rather than our businesses working for us? How do we balance all these things? What do you counsel for somebody that … a couple that really wants to build an intentional life?

Christy Whitman:            Well, a lot of the things that we were talking about earlier, how one person spends the money and the other person saves or the money issues that can come up in the relationship. That’s a potential thing from past or even present stuff that we have to help people understand and find where the solution would be, being able to really coach them on every situation has a solution, at least nine options, and when both people can together look at the situations, say, “Okay, we’re not stuck. We’re not limited here. We’re not going to stay focused on the problem. We’re going to look for what the best outcome is so that both of us can be happy.”

That’s where you have to start really becoming a deliberate creator in your relationship and deciding what is really important in all aspects of those bugaboo areas that people have, it can be the kids and the way you’re parenting. It could be one’s working too much and the other one is feeling alone, or whatever the situation is, is finding out what do you want better. And the way that we approach coaching couples is the way that I obviously approach working with individuals too, is that you need to look for? What do you want better? Where do you want to go? What is your vision?

And where Frederic and I are very different with couple’s personal experiences with this and also working with couples, and we’ve heard horror stories as well is nothing against traditional therapy or traditional therapist. I mean, I’ve had therapists that are wonderful and it’s like anything, some therapists are like the best in the world and other ones are not very good. It’s like lawyers. Some of them are incredible. Some of them are not so good. It’s like coaches. Every industry has the best of the best, the worst of the worst.

But we’re finding is that in therapeutic coaching they’re looking at wanting to look at the past and talking about the past without releasing energy and the healing of the past and asking questions that really are what you don’t really want to know what the answer is. We’ve had people tell us that they’ve been asked, “Well, where in your relationship are you as far as getting a divorce?” And it’s like what kind of question is that? Because if one person says, “I’m about 20%.”

If you just asked that question, he goes, “I’m at 20%.” I’d be like, “You’re at 20%? What’s the 20%?” I don’t want to know where he’s at thinking about divorce. And what happens if I go, “Yeah, I’m at 100%.” I mean, there’s no negotiating, well, she’s out. So it’s asking the proper questions that move you into the direction of knowing what the answers are to bring you back in connection with yourself and each other.

Melinda Wittstock:         Communication is really critical too, but being able to be honest with each other requires someone to be honest with themselves. So is therapy just something that’s necessary for everybody? I mean, we’ve all been acculturated with these old rules and societal norms that just don’t seem to work anymore. Everything is shifting and changing and we all know people struggle with change and uncertainty.

Entrepreneurs less so because that’s just sort of something we seem to thrive on, but for most people these things are really hard and there seems to be so much uncertainty in the world. I mean, can you really make it without doing a lot of personal growth, without doing a lot of therapy, either in business or in love?

Christy Whitman:            Well, we’re talking about we as a human, we’re a personality, but that part of it that’s breathing us, whether you call it God self, divine self, inner being, that part of us is always wanting to grow and expand. It’s a creator and it’s always wanting to create and it has desires and it has things that it wants to experience through us as the individual. And so when we are denying our desires, when we are settling for what we don’t want, when we are just saying, “Oh, well.” We’re limiting ourselves in any way. We’re not living a full life and that part of us will always continue to knock on that door saying, “I want more. I want to create more. I want to expand. I want to experience.”

I feel a very unhappy person that just says, “I’m going to close down that voice and not listen to it.” It’s really coming from being satisfied in your life, but finding deliberately the things to be satisfied with that helps you continue to grow and expand, and I don’t care who we are. None of us are perfect. We all have stuff from our past and we need to heal that are still today attracting things in our life because if we have a wound we’re attracting from that wound. It cannot be any other way. That’s law of attraction at its best. Everything is energy if you got stuck block energy you’re creating and attracting from that place.

So every person needs to be able to learn how, to master their emotions, to master their energy, to release the energy that they don’t want to, even thoughts are energy. And when you can do that, you can be more masterful in your life and you can be happier or more joyful or prosperous or whatever it is you’re desiring.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, and sometimes for men that’s not the easy part. I can speak for myself and I do talk with many men that for them it’s in a deer looking at headlights. They’re like really, what do I need to do here?

Melinda Wittstock:         Right.

Frederic Gobeil:               I was there. I was there where Christy was really involved with her own personal development, growth and I felt like well, there’s no issue with me. The issues are with her. That’s often in a couple-

Christy Whitman:            Isn’t he cute? He thought he was perfect.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, I keep on saying to her, it’s a joke that we have together, I’m so easy to love. So that’s the joke that I was telling her. And it wasn’t working until I decided to look at what was the thing inside of me that was causing that energy block, that was making me mad or sad or fearful, that underlying issue, it needs to be looked at. And once that’s looked, then you can start the communication skills. There’s tools that can be used in order to communicate with each other and come from an honest point, “Hey, this is making me feel fearful. There’s something that’s going on in my life.”

Instead of just keeping it in and then and hoping that at one point she or he is going to realize that I’m not happy and something is going to pan out of it. And I and we all know what happens if it’s just fireworks or all of a sudden it’s like it explodes and there’s nothing positive from that.

Christy Whitman:            You should’ve seen his face when he came to me that one day and said, “Well, I am so easy to love.” And I looked at him and I go, “Actually, you’re not.”

Frederic Gobeil:               Really?

Melinda Wittstock:         I think it’s interesting though because we learn these things along the way. It’s a journey, we were talking about this at the beginning and there’s so much in common really with entrepreneurship, in that in entrepreneurship we’re constantly testing hypotheses.

You have a theory about a product or a service that’s going to work and how that market is going to fit. You have a theory about the price. You’re always testing things. You don’t really know until you know. There’s constant uncertainty and that is a forcing function for sure for personal growth and likewise, in a relationship it’s so similar as well.

Christy Whitman:            Oh, yeah. It’s testing the waters. It’s really trial by error, right? It really is. I mean, it is very similar to like being in an entrepreneurial, business relationship. However, it’s like we can’t run a business and a household and from the same energy that we have sex with. It’s a different energy.

Melinda Wittstock:         Actually this is a really good point because I think a lot of people bring the business and bring the stress of the business and that kind of like it’s a constant macro, running between your ears about what’s going on in the business and that’s not necessarily sexy, right? How do you shift energetics when you’re working on the same business together, when everything is the same, even as you show up to meet different sides of yourself, like to be a mom, be a dad, be a lover, be a friend and be in business together. Do you guys are purposefully aware of kind of who you’re being and how you shift those energies?

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, for me it’s really important that I am aware of the schedule for between this time and this time we are meeting with whoever. So here’s the thing too, is we will sit down together and we’ll jot down on our calendar what our business meetings, what are certain times that we need to pick up the boys or prepare the boys for something. And then even dating time.

Christy Whitman:            And sexy time.

Frederic Gobeil:               And sexy time, definitely. I mean, we make sure that not the sexy time, we don’t plan that out.

Christy Whitman:            Sometimes we plan it out. I’ll meet you in bed in 20 minutes.

Frederic Gobeil:               That’s true.

Christy Whitman:            Sometimes because we got small kids we got to plan that out.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         Right.

Frederic Gobeil:               It’s important, I think, to kind of shut it off, to say to one another, “All right. This is now time for you and I to connect and to talk about something else than what happened in the event last week or what’s up coming up ahead.” We’ll do that. And then we have part of the communication skills, right? We call it a timing. When we want to talk about something and it didn’t use to be like that, but now what we do is we’ll ask each other, “Is this the right time to talk about, the school the teachers, wanting to see what snacks Maxim has to bring it in school?”

Christy Whitman:            Or is it a good time to talk about the accounting for-

Frederic Gobeil:               The accounting for the … Yeah.

Christy Whitman:            You know, that kind of thing. So we check in with each other so that were respectful of each other’s energy and time and understand that our family space is our family space. It used to be like I would come up from a coaching call and I just wanted a break and I wanted to come see my kids and have lunch and then he was there talking to me about the accounting. And I’m like, “Wait a minute. I need a break. This is not right timing.” And so then I would feel stressed because it’s like I need a down time, I don’t have that or like I’m more of a morning person and he’s a night person so his brain starts kicking in about 10 o’clock at night and he’s like, “Oh, I need to talk to you about the accounting on this and this.”

And my brain is like shut down. I’m about to go to bed. And it was like the timing is so bad. So now we have this just … We learned by trial and error obviously, “Is this good timing to talk about accounting?” “No.” “Okay. Well I need to talk about it so could you have time tomorrow?” “Yeah, let’s talk about it. I’ve got a call, blah, blah, blah. Let’s meet at 12:00.” “Perfect.” So now we’re being respectful of each other’s time and when the right time is because there’s things like when we run an event, he does all the contracts and stuff like that. I don’t care about the contracts. I don’t want to talk about the contract. I don’t want to look at a contract. I want to show up and do the brilliance that I do.

And for him, we have to contracts. So he does that part. So if he has something in the contract you need to speak to me about he’s like, “I need to speak to you about a contract. When is a good time?” So it’s not just like, “Hey baby, oh by the way …” That’s so not sexy.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, at the same time is like we always find the space to play with each other as well, whether it’s during the time where for example in the morning I’ll prepare some breakfast so that boys have something to eat, have a good breakfast for their day. For me that’s important, the health of what we put in our body is important for me and for my family. And we’ll have a little bit of playtime, we’ll look at each other and-

Christy Whitman:            I’ll squeeze his butt and the kids go, “Mom, dad.”

Melinda Wittstock:         Sure way to embarrass the kids. It’s perfect. Needs to be done.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah.

Christy Whitman:            We’re in the car and I’m like, “Hey baby, when are we having sexy time?” And my son yesterday was like, “You know I’m in the car with you.”

Melinda Wittstock:         But isn’t that healthy, though, for them to see that?

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         To really see what love truly is and just to show up. I think kids really learn from what we do, not what we say.

Christy Whitman:            Absolutely, they need to see us flirting with each other and having fun with each other and still after over 10 years of being together flirting and playing with each other and all that.

Frederic Gobeil:               Kissing each other, holding hands.

Christy Whitman:            Yeah, hugging.

Melinda Wittstock:         So what’s the future for you two? If you were to give me your sort of like 10 year, the next 10 years and all the things that you’re going to do and be and you have so much success and you have this dream lifestyle, anyone looking in from the outside and also hearing you both, it’s just wow, you make it look easy. So what’s next?

Christy Whitman:            Well, continuing our couples work and helping more and more couples develop online courses and stuff so that people that can’t be in person are able to receive this information. We’re launching our podcast, the conscious connected couple and traveling the world together. We just love traveling together and just being able to create the prosperity and success and abundance that we have and for both of us and I’ll speak for both of us, you can say what you want to say about this, but our family, the four of us, are really important and having that connection and laughter and play time with the whole family unit.

We tease that we go 10 years at a time and we renew our contract with each other every 10 years, but I keep saying that this is my favorite decade and the better it gets, the better it gets. So that just means more connection with each other and the family and exploring this beautiful planet earth of going on different cruises and adventures and places like that, but being able to even packed more couples and individuals that they’re more returning to their divine self and being of service in that way.

Melinda Wittstock:         That’s beautiful.

Frederic Gobeil:               Yeah, and for me, my mother was just here this past week.

Christy Whitman:            Your mother? You had to bring in the mother? No, I’m kidding.

Frederic Gobeil:               And it just made me realize how lucky we are and how fortunate we are to be living in Arizona. I mean, this is a beautiful, wonderful place to be living in. I get to spend now my winters, which used to be up in Montreal, northeast in Canada, and it’s like North Pole out there and just this is my life now. This is a wonderful life. I get to experience this with my beautiful wife and we share all these beautiful adventures together and we keep on saying we create everything out of our love, that the nucleus of her and I create everything around us.

This love is what kind of is the driving force behind everything that we do create and that’s why it feels so good to be doing this couples work, because it’s coming out of our love at the same time. So just for me is continuing also helping and serving these couples and people and individuals who want to know more about how to be in a long-term relationships and how to go about with a sense of awareness and navigate that with proper tools and processes together.

Melinda Wittstock:         Christy and Frederic, I want to thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us, with not only inspired business, but inspired relationship. So loved having you on.

Christy Whitman:            Thank you so much. I appreciate you having us on. Always love our conversations and connections, Melinda.

Frederic Gobeil:               Thank you Melinda. It was awesome.