The CX 073: Foundations of Trust With Author Ingrid Christensen

The CX 073: Foundations of Trust With Author Ingrid Christensen

Ingrid Christensen: Another technique that I've identified is very, very basic, not rocket science at all, but it's the concept of over-communicate early and often. People need to hear at least seven times what you want them to hear. So we need to repeat ourselves over and over again in clear and consistent messaging so that individuals can really understand and can really drive into what we're saying. And so I think some of that clear and open and honest communication goes miles and miles towards trust development and those interpersonal relationships.

Jillian Benbow: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Community Experience Podcast. I am so glad you're here. I'm Jillian. I'm the host, and today I'm talking to Ingrid Christensen of INGCO International. Ingrid is a polyglot multilingual translator that has a translation and interpreting service business and recently wrote the book the Language of Trust, which is out now. And we're really just kind of diving into human trust and how that impacts community and just how that impacts our day-to-day, as well. So great conversation right now on the Community Experience with Ingrid Christensen.

All right. Welcome to this week's episode, and I'm so excited because today I'm with Ingrid Christensen and Ingrid is the president and founder of INGCO International. And we're talking about trust, which is so fun. I'm very stoked to talk about this. Right before I hit record saying this is such a perfect topic for communities. So Ingrid, before we get started, hello. Welcome. Tell us a little bit about you and your company because it's a great story.

Ingrid Christensen: Hello, Jillian. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited to chat with you. I'm really hoping this will be a great conversation. So about me. I'll give you the quick rundown. I was born. Just kidding.

Jillian Benbow: I love it.

Ingrid Christensen: So yeah, I know. So I'm the president and founder of INGCO International. We are a language solutions company, so that means we take things from one language into another in about 200 different language pairs. So we provide a couple different services. Document translations, so that's things like websites, product material, packaging manuals, things of that sort. Interpretation services. So we send interpreters to meetings, conferences, et cetera. We also have interpreters that work over the phone and we do a fair amount of subtitling and voiceover and things of that nature. So really anything from one language to another. So I started the business, it'll be 17 years in two weeks. We turn 17.

Jillian Benbow: Almost an adult.

Ingrid Christensen: I know, yeah. Almost an adult. I know. We celebrated our sweet 16 last year, which was really fun. And then for my 17th birthday, I guess I wrote a book. So we'll talk more about that later. But yeah, so I launched the company 17 years ago. I also have a 17-year-old son.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, perfect. Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: So it was very interesting timing to start a business with a newborn baby, but it all seemed to work out in the end. So yeah. It's been fun.

Jillian Benbow: That is so great. I can't even imagine. It's like, what else can I do besides have a baby? How else can I turn my life upside down all at the same pivotal time? You went for it, which is amazing. So congrats.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. Honestly, I think that I was so sleep deprived and half-deranged that I was just like, "Well, I guess now seems like the perfect time." So.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. That's awesome. So as I mentioned before, I think a big thing we want to talk about today is trust. And I'm curious if you just kind of want to take us on the journey of where doing these language translation services, all of this and it's very important to you, this concept of trust. How did those intersect or what's the story behind that?

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. Well, it wasn't until last year that I really decided to start leaning into trust and figuring out what role trust plays in language services. I think I intuitively always knew it, but I didn't name it. And it really wasn't until I started talking about the work that we're doing and really talking about how it is we do the work that we do that I started recognizing how vital and how important trust is, especially in our industry. Given, I understand that it's important in every single industry, but I can't think of anything more important when you are serving as someone's voice when they would otherwise be voiceless than to develop that level of trust. And it is just given and it's a blind trust and it is the most beautiful exchange of a trusting relationship that a person can have. I mean, you have no other option when you are using someone else's voice to communicate for you than to trust them.

And then I started thinking about all the different stakeholders that we work with. So I've kind of identified the most important person always in language services or what I call the end user. Right? So that's the family that, they just arrived in the United States and they go to their local school district to register their kids in school with an interpreter. Or that's the grandpa that goes into the hospital or into the emergency room and relies on an interpreter to make medical decisions for himself and really understand what's going on. I mean, you take it down to something that we're all very familiar with like the United Nations and brokering multinational peace accords via an interpreter. Everything that is required in this industry is really based and baked in trust.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. As you're saying it. I'm like, "Well, duh." But before you said it, I was genuinely like, "Oh, I wonder, how does this play in?" But now hearing you say it, I'm like, "Oh yes. Obviously." But I guess it was in my intuitive brain but wasn't clear. And I can only imagine, I think anybody listening, if you've ever traveled outside of your comfort zone, but especially traveled to a country or an area that speaks a different language than your native language and that you don't know, I remember as a teen, my family lived in China for a while and that's just like, "Nope, I can't read that. No matter how hard I look at it, I cannot figure out what that says. That looks like art."

And I think everybody should put themselves in that position because it's very humbling. And if you've never experienced it, it can be hard to understand. And your example of the grandpa getting medical work, I mean, going to the hospital is intimidating enough. And I'm curious, so have you identified sort of, there are some basic steps, some basic practices to ensure you're establishing a baseline of trust with people because this is so relevant to community, although it's different in the sense of language. But when I think about even digital communities, not everyone has the same internet savviness or awareness of how conversations work, say, on a digital platform. And so I think it's very translatable. So that's my motivation in this question.

Ingrid Christensen: I think it's a hundred percent translatable. And I think that what I discovered in this process of really leaning into what trust means in language services, I found that it's no different in a language service company than it is in any other company, any other organization, any other community, any other group of people, any other interpersonal relationship. But most interestingly I think, for me at least, is I recognized quickly that if you don't have the ability to trust yourself, it is impossible to even try to trust anyone else. And I think that's where so many people get locked up in this trust is that, for one reason or another, they are sitting in a level of distrust of themselves, an inability to really have confidence and competence in the decisions that they're making.

And I think that that's first and foremost the biggest thing to recognize. And I also recognize in moments in my life and in talking with over 50 people in writing this book, in moments of their life when they have been in a state of distrust, they've been in a really high state of anxiety, right? Because it's a body reaction. There's chemical reactions that happen in your brain and that gets a little nerdy and scientific, but there is a reason why you feel butterflies in your stomach. Right? Your brain is sending messages to your gut to say, "Whoa, I don't know if I can trust you." And when you think back to evolution, right? When we were living in a cave, we could only trust what we could see. We clearly didn't have cell phones to call John on the other side. Say, "Hey, I want to trade my buffalo bones for your dinosaur bones," or whatever we were trading.

So we had to, in order to survive, figure out who can we trust, what can we trust? Right? And it wasn't just people, it was also the bison and the dinosaur and all the other things that wanted to kill us because they were hungry. So what is interesting in those early human interactions is that it's communication. It all comes back to communication and how you communicate with somebody and how you interact with somebody. And that's how those deep levels of trust were formed. So I know I'm going kind of around in a circle here, but I think it's important to recognize that you can't trust anyone else unless you trust yourself. And then I think when you lean into that and you recognize that trust is a physical, chemical reaction in your body, I think it gives you more of a reason to be able to trust.

And then to go now to finally answer your question, what can we do? How the heck can we build trust? Right? That is a big question, especially, I think, of interest, is that most of us now are spending the majority of our day behind a screen working closely with people that we perhaps have never met, we've never seen in person, and we are supposed to trust them. And we're supposed to have these conversations and these relationships, professional and personal, with these individuals that we've never met. So we've taken away a lot of our senses. We've taken away our ability to physically be in connection and close to somebody. So now we're relying on senses that we haven't necessarily been able to develop. So how can we do that on an online community, especially how can we lean into some of the trust building techniques that we know exist and how can we be mindful of them?

I think first and foremost, as leaders, we have to recognize that we're responsible a hundred percent for trust creation and cultivation every single day. Our people that we're talking with, that we're managing, that we're leading, that we're doing business with, need to know that we care and need to know that trust is paramount to our success together. So I think a couple of those things can really carry us through some of these relationships, especially that we're having online in a virtual world, not in physical connection or physical community.

Some of the other things that I've identified is that we need to operate at the speed of trust. Trust is moving fast. Life is moving really fast. We need to get on the trust boat, otherwise the trust boat is going to leave us. And if it leaves us, it's going to leave you behind. Some of the other things that I've really kind of leaned into in the book is really looking at, what words are we using when we're describing trust? And being really careful and intentional with our words so that people can honestly hear us and hear our words and know that we're being sincere in some of the words that we're communicating.

Another technique that I've identified is very, very basic, not rocket science at all, but it's the concept of over-communicate early and often. People need to hear at least seven times what you want them to hear. So we need to repeat ourselves over and over again in clear and consistent messaging so that individuals can really understand and can really drive into what we're saying. And so I think some of that clear and open and honest communication goes miles and miles towards trust development and those interpersonal relationships.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Ingrid Christensen: I'll stop there.

Jillian Benbow: Absolutely. We actually kind of expect a lot from people sometimes because, at least in the communities I run, we have a platform that people can log into. It's asynchronous. You're typing. Right? So there's that side of it where you can't really totally get people's personality. You can't see their mannerisms and hear their tone especially. Things can come off very brash that aren't meant to and things like that.

But then we also do a lot of live events that are on Zoom or this platform we love called Butter, where we're asking people to now come on and be on camera like you and I are right now and talk. And depending on people's comfort level, that can be immediately, "I'm going to opt out." And I think a lot of it has to do, again, with trust and just being in that situation of, "Do I feel safe? Is this weird? Is this worth my time?" All of those things. And that's just everyone layer.

Then there's the layer of, someone is concerned, maybe they identify in a marginalized community and so they have a different level of what safety means to them or inclusivity means to them. You have to think about, what is the experience like for someone coming in new? Is that scary and why and how can I help? Right?

Ingrid Christensen: I think that that's really important, Jillian. I mean, we're all kind of starting new here. We came off of two years of being home and our worlds are very, very different than they were pre-COVID. And the beauty and the ease and the comfort of online communities is not going to go anywhere. That's only going to grow and it's only going to require more of us. We're only going to have to lean into that more and more and really figure out a way, how can we do that? But you said something really interesting that piqued my interest about the online community and the majority of it, it starts written. And how much is lost in the written word? Because I know that writing is extremely difficult. It takes a lot of time, you have to have really good editors, and a lot of what you're writing, 99.9% of it is gibberish and has to be thrown away.

But we don't have time like that, right? When you're in an online community or you're conversing with somebody or you're having an interaction on social media, you can't just go delete 99% of it, right? Once it's out there, it's out there. So how can we lean into giving each other a little bit of grace and a little bit of flexibility and a little bit like, "Hey, I trust you. I trust that you're coming from a good place. I trust that your intentions are good. And maybe you didn't get it spot on that first time." Because, well, like I just said 99% of anything written is gibberish anyway. So how are you going to get it? Right? And so how can we in community support each other and recognize that not everything is coming from a bad intention and not everything is meant to be shameful and hurtful?

Jillian Benbow: Totally. And it's funny because that is one of the most common reasons, even in a paid professional networking community such as the one we run at SPI, that there are hurt feelings or misunderstandings or kind of issues that we have to deescalate or anything like that because it's just different people's communication styles and then take away the actual conversational part. And honestly, when this happens in our communities, I always ask people to assume best intention. And be like, "Well, let's assume that they didn't necessarily mean the way you're interpreting it."

Not to say we're not going to find out, but just because it is. And even another layer is back to what you do day-to-day is with language, a lot of people in communities, digital communities are global. That's one great thing about the technology of community is you can have people from every continent in your community interacting, talking, engaging, learning things about each other's cultures, whatnot. But at the end of the day, that means people translating and speaking different than their native language. And that's a whole other layer of that onion, right?

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. It doesn't matter how bilingual you are. Communicating in a language that is not native to you is always a struggle. And it's always a struggle. I mean, how hard is it to communicate in English for the majority of us that are English speakers, right? And we communicate differently. We say things differently. The sentence structure is different. The words that we use are different even in different regions, even if you're in an urban area versus a rural area. And I think it's just really important to be mindful of that. Yeah. But I'm with you right there. There's been many times where I just type up the blurb and send it as fast as possible. That's the other thing is that we operate at such a fast pace, and the first one to get the words out is the first one that's almost recognized for saying that. And it really doesn't honor some people that need to move a little bit slower.

Jillian Benbow: Absolutely. I think also just with the idea of accessibility, this is becoming more of a thing. I know for example, if you're doing a YouTube live stream and the chat is going very fast and someone, they might be living with an experience that makes it very hard for them to follow the moving of the chat and be a part of it. And so being considerate of that, adding the slowdown feature or taking breaks. I mean, "Okay. Everybody stop." And even things as the colors that you use for your text and the style of your website or your community. You might be like, "Oh, check this out. I'm using this beautiful burnt orange and it's on brand." And I'm saying burnt orange because we literally did this. And then come to realize, that is very hard for people to see. The color contrast of that with the white screen and nevermind dark mode. It was such a disaster. So we changed it. Right?

But just being considerate of things like that is, I think just the new normal and we should all embrace it. But it's also just that taking a moment to think about it. Also, I just have a total segue question for you that I thought of as you were talking.

Ingrid Christensen: Okay. All right.

Jillian Benbow: And I don't want to forget. And then we'll just jump back in. But what are your thoughts from a language and people speaking et cetera in a second, third, whatever language, is sarcasm one of those things that is wholly unmissed or do people pick up on that quickly? I'm so curious cause I'm very sarcastic and I want to make sure I'm not making things hard for people.

Ingrid Christensen: I'm equally as sarcastic. And that's really interesting because I have to stop myself almost every day from putting some sarcastic remark in a chat or an email or something because that's my sense of humor and I recognize that that's not everyone else's. But the nightmare of a linguist is sarcasm, jokes-

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Or people breaking out into random song that you're supposed to know. There's a gazillion different songs in the world. You have no idea how many times our interpreters will be on stage or something. And then somebody will reference a song or reference a fairy tale or reference a book or reference a joke and they're completely lost because that is just not translatable. There probably is an equivalent, which, when you're under the gun and you're on stage and you're trying to come up with, I don't know, the cultural equivalent of the Three Little Pigs, it's probably not something that rolls right off tongue.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, totally.

Ingrid Christensen: So yeah. Yeah.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, that's rough. I have a good friend who is a native Spanish speaker and is impressively fluent in English. And she's worked very hard at it. I mean, she's lived in the states for a while. But she was taking classes, college level classes in English and reading books in English, and I was like, "Oh." I was kind of asking her about it and we were talking. And yeah, we started talking about, "Is there anything that still trips you up a little bit?" And I think as I recall, some of the in fiction and fantasy type books, there's some words that she's like ... And I'm like, "Girl, me too." But even just as an English only speaker, I have the same problem. But yeah, she said jokes. Certain kinds of jokes and, yeah. Pop culture depending how exposed you've been to Western culture, I guess. Which, I can't imagine if people were just talking about ... I'm trying to think of an example, say Indonesian pop culture, I would be so lost and just like, "That sounds nice. I wish I knew what this was. Hm. That's nice."

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah, yeah. It's very, very tricky. It's very tricky. I mean, it's even tricky when I listen to my teenager talk. I have no idea-

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Most of the time talking. Is she talking about one of her friends?

Jillian Benbow: Right?

Ingrid Christensen: And it's like, I got nothing. So.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: And it's presumably the same language.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. All that to say, all of us in everything should just be mindful of those things, especially when we're the face of something and we have a global audience. And not even global. I mean, we have plenty of people even in the US that aren't native English speakers that don't always get our silly jokes and references and would probably appreciate if we either explain them so they can be in the joke or just tone it down. Tone down the sarcasm.

Ingrid Christensen: Well, the other thing, Jillian, that I talk about is the power of the ask. And I think that multilingual folks, they want to be asked questions and they want to be engaged with. And so if you are catching on that somebody, they're not following the joke or they're not quite getting the sarcasm, that's a really appropriate time. Just be like, "Hey, can I explain this?" Because likely, they want to know. They want to be a part of it. Nobody wants to be left out, especially if it's something funny. You want to laugh just as much as everyone else does.

Jillian Benbow: That is such a good call out.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah, it's fine.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: I mean, people then can say, "Yeah, I want to talk about it," or, "No, I don't." But you don't know if you don't even open up the conversation.

Jillian Benbow: I try to be mindful of that, especially in live calls, with community, with anything, you get these inside jokes. And we have a ton in our community, and so I have to remember that not everyone knows them because people join later. But also when we do external events, and I think that's a good example of, for a long time, the mastermind groups we create, we just put names on them and then said, "You can change it later." But a lot of people just stuck with them and we were trying to do very just cool, non controversial, which is very hard anymore. Just something that no one would be weirded out about.

Ironically, what we ended up doing was really weird, but we did fruits and vegetables. So for example, there was the Tomato Mastermind, and so people, if we were doing a live stream or something, doing some sort of event, one of the members of that in the chat would be like, "Team Tomato." And if you know, you know. Everyone is laughing about it. So just making the point to tell people like, "Oh." What I just told you. "These are masterminds. This is why they're silly." That kind of thing. But yeah, it goes a long way. I think people just, even if they don't think it's funny, just knowing what it is and why people are laughing. Again, it goes back to inclusivity. Just if you're going to tell an inside joke, be prepared to make it an outside joke in these groups.

Ingrid Christensen: Right. Because I think what's natural is that you think that the people are laughing at you, which ...

Jillian Benbow: Yeah, totally.

Ingrid Christensen: I mean, I'm sure there are people. But again, you have to work from this place of people are showing up and they're doing their best. They're coming from a place of good intention. But you can't help but feel uncomfortable when there's a group of people laughing around you and you have no idea what they're laughing at. You think, "Well, they must be laughing at me."

Jillian Benbow: Well, and I think we all have experienced that. And so we all know. Like, "Oh." Just taking a second to be like, "Oh, let me explain." For, again, context. For context. Okay. Well, thank you for going on this segue journey with me. I appreciate it.

Ingrid Christensen: Yes.

Jillian Benbow: Welcome to my world. Welcome to how my brain works. So let's jump back in. But specifically, I want to talk about your book because you just wrote a book, the Language of Trust, and I want to know everything. So tell us what made you write this? What's it about? All the things.

Ingrid Christensen: Oh, all the things. All the things.

Jillian Benbow: No pressure.

Ingrid Christensen: Well, no pressure. Yeah. So 2022 was all about book writing for me. And I think I knew for a long time that I wanted to write a book. Wasn't sure how or when I would fit that process into my life. And it just seemed like things were okay enough, if that's a word. Okay enough for me to really dive into this huge endeavor. And at moments, it was a little overwhelming, but it hasn't been completely overwhelming the entire time. I would say that the majority of the work that had to happen was internal and me to get out of my own way because it's very vulnerable putting all these words onto paper that are going to be forever and eternity printed. So no pressure at all.

And like I said before, 99.9% of what I wrote was gibberish. So I had to cut it a lot of it out. And it's still, it's not perfect. There are sentences that are total junk. There are paragraphs that are probably worthless. There's probably chapters that don't make any sense, but I came to the point where I discovered that done was better than perfect, and that's the way we were going to make this whole thing happen. And I knew that I had a point of view and a perspective that was really important that people would want to hear. And I knew that I had some very unique experiences from the past 25 years of working in language services that people find fascinating. I've got some pretty raw and funny stories, some heartbreaking stories throughout the book, of my experience being alongside people at every step of their life, really truly being their voice.

I can say that I've been in and out of jail more than most people. I've seen babies be born. I've seen people take their last breath. I've been with people during all sorts of moments of their life, and it's been an incredible gift and opportunity for me to sit in that place, in that immense place of trust. And then I really started to think about how much trust our clients give us. Right? They give us this document in English and they say, "We need it translated into six languages by Monday," or whatever. So we translate it, we give it back to them, and it dawned on me that they can't read a single word in this document that we've translated for them. And they're taking these documents and they're putting them out into the world and they're closing business deals. They're brokering contracts. They're buying huge pieces of equipment. They're hiring. They're firing. They're making big life decisions based on the trust that they are putting in these documents, that they're accurate.

And it just kind of blew me away, how much trust is given in the world and how much we talk about trust, but we don't actually recognize all the activities that go into building up trust. So that's kind of my big why, because I felt like I had some important things to say. I love reading. I enjoy writing, and I wanted the reader to really step into some of my experiences that I've had in this industry and how and why trust has really played a part in that.

Jillian Benbow: That's so wonderful. As you're talking about these experiences you've had, it reminds me of people who go into nursing and hospice work in particular. Hospice workers are very dear to my heart because it's such a deeply personal experience that you're going through with that person and to be there for them. This is woo-woo, but I call it angel work because it really is just, you're that persons' angel for that moment in their life, which could also be prison related or anything else. Doesn't have to be hospice or end of life. It's all of it, because it's, like you said, very vulnerable experiences for people. So to be able to come in and be the thing that they can be like, "This person has me and they're advocating for me," it's beautiful.

Ingrid Christensen: Yep.

Jillian Benbow: So if you're willing, is there a story in particular in the book? You don't have to give us the full, but is there a favorite story or client or experience you had?

Ingrid Christensen: I do tell the story, right away in my interpreting career, I started working for a lovely couple and they were struggling to have a baby and were going through the whole fertility process. And I can't imagine. I mean, the amount of trust that it took for them to hand over this process. Not hand it over to me, right? Because I wasn't doing the medical work, but I was brokering the communication. And anyway, so they struggled. It was a two and a half year struggle to get pregnant. And they had lost pregnancies. And finally, they had a viable pregnancy with twins.

And you're not supposed to be emotionally connected. Right? We're supposed to be a bridge of communication. We're supposed to be these invisible people that just are someone else's voice. And I couldn't help but feel such an overwhelming sense of emotion and happiness and joy and love for them, and just wanted to celebrate this moment with them. And, of course, I couldn't, right? Because that would be stepping out of my professional role. But things like that, when you know that you're truly making a difference, just warm my heart in such ways and just prove to me that this is such a cool industry, a fascinating profession, and just a really, really interesting, insightful look into so many different people's lives and so many different aspects of people's lives.

Even my time in jail, in prison ... I don't break a lot of laws. Knock on wood, I'm hopefully not going to be sent to prison or jail anytime soon. But to have that opportunity and to sit in a moment of pure vulnerability with someone when they are really at probably the lowest low that they've ever been in, and to be able to communicate for that person and with that person, it really rocks your soul. And talk about woo-woo ness. It really, it opens you up to a different perspective and a different level and a different dimension of human connection.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. I mean, I bet. I would be so bad at this job because I have a horrible time. I'm very good with boundaries. However, there's just no way. I couldn't. I would be crying telling this couple they were pregnant with twins. Like, "Oh, yay." Celebrating. And I understand it's totally not cool, so I wouldn't last very long.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. Yes. It's a little crazy. I mean, you deal with it afterwards.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: But yeah, it's hard. I mean, our interpreters go into really, really hard situations. There was a deadly apartment fire here in our community, and one of our interpreters had to go and facilitate communication. Because she was there, she needed to go in with the family to identify bodies.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, wow.

Ingrid Christensen: And how are you trained? She didn't know when she got into this job that she would be asked to provide such services. But yeah, you just really, truly never know what's going to come of your day.

Jillian Benbow: Both exciting and exhausting, it sounds like.

Ingrid Christensen: Yes.

Jillian Benbow: So I have to ask, because this is just one of my jams is boundaries and taking care of yourself. In these sorts of roles where you are a service to other people, it's very easy to get burnt out and just exhausted. Do you have tips. Because Community Builders, on a different level. We're not going into morgues. Well, maybe we are. I don't know. I currently haven't done that for my job, but we'll see. Just with your experience, with your staff, everything, do you have just guidelines or tips that you have for protecting yourself from the more emotional-

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah.

Jillian Benbow: Experiences?

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of what I'm going to say is a lot that you've heard before, but it's really important to carve out the time for quiet and for introspection. And whatever that looks like. If it's a walk on the woods. If it's meditation. If it's reading. If it's just sitting in silence, making sure that that's a part of your every single day. And I used to want to poke my eyes out every time someone would say, "I've got this beautiful morning routine and it's so great. And I wake up and I drink my green smoothie." And everyone was like, "It's so amazing." So finally I decided to try it and now I'm hooked now.

Jillian Benbow: No you're that person.

Ingrid Christensen: So now I also have this, yeah. But I'm not going to tell you how great it is. But it has become a really essential part of my day, of my life to make sure that there's time for me to be reflective and there's time for me to be thoughtful and there's time for me to be just really thoughtful about everything that I'm experiencing and going through. Life is full of lots of challenges all the time, and we cannot be the best versions of ourself if we're not taking care of all the different aspects of our life. So yeah, I would say that you got to do the things that you don't want to do.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Right??

Jillian Benbow: Things that are actually good for you.

Ingrid Christensen: You got to eat the spinach. You got to work out.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. We're always so resistant to being well. It's like, "Damn it. Fine. Fine. I'll go outside. Ugh."

Ingrid Christensen: I know, right? It's so crazy. And we always feel so much better afterwards.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: But it's like this mental block of, you just got to do it. You just got to do it. It's a five second rule. Right? Sometimes I just count down to five and when I'm done with five. I just got to get up and do the thing that I least want to do.

Jillian Benbow: Just do it.

Ingrid Christensen: So.

Jillian Benbow: That really does work. I think it's Mel Robbins that wrote the book about that, and I remember, I think I listened to it. But I was like, "This works. It actually works." If you're just like, "Five, four, three, two, one, go." And you just get out of your own way because you kind of just turn your brain off in a way and just make a timer and then you're like, "Ah, I got to get up." There's something about it.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. I mean, think honestly, almost all of our questions could be answered if we just got out of our own way.

Jillian Benbow: It's so true.

Ingrid Christensen: If we just got out of our own way and just trusted in the universe and just did all the things we know we're supposed to do.

Jillian Benbow: It's like you're just reading my mind about all the stuff I'm trying to do right now. But I love what you said earlier about done versus perfection, because I think that should be the mantra of 2023. It's like, "Good enough. C's get degrees, everybody. We're good. Just get it out the door. It's fine."

Ingrid Christensen: That's hilarious. C's get degrees.

Jillian Benbow: Oh yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. It's right in the middle of final season for a lot of kids. And I'm sure they're feeling the pressure. Yeah. C's do good degrees, and yeah. Not everybody has to be at the top of their game all the time. We all have different strengths.

Jillian Benbow: Well, just giving yourself permission to rest and be like, "I'm going to do this thing. It may not be the most profound thing I've ever done in my life, but I'm going to do it and I'm going to learn from it and gain experience and whatever. C's get degrees." And then later, there's going to be an opportunity where you have the energy for it, and you also have the C's get degrees experience and you do a banger job. So it's all fine. And that's the other thing that I talk a little bit about in the book. So much of the way that we talk to ourself, we would never ever say that to any other person in the universe no matter how much we dislike them.

Jillian Benbow: Oh, it's so true.

Ingrid Christensen: We say things to ourself that are just terrible. And one thing that I'm trying to be really mindful of is be very scrupulous and careful with my words because of the energy that I'm putting out and the energy that I'm absorbing from my words. And it's a challenge.

Jillian Benbow: It's hard. Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Something to work on.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah.

Jillian Benbow: When you think about it. A little segue, and then we're going to get into our rapid fire questioning, which I already told you there's no math. So don't worry, there is still no math.

Ingrid Christensen: Okay, good.

Jillian Benbow: Right?

Ingrid Christensen: Please do not make me do math.

Jillian Benbow: But I was watching a TikTok video, and it took me a while to figure out where she was going with it, but this woman was talking about, I was going to the gym, and this woman came up to me and was like, "You shouldn't be here. You're already overweight. You're just going to fail." And then I went into the locker room to get ready to go swim and a woman said, "Ugh, you're really going to go in the pool? Ugh." And there's just all these things. And she's finally like, "That woman was me. It was my inner monologue." And listening, there's just something that clicked for me with it because it's like, "Totally, yeah." I think we all do it in our own way. And when you hear it in the context of a different person, I'm like, "Hold me back. I will make sure she never says that to you again."

Ingrid Christensen: Seriously. I was like cringing.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. Yeah.

Ingrid Christensen: I was like, "Oh my God."

Jillian Benbow: This is horrible.

Ingrid Christensen: Who going to talk to somebody like that?

Jillian Benbow: Exactly.

Ingrid Christensen: But you're right.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. We say things like that-

Ingrid Christensen: It's the crap that we tell ourselves.

Jillian Benbow: Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. So anyways, I will stop with my segues. But yeah, I think it was a powerful ... Hopefully people listening get out of it, too. It's just like a, "Wow." There's a shift in your own ... Like, "God." Anyways. Well, Ingrid, this has been great. We're going to do what's called rapid fire. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a few questions actually. And the goal is to be rapid fire, which I'm terrible at because I always want to ask follow-up questions, but I'll do my best not to. So your goal is just first thing that comes to mind. Quick answers. Are you ready?

Ingrid Christensen: I am so ready. I've never been more ready.

Jillian Benbow: You've got this. You are so ready. I believe in you, Ingrid, when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Ingrid Christensen: A teacher.

Jillian Benbow: How do you define community?

Ingrid Christensen: People that love me and support me for whatever decision I am currently making and people that I can love and support for whatever decision they're currently making.

Jillian Benbow: All right. You may or may not have a bucket list, but if you did, what is something on that list that you have done, you have achieved?

Ingrid Christensen: Skydiving.

Jillian Benbow: Ooh. Okay. And terrifying. And flip side, what's something on that list that you haven't yet done, but you hope to?

Ingrid Christensen: I think it'd be really fun to do a race car track training practice thing where you get to drive really fast around in circles.

Jillian Benbow: Oh my gosh. You're an adrenaline junkie. So you just wrote a wonderful book. So besides that book, because that's the easy answer, what's a book you wish everyone would read or you just love?

Ingrid Christensen: Oh, goodness. Goodness, goodness. Well, I think it's really important at least once a year to read the Four Agreements.

Jillian Benbow: I love it.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. Yeah. If you can just read that one book once a year ...

Jillian Benbow: You're golden.

Ingrid Christensen: It's such a quick read and-

Jillian Benbow: It really is.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah.

Jillian Benbow: That's a good idea. I think I'm going to take you up on that.

Ingrid Christensen: Yeah. I have it on audiobook and I just play it in the house. So I'm hoping that by osmosis, it will influence the people in my house.

Jillian Benbow: So I happen to know you live in Minnesota. If you could live anywhere else in the world, where would you want to live?

Ingrid Christensen: I would, for sure, absolutely, as soon as possible live in a place where I have warm fingers and toes every single day. I cannot wait to have feeling in my fingers and toes every day. That said, if I had to pick a very specific spot in the United States, it would probably be in New Mexico. And if it was not in the United States, I envision myself living in the south of France. And by the time I am living in the south of France, they, being the scientists and experts, are going to discover that bread and cheese, so dairy and gluten, are actually really good for you. So I'm going to be able to enjoy my warm fingers and toes sitting in the south of France eating a lot of bread and cheese.

Jillian Benbow: I'm with you. I'll be in the airplane seat next to you. Let's do this. Come on, scientists. Waiting on you. Okay. Final question, Ingrid. How do you want to be remembered?

Ingrid Christensen: I want to be remembered for being kind, for being loving, and also with a nice dash of fun mixed in.

Jillian Benbow: That's perfect. I love it. Tell our audience where they can find you, whether it's on social or your website, and also where to find your book.

Ingrid Christensen: Yes, absolutely. So I have a website, it's ingrid-christensen.com, and that has all sorts of information on speaking engagements in the book and myself. Also that same handle on social. So it's Ingrid Christensen. I'm also, if you Google me, I'm an island in Antarctica and I'm also a famous artist. Those two people are not me. Actually. I'm not an island, nor am I a famous artist. But there's not very many Ingrid Christensen's in the world. And then where can you buy the book? You can buy the book on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, and all your other mainstream outlets where a person would buy a book.

Jillian Benbow: Lovely. And one more time, the name of the book is The Language of Trust.

Ingrid Christensen: The Language of Trust. Yes.

Jillian Benbow: Very apropos. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Ingrid, thank you so much for being here. This was a blast. I know our audience is going to just love this. Yeah. Appreciate you coming on.

Ingrid Christensen: Thank you, Jillian. This has been super fun. I loved it as well. And I hope you have a fabulous evening.

Jillian Benbow: And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I hope you learned something from our mistakes and our blocks. Maybe you have a block that you can work through or maybe you just enjoyed two silly gals talking and jibber jabbering about the things we are working on. We'll be back next week. In the meantime, have a great day and we'll see you next Tuesday.

You can learn more about Ingrid at INGCOInternational.com. That's I-N-G-C-O International.com. And find her new book, The Language of Trust at all your favorite book sellers.

Your lead host for the Community Experience is me, Jillian Benbow. Our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Our senior producer is Dave Grabowski, and our editor is Paul Grigoras. Sound Editing by Duncan Brown. Theme music by David Grabowski. See you next Tuesday.