An Interview with Halftime Alum, Jacob Coldwell, Certified Life Coach and Author:
A journey – this is what the process of finding and living out our unique calling is – not a singular event or one-time decision, but a journey.
At Halftime, we’ve found that there are two important tracks to this journey:
The Head Journey
The Head Journey involves thinking through who you are at the Core. This includes your strengths and passions and how you will create the Capacity or margin to begin to give yourself away in a Context that fits you. These are often the areas that those who come to us are most eager to address.
The Heart Journey
The Heart Journey is equally as important as the Head Journey, but it can easily be overlooked. This is what God wants to do in your soul as you redefine success, pursue significance, and build intimacy with Christ and others. It will involve a change of heart allowing you to create a new identity outside of your career while learning a new way of measuring your performance.
However, the Heart Journey calls for an approach and pace that may feel unfamiliar to high-achieving leaders.
As Halftime Certified™ Coach, Rod Stewart, recently shared:
As Rod explains, “‘fake it ‘til you make it’ is not a great spiritual growth strategy. It will work for a while, but eventually you will burn out of your own strength.”
We recently connected with Halftime Alum, Jacob Coldwell, Certified Life Coach and Author, to learn more about his halftime story and insight on the heart journey:
Q. What led to you discovering you were in Halftime?
A. I read the Halftime book a few years back and though I took some great ideas away, the practicality of specific actions didn’t really take root.
This was a major reason for my desire to find a coach, someone to help bring some clarity around how to incorporate the principles into my life. I felt like I was drifting along. There wasn’t a lot of peace or joy coming out of what I was working on. Instead, there was a sense of disconnect from what I was doing on a day-in and day-out basis, even though it all looked right.
Reflecting now, with a more informed perspective, it had to do with a lack of attention to “why” I was investing my time and resources. I was setting things on autopilot and in doing so, lost the meaning of what I hoped to accomplish. As a result, I wasn’t finding much joy or satisfaction in my life, which ended up eroding my relationships with those closest to me.
There wasn’t any specific breakdown or chaos, it was more like the feeling of getting a cold. I could almost sense something was coming and rather than wait for a big event to happen, I fortunately reached out to grab some help.
Q: How has this journey impacted your family and other relationships?
A. The biggest impact coaching has made is adding intentional conversation between my wife and I. It’s easy to get lost in bringing up kids and providing for the family while you and your spouse continue to change and grow, and often that growth isn’t simple to recognize.
In taking a look specifically into my own life and roadmap, there is a natural result to share this with my wife and kids. Now, my wife has a better understanding around what is bothering me and a glimpse into what I hope is created in the future.
Like most moms, my wife spends a good amount of her time paying attention to others. Having good conversations is allowing us to see where our identity as parents will change and shift, leaving us with a gap. This is changing the focus on how to prepare our family for the inevitable shift.
For the kids, it adds intention and opportunity to succeed without our help. For us, this means making some plans without them and deciding how and what to prepare for the next season of our life together.
This is really important to me. I think if things were left as they were, there could have been a potential abruptness when these significant life changes happened.
Q. How has this journey impacted your faith?
A. One of the biggest benefits of Halftime is the focus on faith. It really sets the experience apart. I don’t remember the last time I was prayed over prior to beginning the coaching journey. The attention to faith as being part of the journey created a shift and allowed a newness in my relationship with God that I hadn’t recognized as stale.
One of the first conversations I had with my Coach was around the success to significance nature of Halftime. What he added to this was the element of submission — or, surrender — to God. I think this was and is the underlying factor in experiencing peace and joy with where and how I invest resources. Much of what I was working from included my own plans and had little regard to what God had in mind.
I was relying on my intents to create success, and it wasn’t bringing about the results I thought it would.
Q. What practical rhythms have helped you make this shift toward surrender?
A. Faith brings a whole other dimension to finding and making the right changes. It has been a struggle to stop relying so heavily on my ways, which is really a lack of trust in the goodness of God.
The conflict became apparent: Either it was up to me or God had a plan that was good. I had to come to a conclusion that I couldn’t hold both statements to be true.
In hindsight, I was adding my own spin on God’s kingdom, attempting to fix something that was already good. My Coach shared a few resources to help me learn and challenge this thinking. Each book or task helped me open my grip and discover a new approach.
I’ve since reorganized my mornings to prioritize what is important and prepare for the day by paying attention to who God is and what He is doing before rushing into tasks. What I am noticing is that my demeanor and level of joy are being greatly affected with the new practice.
Q. What road bumps have you encountered? How are you overcoming obstacles?
A. Perhaps the biggest road bump is being honest with myself about how I am doing. It’s not the most enjoyable process to question what is working, uncovering gaps or deficiencies.
As a coach myself, I certainly know the idea of observing one’s life is part of the process that yields transformation. There is an element of success that can be hidden behind, causing us to build an identity from what has been accomplished in the past.
It is uncomfortable, albeit rewarding, to dig into what you build your life on to examine the foundation. Having a coach that cares about my long-term results has been helpful to venture into “other” perspectives of seeing my life. These are adding up to build a more complete vision for fulfillment.
Q. What have been your biggest “aha moments” thus far?
A. Results come about without my effort. This isn’t to say that I don’t need to work hard or bring wisdom into practice. It means that my effort is not a direct correlation to what I receive in life.
Marriage is a perfect example for me. What I have gained from being married far outweighs the cost. This impacts my outlook as I am finding that stopping to look around is ok. I don’t always have to produce results. Rest and fun are pieces that should be a part of my life now, not only when the job is done.
It also means that if I am not attentive, even the best plans drift to begin producing results that aren’t in line with what is important. I think this drift is what I was experiencing and the hardest to detect when you are looking ahead to what is next.
Without taking the time to compare and adjust where you are with where you want to be, it makes sense that you’ll find yourself off course in the future.
Q. What advice would you give to someone who is just getting started on the journey?
A. It’s inconvenient to stop and ask for directions. It seems like because there is some success that can be recognized, it means I am doing well and on the best course.
I’ve been learning that spending the time to evaluate my life with someone who is skilled and focused on helping create success and significance is invaluable. There are blind spots that friends and even spouses don’t recognize because they have their own priorities and focus.
The first piece of advice would be to find the right person to walk alongside you and share what they see.
The second would be to take the passenger’s seat for a moment. I can see now where I was always reaching for the steering wheel of my life and as a result, driving the same way down the same roads that ended up limiting what was possible.
Lastly, be patient. There is an internal pressure to solve problems as soon as possible. What has occurred to me is that coaching is less about crossing a finish line and more about running a better race.
Does the feeling of ‘drifting along on autopilot’ that Jacob mentioned resonate? If so, we would love to be a resource for you. Know that our community is here to help you get clear, get free, and get going.
Getting connected with a group of like-minded peers and a Halftime Certified™ Coach to create a custom, holistic plan for the days ahead could be a great next step. How could our fellowship of friends best come alongside you?
ABOUT OUR FEATURED ALUM, JACOB COLDWELL:
Jacob Coldwell is a certified life coach, author, husband and father. He leverages the 13+ years as a business owner to guide leaders, small business owners, and entrepreneurs to overcome obstacles and focus on what matters.
To learn more about Jacob and his book, Before You Begin, visit themountainpassway.com. Jacob welcomes you to connect with him directly!
Credits:
Heart Journey excerpt from Unlimited Partnership, Igniting a Marketplace Leader’s Journey to Significance by Lloyd Reeb and Bill Wellons
Head icons created by Freepik – Flaticon Heart icons created by Freepik – Flaticon
Mountain Landscape Photo by Clémence Bergougnoux on Unsplash
Bonnie grew up in Carrollton, TX and is a proud member of the fightin’ Texas Aggie class of 2018 (Whoop!). She returned to the DFW area upon graduating from Texas A&M University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Sciences and minor in Business Administration.
Bonnie began her career working in a retail marketing capacity for a local beauty brand. Having benefited first-hand from a Christian leadership development program, she was excited to discover the ministry of Halftime and joined the team in July 2019. She enjoys spending time with friends, pursuing creative outlets, and is currently a student at Dallas Theological Seminary in the Media Arts and Worship program.
A foundational verse in Bonnie’s life is Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”
