MANSFIELD – On Monday evening, Kristoffer Carter, executive coach and author of “’Permission To Glow: A Spiritual Guide to Epic Leadership,” stopped in Mansfield as a part of the first leg of his fall book tour in order to promote his book and inspire local leaders to “glow up.”
Idea Works, Mind Body Align Mindful Education and Source Brand Solutions sponsored the event, which took place at IdeaWorks located on 40 W. 4th St.
Carter, founder of the company Epic Life and a meditation teacher, is fondly known as “KC” by the Mind Body Align staff and others. He began the night with an anecdote as to why he chose Mansfield to kick off his tour.
He said his beloved grandfather, who he also considered his hero, raised six children including Carter’s mom in Long Island, NY and would take them to ride the horses at a carousel business on Friday nights. After years of wear and tear, one of their favorite horses named Rosebud, who had been a part of their tradition, had fallen into disarray and needed to be repaired.
Coincidentally, the horse was sent to Mansfield to be repaired.
Carter further explained that his aunt drove from Long Island to Mansfield to oversee the refurbishing of the horse. The horse was later shipped back to Long Island. Presently, approximately four generations of his family including his children have now ridden the horse.
It is memories like these, other connections to family history and other reasons that Mansfield was behind the choice for Carter to start his tour in the city that has also become quite known for its carousel park. He will continue on to multiple cities on the east coast as the tour progresses.
It was also his desire to not have his hometown of Akron or Mansfield perceived as a forgotten post-industrial wasteland or rust buckets. He wanted to show that the cities had more to offer than their past.
“I love Mansfield for a lot of reasons, one of the reasons is that I live in Akron, Ohio and I consider Mansfield to be kind of the scrappy brother to Akron, Ohio. I don’t know if they’re sister cities, but it seems like Akron’s scrappy brother,” Carter said.
Carter continued that a lot of his clients, clients all over the world, have said, “You live in Akron and I don’t like that talk too much,” he added. “I say I thrive in Akron when they imply that this part of the world is some type of industrial rust belt.”
Carter said there is so much more to come for Akron and Mansfield.
“Thanks for being safe, thanks for your interest in this topic, it’s truly an honor to be here,” he said, acknowledging the community coming together to support events like his. The partnership and the community that has been built between Mind Body Align, Source Brand Solutions and Idea Works during the global pandemic inspired him as well.
Carter enjoys coaching and inspiring people to live out their dreams. While being interviewed by Jennifer Blue, director of operations of Mind Body Align and host of the event, he explained that it had taken him six months to deliver the book he had dreamed about writing for 20 years. He also had the help of a coach.
Carter further shared with Blue that writing a book has been humbling for him and he has learned that you better love what you are writing about or you won’t see it all the way through. He joked that the first draft was like working with a slab of granite.
During the two-hour presentation, Carter also read excerpts from his new book and explained the saboteurs—or “frenemies” as he referred to them last night—that can arrest, halt or kill dreams.
“All of us have some big ‘honkin’ dreams,” Carter said. “Some idea that we are here for something bigger than ourselves, but on our way to creating this big honkin dream these are the saboteurs inside that tell us we can’t have the big honkin dream.”
“We usually have to confront one of four of these characters that get in our way, these are the saboteurs inside of us that tell us that we can’t have this big honkin dream.”
Carter discussed the “four saboteurs” — the speedy rabbit, the game face, the phantom pest and the dark-star. In “Permission to Glow,” he talks about them in length and how the four permissions are activated.
“They are timeless, they are proven and they are rooted in ancient yogic science,” Carter said.
Renda Cline, who was made aware of the event by Blue, and took a picture with Carter at the end, said she thought the presentation was interesting. One of her takeaways was about being one’s authentic, spiritual self. Carter’s insights and teaching about frenemies also left her with some additional takeaways about frenemy types.
Blue, who wore several hats throughout the process, and interviewed Carter for most of the evening, also had several takeaways when catching up with Cline. She thought about her past leadership style and when she first began her leadership roles, how her style had been much different and noted that in the early years she emulated male leadership.
Coaching with Carter and his messaging has helped her reflect on those years and how much her style has changed over time.
