Creating Long-Term Change with Diana Renee Taylor

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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(00:21):
my entrepreneurs and business leaders, andwelcome to the Michael Esposito Show,
where I interview titans of industry inorder to inform, educate, and inspire
you to be great. When avolcano erupts, volcanic glass forms when the
viscous lava extruded from the volcano coolsrapidly. This glass is an igneous rock

(00:42):
and is named Obsidian. Much likethat lava, My guest today helps her
clients shape their lives into the rockof their dreams. She helps them learn
the skills, mindsets, and behaviorsneeded to perform at their peak, helping
them understand who they are, whothey are meant to be, and how

(01:03):
to become it. She is theCEO of Obsidian Transformation Strategies. Please welcome
Diana Taylor. Welcome. Hello,I thank you. That was a beautiful
intro. Oh you're welcome. Isaw you smile. When when I got
to the Igneous Rock part, Iknew where you were going. I was
like, Oh, wow, that'stoo awesome that he did that. So

(01:27):
it was interesting to me for somereason the name. I was like,
what does that name mean? Andso when I googled it, I found
that and I thought, well,you know, with what you do with
people, it's kind of similar.So I am interested in since we're on
that topic, in the name ofyour business and finding that that term,
I think that it's so interesting thatyou started with that description because it's actually

(01:53):
what I did when I was lookingfor the name of my business. So
I'm a self proclaim. I liketo call myself like a modern hippie,
So I'm into crystal stone things ofthat nature. And when I thought about
like what I wanted to offer tothe world and what my impact was going
to be, the name and thestone of city and really really stood out

(02:16):
for me. It's considered like atruth enhancing stone, and I'm really all
about making sure that people discover thetruth of themselves. And I thought it
was just such a great way tokind of link the tube, and that's
what I did. I need toget myself an obsidian stone. Yeah,

(02:37):
it's supposed to bring you like clarityand clear your confusion and really bring the
truth of who you are. Ithelps you understand who you truly are.
And it was just a perfect matchfor me. So it is. And
they're beautiful stones. The pictures onGoogle that I saw, they're really really
pretty. Yes, So taking astep back from all of that, because

(02:59):
it took a journey, you know, I mean to make the relationship to
the volcano, just like it takesa long time for that volcano to erupt
and for that lava to flow andcool and turn into that beautiful stone.
You share a similar journey in thatyou were like a sleeping volcano. You
spent a lot of time reading andgrew up in the Midwest, and so

(03:22):
I'm very interested in that. Youmentioned that books were your escape, and
I'm very interested in how you gotturned onto reading and what you were escaping
from. Yeah, so it's Ilove books. I still to this day,
I'm a huge book reader. Ivery rarely watched television just because books

(03:43):
I just like to be able toget into that world and that mindset.
But I didn't actually have a reallyhappy childhood. I had there was a
lot of abuse. There was alot of a neglect, and part of
that meant that I needed and escapea lot of the time. And my
mother's funny enough, she actually wasa book reader, and she loved romance

(04:04):
books, and so all throughout thehouse there would be romance books. And
I enjoyed reading from a child,so I'm I'm reading the cereal box,
I'm reading the newspapers or whatever comesin the mail. But eventually it wasn't
enough, and I started reading herromance books. I smuck them because I
wasn't old enough to be reading themat the time, and lucky they were

(04:28):
much more PG than they are today, so that my mom read they weren't
that traumatizing. But starting to getinto books, I started learning just basic
things. I started learning geography becausethey'd write about different countries that they visit
or places that they'd go. Istarted learning other words, so my vocabulary

(04:51):
grew, and then I started thinking, oh, well, there's other types
of books. I can read them, just romance books, and so I
just started did loving the library.And while I had a bad home life,
one thing that was never taken awayfrom us was our ability for school
and schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Sowhen I say I've joined everything and I

(05:14):
sat at the library as much asI could, I was always doing whatever
I could to be out of thehousehold, and being into books helped me
be out of the household as muchas possible. And then you dabbled from
you went from the romance novels toself development. Self development is something that
not everybody's drawn to, right becauseentertainment and history, I would think,

(05:38):
are probably the biggest categories or entertainmentin history. In the library. The
self development section is growing today,but it is not always highlighted. But
you were drawn to it. Whatdrew you there? I was, you
know what? I think the biggestthing was that the idea that you could

(06:00):
make yourself better, just the ideathat was something that really captured my attention
because in my fam I have ahuge family, but everybody stays in the
same circumstances. There's not been alot of growth or change within the family,
and I didn't know that there wasan option to do something more So
when I started and I've actually learnedabout self development from a romance book,

(06:27):
and so when I actually started lookingat romance books. I'm start at self
development books. I realized that,wow, I have the opportunity to become
more or to expand myself or myenvironment. And I didn't need those words
when I was ten and eleven,but that was the concept that really drew
me into reading self development. Sothrough middle school and high school, I

(06:50):
just kept trying to find ways howcan I be better? How can I
do something better? And it wasn'tschool works that I got into. It
was the self development books that Igot into. School work was easy.
It was the extra stuff that Iwanted to work on. How not to
think the same way, how notto get upset as quickly, how not
to you know, fall deep intoOh this is a traumatic experience and I'm

(07:14):
just going to sink into it.It really helped me escape all of that
and just know that there was somethingmore for me out there in the world.
M Yeah, it's very interesting.There's a couple of things here that
are interesting to me. One,typically on my show, when when I'm
speaking with with a leader like yourself, we're talking about family history, and
we're talking about mentors and people thatthey may have learned from or be inspired

(07:38):
by, and for you you wereinspired by, I suppose the opposite of
like I don't, I'm inspired tonot be what I'm seeing around, Yes,
which is a very interesting take fora young girl to have. And
then the other thing that I'd loveto hear you expand on a little bit
is what self development books or peoplewere you following as a middle school or

(08:03):
such a young child, because Ican't imagine knowing of any when I was
in middle school. So it's funnybecause I didn't necessarily know of anyone to
be like, oh, I'm goingto look this person up. It always
was just as a curved road thatled me from one place to another,

(08:24):
and I would just find people atthat different time. So what you said
was so spot on though about myinspiration was to not be like everyone else
because I I saw what the outcomewas and I just didn't want that life
for myself. In some ways,in some ways that hurt me and in

(08:46):
some ways that helped me. Butoverall, I feel very positive about the
fact that that happened. But whenI started reading, I was reading again,
I was reading a romance book andthey talked about they talked about their
self help in the book and whatthey were doing to like become a better
person, and how they were notdating, and they were reading self help

(09:09):
books and they named some some peopleand so they named like Wayne Dyer and
they named like Bob Proctor, andso I was like, oh, who
are those people? So then Iwould go to the library because I'm still
I look younger, but I'm definitelydoing best in the symbol time, you
know. So I'd go to thelibrary and I would find out like,

(09:33):
you know, stuffing from these people. And thence once my librarian started noticing
I was interested, and she waslike, told me about other books,
and so it just became this compoundeffect of me getting kind of spread around
to different people and their different thoughtprocesses. I did read some like autobiographies,
because there would be people like anOprah or someone that you'd want to

(09:56):
learn from and see how they changedtheir lives life and what they did,
and it just it just has suchan impact on me that I didn't even
realize until I got older that oh, this was what I was supposed to
be doing this whole time. Itfound me so m yeah, and that's
what's so cool about self help booksor even just that that industry as a

(10:18):
whole, and podcast or videos YouTubethe whole industry as a whole. And
in the self help industry, I'lli'll air quote it in that they all
reference each other. Everybody references eachother, and it's like it is a
community. Everybody learns from each other, and um, you know, everybody
kind of gives credit too. It'slike, you know, Tony Robbins gives

(10:41):
credit to Jim Roan and all thesedifferent they all kind of followed the same
and I always kind of reference backto I follow the Daily Stoic, to
the Stoics, and then they dothe same thing there of Marcus Aurelius and
all the same and they so it'slike, what's what I love about what's
in these books, the Wayne Dyersand the Bob Proctors and the Tony Robbins
is that they all have different styles, but they're all kind of giving the

(11:03):
same message. And what's nice aboutthat is it feels like there's a truth
to it, right that if it'sbeen going on for hundreds thousands of years,
if you know, different civilizations havetalked about some of the principles that
they talk about in their books andin their writings and in their speeches.
Then there's got to be truth toit and there's something to believe in,

(11:24):
and you do that in your workand you bring that out in people.
I'm interested in the impact that Oprahplayed in your life as a young black
female, right, and as youmentioned having some trauma in your childhood,
I'm sure that there was a lotof correlations with you and Oprah, so
you brought her up and her autobiography. I'm interested in how that impacted you.

(11:48):
Yeah. I think that you seethe slogans and there's memes about representation
matters, but it's really true becauseeven in the self health industry when I
first started reading about it, Ididn't see a lot of me. I
didn't see a lot of young Blackfemales or even a lot of women.
It was very male driven for selfhelp for quite a long time. I'm

(12:13):
very happy it's starting to kind ofmix up and change and become more diverse,
but it was very heavily driven bymen. And so Oprah, even
though she was building her life andbuilding her brand with her show and everything,
still when I was growing up,she still started having these concepts of
just like a higher consciousness, beingmore self aware, developing herself to become

(12:35):
better, learning from others, understandingcommunication and the importance of it, and
so all of those aspects of thethings that she was doing. It really
appealed to me because and I knowthat you do a lot with communication.
Communication is like the heart of everythingright and relationships and you have to communicate
to have a great one. Sojust seeing her and seeing the power that

(13:00):
she had, seeing her perseverance eventhrough all the trauma that she had,
it's good to know that someone's beenin similar shoes and that they are moving
forward because it gives you the hopethat you can do the same. M
Yeah, I've read autobiographies, Ihave not read hers. The ones that
I typically read have to do withbusiness. The one for me that stands

(13:22):
out it's like Richard Branson's autobiography,and I relate to what you're saying in
that. You know, he talksabout family and business and bringing the two
together and to your point, andI'm like, if Richard Branson can do
it, and he's got like fiftycompanies, then I could find a way.
And I think of the line thatso many people talk about is that
like, look, Richard Branson orpeople talk. The quote is more of

(13:45):
Warren Buffett has the same amount ofhours in the day than I did,
right, And so you know,if they can do it, then we
can do it. So it doesfeel good to hear that. The other
cool thing that I like that youbrought up is that you found self help
through romance novels. I like thatbecause I think that so often we're driven

(14:07):
and we work so hard, andwe're we have this this idea that life
is nothing but work and we mustwork really really hard, and to when
we take the time off to enjoyourselves, that's almost kind of looked in
a negative light. And you know, Grant Cardone is one of those will
put up there as a workaholic whowill be like, I will not waste

(14:30):
a moment of my time, butso much good can come out of entertainment
too, right, you know.Yes, And even Grant Cardone, who's
definitely a self proclaimed workaholic, alsospeaks about how important it is for him
to spend time with his family,for him to have video game day with
his brother, for him to dodifferent things, because it helps him ensure

(14:54):
that he can be successful in theother areas of his life. We're taught
a lot that it's a work andthat's the only thing that we can focus
on. But we're human beings andwe have all these different aspects of ourselves,
and if we don't address all ofthem, then we're going to fall
short somewhere. And I think thatromance and as to this day, I

(15:15):
still do have a love of romancenovels because I just never grew out of
that. But romance novels for meare still my escape. And then I
I still learn from them and Ibring that joy or that entertainment my engagement
to my work. I bring thatto the people that I interact with instead
of it just being it's only work. It's only business. You can't talk

(15:37):
to me about anything else. I'mnot that serious. I like to make
serious money, but I'm not thatserious of the person. So I think
that, yeah, I need theentertainment in my life. Yeah, And
it's all intertwined, and we canlearn so much from entertainment. I mean,
we just look at podcasts. Imean the way that I got into
podcasting was through entertainment, through selfdevelopment, and I got into it and

(15:58):
so many other things. So Ithink about when when you just had video
games, and I'm like, youknow, when you think about the founders
of Twitch, um, you knowthey were playing video games and they're they're
billionaires now, Um, you knowthey do business. That's that's how a
lot of it happens. And soso speaking about kind of like extracurricular activities
and turning them into a business,you were kind of like the self proclaimed

(16:22):
advisor for all of your friends.Um, so growing up you took this
advisor role. Um, could youshare with us what that was like?
What was what was the circle offriends? And it's so funny because I'm
the only person when I was growingup that was into self help, right,

(16:42):
so of all my friends, nobody'sreading self help books. Everybody's just
you know, doing their thing.But I knew that I didn't want to
stay in my circumstances, and soI was always reading. I was always
wanting to learn something about something Iwanted. I was always curious so that
I could think you're out of myway out, And so they knew that

(17:03):
I was doing that, and whenthey would have an issue, my response
would be this way, or maybeI'm not. I don't get upset as
easily just different things they would noticeabout me, so they start asking me
for advice. And it was neverfurious until I got older, Like then
when I was in middle school inhigh school, and be like, if
you think he likes me, butwhat if he says this to this person.

(17:25):
And so it would be conversations likethat. But as I got older
and I started like working and beingmore in the corporate environment than people would
ask me more about their career choicesor what they might want to do,
or if they wanted to start abusiness, or if they should leave or
if they should move, or differentthings. And I was just that person,
and I enjoyed the role and itjust became what I was known for.

(17:48):
They're like, oh, And itwas always a joke. My mom,
she joked about it, Oh,you should be a psychiatrist, because
all my friends would come to mewith all their problems. My friends would
be like, oh, no,my therapist, Diana. My therapist Diana.
That's the title that they would puton my name, way before I
did anything around coaching or helping peoplethat way. You know, there's a
major distinction between being a therapist andbeing a coach. I'm interested if you

(18:14):
could share that with our audience.Yeah, I think it's I think it's
probably one of the biggest confusions.I always say the easiest way for me
to help people think about it isyour therapist helps you figure out what in
the past made you who you are, and your coach helps you figure out

(18:36):
who you are so that you canmove towards your future. And because of
that, there's that little crossover onlike who you are and where that comes
from. But that's the way thatI like to describe it, because you're
going to focus a lot on whathappened, what happened when, why did
this happen, what did you thinkwhen it happened with your therapist? And

(18:56):
I think that that's really important work. And I think that people do need
to make sure that they take thetime to kind of deal with anything that
might have come up, any traumasthat they may or may not know that
they have. But when you're readyto move forward, when you're when you're
done kind of just understanding what gotyou to where you are today and you
want to go to your next level, that's when you decide you want to

(19:18):
find a coach, whether it's ina sport, whether it's in your business,
whether it's in your life. That'swhen you decide you want to coach.
It is because you want to moveforward and you want to go to
your next step or your next level. Yeah, and that's a really I
love the analogy. It's it's verygood. I mean it's not even analogy,
but it's really very clear as tohow one can help the other,
but also and how you can useboth at the same time, which is

(19:40):
very helpful. So you were kindof so you moved on from like the
advisor or with your friends, andyou go into corporate America and you kind
of got also the same name.So before you you know, before we
get into your story of your coachingbusiness, which you know came out of
working in corporate America and then decidingto with your job, you were working

(20:02):
in corporate America and you kind ofwere tagged with that. What was that
experience experience like and maybe how wasit different from the experience now as an
entrepreneur and having your own coaching business. Yeah, so in corporate America,
of course you have your own rolesand so a lot of the times when
I was doing coaching, it wascoming from more of a mentoring standpoint,

(20:23):
people would want to ask advice fortheir career, getting a promotion, doing
well in their current role, thingsof that nature, not being burnt out
or getting rid of the feelings ofbeing burnt out. That would be a
lot in my corporate role. Andso in corporate America, and just I've
always I've never been one of thepeople. I laughed because I don't know

(20:45):
if it's a good thing or abad thing. But I was never one
of the kids that actually had theirfirst job and they were like a waitress
or anything like I was. WhenI was seventeen, My first job was
the Census Bureau, and so itwas it's always been I perked up,
it really want and then I usedto work for that R so that like,
so I always had these kind ofjobs in a very corporate environment since

(21:10):
since I was a teenager. It'salways been that way. And so had
I learned in a way that alot of my friends didn't get to because
they did spent a lot of theirtime in retail or in you know,
the restaurant business. So when theygot to corporate America, they didn't understand
the dynamic or the power place.And so people would come to me for

(21:30):
advice for that because I had beenaround it a little bit longer. And
so then I started having supervisory rolesand so now I'm helping people become better
employees. And very very early on, the thing that was a friction between
me and corporate America was that everybodywas forced to fit into these molds,

(21:52):
whatever the mold that business wanted youto be in to be their ideal employee,
you all had to fit into thismold. And I don't know if
it's because I'm a Leo or what, but I just reveled against that.
I was just like, I don'twhy can't I just be me? Like
why do I have to be thisperson? Why do I have to act
like this? Like why can't Ijust be me? And so authenticity became

(22:14):
like a really big passion for me. So in corporate America, if I'm
on a panel or people ask meto speak at an event, I'm very
much speaking about authenticity, probably toI'm sure my senior leaders didn't love the
fact that I was thinking, youhave to be you, you have to
be true to yourself, you haveto understand who you are. And maybe
this isn't the best place for you. Maybe you find out this you need

(22:37):
to be somewhere else. I'm surethat message wasn't well received by my senior
leaders, but it was very wellreceived by the people listening. And so
I ended up mentoring more and coachingmore, and I'd have this huge calendar
time where I'm working like twelve hourdays because I was spending time mentoring people
in addition to my regular work.And that's kind of that's kind of what

(23:00):
got me into coaching. I waslike, I'm doing this, but am
I doing it right? Am Ireally helping these people the way that I
should be helping them? Is itmaking an impact that it needs to make?
And best? I decided, like, you know, let me get
my coaching certification. Let me learnlike a true framework on coaching someone and
moving them to their next level.And I still stayed in corporate America once

(23:21):
I did that, but I justwanted to make sure I was doing it
the right way so that I wasactually helping people. And that's kind of
where the start of the coaching camefrom. Um so was in corporate America?
Was your role to coach and train? And know what? What was
the job I worked I used towork for a very very large company and

(23:45):
they had like multiple departments, liketen thousand plus employee, so tons of
departments. I moved around in theso I can't say I had a specific
job title, but um change managementwas a huge one for me. Project
management. I was a business andI did premium servicing. So I had
a lot of different roles, andin each role, i'd have like a
team. Maybe I worked for ourfinancially, it was a financial company,

(24:10):
so credit cards. So if youwere I'm trying to speak without speaking too
much, and it's very funny,so I'm just going to say it,
but if you had like a creditcard with a Goldman Facts or Morgan's Family
right, or a co branded cardwith you know, an airline or something,
then I would manage the partnerships ormy team would manage the partnerships or

(24:33):
relationships between those companies and our company. So I had I had a lot
of different roles. A lot ofit touched people though, as the heart
of every role that I had.That impact to the people was something that
was always a KPI for me.So how did it impact, what was
the result, what was the engagementlevel? You know, did it have
any detriment to their talk time orthere, this or there that. Anything

(24:59):
that I did was all tied topeople. And because of that, people
were very important to me, andmaking sure that they were seeing as people
was very important to me. Andthat's why I always enjoyed the mentorship aspect,
to make sure people were enjoying whatthey were doing and why so you
took it upon yourself to do thementoring and the coaching. So that's the

(25:21):
kind of the culture that you builtwithin your teams. Then so one team
don't look like the other, thenone team did not look like the other,
and the leaders did not look likethe leaders. Even in my last
role before I left Corporate America,one of my peers on the team very
admittedly said that she hates having oneto ones with her people because she doesn't

(25:44):
feel like she needs to talk tothem that often. That was just like
her perspective, and I was like, what, I just thought, it
was just so strange because some peoplebecome leaders because they got promoted into a
role, not because that's their naturalability, And they don't know how to
interact or deal with people. Andso I would volunteer to us I'll deal

(26:07):
a one to one with your person. I'll talk to your person and work
with them. Wow, yeah,it's it's certainly different. Especially what's interesting
to me about that what you justsaid there too about promoting to management is
like it's so odd because it happensso often. But like, when you're
promoted to management, your role,your job is to manage people, and

(26:29):
so to me, it only makessense that we would learn how to work
and engage and motivate and listen topeople. But it so often doesn't happen.
It's usually the top producer or whateverit is. And you know,
yeah, that's just the way somesome businesses are run. And we'll leave
that there. What I'm more interestedin because we can't solve those problems today.

(26:52):
What I'm more interested in is goingto be odd for you. But
why did you decide to go workat the Census the Irs? Like in
your youth? Like I mean,my first job was like a lifeguard,
So it wasn't my first job,it was my it was technically my third.
My very very first job was McDonald's. Okay, like a lot of

(27:17):
people, so fifteen McDonald's. ButI couldn't work all the time because I
was fifteen sixteen, I worked atan amusement park, but it was seasonal
because I'm from the Midwest, anamusement park aren't open all the time.
But seventeen that was the Census Bureau, and I I just was I was
good at it. I don't knowhow to explain that, Like I always

(27:40):
but how did you find a jobat the Census Bureau? They were recruiting
seventeen year olds. So listen,my life story is so like convoluted.
You're going to be like, oh, what, oh, what at that?
Acting to this? So when Iwas when I was sixteen, I
dropped out of high school because ofmy home life. I ended up meat
and to work full time so thatI could take care of my sister because

(28:03):
we didn't have the family helping totake care of us. And that's why,
well technically I was fifteen when Idecided to drop out, but I
was sixteen when I officially did it, and so I knew that I was
a nerd in school. I wasalways like top of my class in school,
and I was the biggest regret forme dropping out because my dream was

(28:25):
to go away to college somewhere,Like I just wanted to go far away
and go to college and out.I was a straight A student. I
was a great test taker, LikeI knew I was going to be able
to do it. But I hadto drop out because my sister and I
couldn't take care of the households,like the house we were living in.
My mother at the time had Sectioneight, but she left us, and
so we're in the house by ourself, and the bills aren't being paid,

(28:47):
the lights and things are being shutoff, it's winter time and gas.
It was just a hot mess.I was like, Okay, I gotta
work. So I got to dropout of school because I don't make enough
money work in part time at McDonald's. And so I decided to go to
job corps. And I don't knowif you've ever heard of job corps,
but okay, so I decided togo to job course. I could get

(29:07):
a GB really quickly so that Ican actually then work full time. That
was my goal. That was allI was trying to do at this job
Core. The program they had mein was the business program, And because
I was a nerd, I testedout of my GB and my and actually
high school. They let me testout for credits in like a month,

(29:29):
but you have to be there aminimum amount of time. You have to
be either like six or eight monthsor something before they can say you can
leave the program. So I kindof was just sitting there and they found
me the job at the Census Bureau. So the Job Corps actually got me
the job at the Census Bureau.And there would be a van that would
pick me up every day from JobCorps, take me to work, bring

(29:49):
me back, and that was justmy life. For a few months.
I had my sister living with someone. Any money I got from Census Bureau
in Job Corp, I gave tothe people taking care of my sister until
I got out. And when Igot out, and then she came back
and we were back together, andI was working and making sure she finished
high school because she's my younger sister, and making sure she finish high school

(30:10):
and did everything that she had todo. But job Core that's that's why
I got to the systems grow.And then once you work in a government's
job, it's easy to get thenext one. So when the IRS was
hiring, I was like, oh, you know, I'll go apply for
the IRS. And I'm from KansasCity, So we've got like the Federal
Reserve and the IRS and the CISTUSSpear all of those government building guards there,

(30:30):
so it was just easy to kindof move around. That is an
incredible story. So you essentially tookcare of your sister during your teen years.
What you know, we talked aboutit earlier in terms of like you
being inspired to not be or Iguess continuing the cycle around you, right,
and we can. We we've talkedabout the romance novels and the self

(30:55):
help books helping you kind of breakbreak through that. But to me,
there's there's something about some personal likemindset that you had. What do you
think kind of inspired that personal mindsetinside of you? Like, what was
that fire inside of you that thatwouldn't let your circumstances dictate your future?

(31:18):
Honestly, I think that once Iwas exposed to the fact that this didn't
have to be my future, Iwas convinced that it would not be.
That there was no way that thiswas going to be my future because I
know it doesn't have to be.And so once I knew that if I
it's actually really funny, once Ilearned that that was it that was it
for me. I knew that Icould be better. I knew that I

(31:41):
could do better. I've always knownthis is always I always balanced my conceited
and my humble, but I alwaysmore smart. Um. I always knew
that. And so I'm like,if I'm smart, then I can go
do this, and I can dothat, and I can do anything I
want. So this does not haveto be where I stay. And once
I learned it, that was it. I love that. And your sister

(32:04):
went off to finish high school andyou were able to support her through that,
and she was valedictorian and I wasvery proud of her, and she
did a speech that I was herrole model. But it was very emotional.
We had very emotional childhood. We'revery close still to this day and
we're not that far apart in age. But I just wanted to make sure
that she We're not the thing.I'm the middle child and she was the

(32:28):
baby, and so a lot ofit. She took a lot harder.
She didn't enjoy school, she didn'tlike doing things. She was very much
she was. She was a rebelchild. She was a wild child.
So I felt like I had totake that responsibility to make sure that she
could make it out of the circumstancesas well, and I knew that I

(32:49):
could bounce back from it. Iknew that I could. Okay, I'm
dropping out, but I'm going toget my g D. And then on
the of the college, like Ihad a plan in my head whereas I
knew if something had to happen toher she had to drop out, she
might not Ever, you recover fromit, and so I knew as I
could, and so I did.Um a Earl Nightingale talks about you know,

(33:09):
any any plan can can happen ifit's backed by determination, and it
sounds like you just had that determination. I also love how you just believed
in yourself and believed in this vision, and we're going to talk more about
that too in your coaching and whatyou do. What's interesting though about this
story too, is like going nowback to your corporate America days, and

(33:30):
right before you decide to open upyour coaching business, you started experiencing I'm
assuming similar feelings right where this thisunhappiness, this this feeling of like,
um, I can do better,I can achieve more. And you went
through um kind of like your gremlinsright, you had to re experience some

(33:52):
of this to be able to breakthrough all of that. Could you share
some of that with us? Yeah, And I'm very very open and transp
caring about like that time in mylife. So in corporate America, I
was always I was always a topperformers. As I moved into leadership roles,
I started struggling to continue to movecontinue to move up. And it's

(34:15):
it's interesting now because at the moment, while you're in it, you just
don't understand, like, what whatam I doing wrong? Where I need
to do better? Am I notgood enough? And corporate America very much
gives that environment of comparison and competition, so you always feel like because you're
ranked, you know, if you'renot number one, then you're not as
good. And because you're you know, there's only so much to go around.

(34:37):
You're taught a scarcity mindset because there'sonly so many roles and so many
emotions and so many you know,so much we could do for salary and
so much we can do for this. So if you start absorbing that unconsciously
and you don't realize it, andso as much as I was doing,
you know, personal development as muchas I was very, very heavy and

(34:59):
making sure people state authentic to whothey were, I was absorbing those mindsets
and around my I don't know ifit was like a perfect storm or what
might have happened, but twenty COVIDright, so we had I was in
a long term relationship my ex fianceand I called off our wedding a couple

(35:22):
of months before COVID happened. Andso now I'm alone throughout all of COVID.
And then I'm working my butt offbecause all of a sudden, diversity
and inclusion become very you know,popular, It's seen, it's visible.
So I'm volunteering to do a lotof diversity and inclusion work in my company,

(35:42):
in my center, and I'm justlike taking hits from so many different
areas and I don't recognize it.I'm just moving forward. I'm just going
about my day. I'm just movingforward. And then one day it just
all caught up with me. Itjust all caught up with me that for
years, I've known that I hada passion about helping people. I've known
that I've had a passion about coaching. I've known that, and I always

(36:06):
found an excuse within corporate America,because you get comfortable, it's secure,
it's a great job, you getgood benefits. They're the people. You
get used to seeing them all thetime. And it's scary to step out
on your own, and so Ialways made an excuse not to do it.
I always found an excuse not todo something on my own. So
when everything kind of built up onme, it just hit me, and

(36:28):
I say this today. I wentthrough a major depression and I ended up
having to take time off of work, everything just to kind of get back
to center. And I say thatit was my sole way of telling me
that this wasn't gonna work anymore,like you cannot do this anywhere. And
I wasn't listening before, but itmade sure that I listened now. And

(36:49):
so when I started getting back tomyself, I started thinking about, like,
well, what caused this and whatcaught therapy? See therapy is helpful.
What caused this? What happened here? Why did you do this?
What was going on? And wherewhere could this have come from? And
I start realizing that I just stoppedbeing aligned with making sure that I was
having an impact, making sure thatI was doing what I thought was like

(37:13):
purposeful work, making sure that Iwas helping like I wanted to help.
I wasn't doing that anymore because Istarted focusing on making sure I could grow
in the corporate world and move upthe corporate ladder and make more money,
which is always a positive. Butlike, there were just these things that
I just stopped focusing on about myselfand my internal self. And when it

(37:34):
hit me, it hit me,and I just came through. It was
like, you know what, thisis not what I'm supposed to be doing.
I need to do what I'm supposedto be doing. And so I
quit. Your core values in theline is what you're not at all?
You You didn't quit without a plan. I know that for sure. There's

(37:54):
something about you that doesn't that tellsme that you kind of had a plan
in mind. And so my questionis you mentioned that while you were in
Corporate America you were taking coaching courses. Do you care to mention any of
those coaching courses that you took.Yeah, I love my coaching certification.
I recommend it to everybody. ButI went to IPEC, which is the

(38:19):
Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching,and they were amazing, and I told
everybody. When I went through theprogram, it was and it was like
eleven or twelve thousand dollars at thetime. And when I went through the
program, I was like very muchlike, Okay, I want to do
this. I'm gonna get coaching clients, take my money back. But by
the time I got to the endof it, I said, if I

(38:40):
never coach a single person, thisentire program was worth it because of what
it did for me, Like ithelped you align so much about yourself and
understand how you see the world,how you see yourself, how you move
in it, how you move withyour energy, how you show up.
I can't sing. There is enoughof the program. And you also get

(39:02):
coached during the program. And sowhile I have been in corporate America,
we'd have you know, your leadersand people getting sessions that they don't really
know what they're doing all the time. So it was my first time getting
coached by somebody that was trained tobe a coach, and it was so
impactful and I was just like whoa, whoa, Okay, this is this

(39:23):
is it. This just made sucha difference. And I kind of had
a plan when I quit, becausebefore I left corporate America. Before any
of this happened, I have gottenmy certificate and I started coaching part time.
So I was already coaching people parttime very much life mindset prior to

(39:45):
all of this happening. But itwas I wish I could explain and expressed
with words that I just do nothave how impactful that program was to my
life. Not to me coaching,which I'm very grateful for because I really
love them methodology and the way thatthey kind of get to the heart of

(40:05):
you to coach you, but justto me in my life. There were
so many things that I became awareof about myself that I had no idea
was holding me back. So manythings, some of them is embarrassing.
I was like, what I wasdoing that? Like, you just don't
even realize? So, um,are you are you ready or are you
willing to share any of your galeswith us? Oh? You're scaring me?

(40:32):
How did you know this? Didyou look this up? Are you
an IPECH coach? I was whenI was doing my research on you and
went to your website. I startedreading a website and I went, ah,
she's Energy Leadership, She's IPECH trained. Um, yeah, so I
have two two for you, Iwas waiting to see when I could,
when I can get your eyes goingand your your mind going. I didn't

(40:58):
want to distract you too much.Uh my, my coach, My you're
you're. You were spot on inthat you said it earlier and that when
when you as a person are readyto move forward in your life is when
you step in as a coach,right And for me, that that's what
happened to me about two years ago. Was Um, I had a childhood,

(41:22):
a very blessed childhood. And Ithink every one of us, no
matter whether we were fortunate or unfortunate, have our own experiences. It's really
our perception, right, And soI had my issues as a kid with
my dad and whatever. And Imean we still we all love each other
and talk to each other all thetime now, um and and I hope
they listened to this podcast. Theyshould support me. I'm just kidding.
But you know, so I hadtherapists and all that stuff. So I

(41:45):
went through that. I was ableto unravel a lot of that. But
when I got into my corporate world, into the corporate world and into my
journey and everything, I started feelingthat that lack of authenticity that that misalignment,
and I was fortunate in that mynetworking sort goals, I met somebody
who was a coach and I didn'treally understand what she did, but we
had several meetings and then we kindof like formed, you know, kind

(42:07):
of like an acquaintance friendship kind ofthing, you know, from networking circles,
and so I'd ask her questions justlike people did with you, and
she became like my little adviser friend, and eventually I needed her help.
I knew that I was stuck.I was repeating the same mistakes over and
over again. So that's when Ihad a great financial opportunity by being hired

(42:30):
by a big insurance brokerage and Iwas able to afford her services and I
hired Merit, and so she becamemy coach. And so she's an IPECK
certified coach. And like I said, it's about two years ago. And
then more recently, when I openedup my insurance agency, I knew that
I wanted to bring what I hadbeen learning from her and from others into

(42:54):
my agency, and so very similarto what you were doing in Corporate America,
to do inside of my agency withmy team and be able to support
them the way that I'm supported.And so I ended up going through so
happy. It's such a powerful program, right Like I think that you know

(43:19):
the power of it. You've broughtit into your agency and decided to become
one yourself. So that's that's amazing, my gal. So the you're done
with your certification, and no,I'm not fully certified. I only I
actually just completed Module one last week, So I don't want to. I
don't know if I want to spoilthis for you, I'm not going to

(43:42):
spoil it, So I don't.I won't share the experience of me finding
out, my gal, because youknow I've done. I've done the Gremlin
experience with my coach. I've done. Yeah, We've gone through a lot
of good, good good. Soas part of as part of your Mod
three, you're going to go throughthe Gremlin experience with the class. And
when I tell you that, everylast one of us was boozoo crying,

(44:07):
like the entire room we were justin tears, broken down, and it
was a crazy amazing experience because younever think to dig into those things.
So at the time when I wentthrough IPECH, I believe that my GIL
was that I'm not smart enough.And the reason why I thought that was

(44:28):
my GAL is because I have avery big history of if I don't have
the knowledge of it, then Iwill not I don't feel comfortable doing it,
so I'd go get extra degrees andcertifications and all kinds of things to
make sure that I, like Icould offset this. And so at the
time, I was like, Okay, well, I guess my GAL is
helping me because I'm getting an extraeducation, but it's also hurting me because

(44:52):
I've put everything to the side,or I'll procrastinate, or I won't step
into doing something because I don't knowor I'm not sure where. A lot
of people find success when they justmake a decision and they act, and
so I was not acting and thatwas at the time what I thought.
So last year, I actually,when I got went through everything and I'm

(45:15):
at my bottom and I'm going throughdepression, I started redoing my IPECK coaching
for myself because I ended up Ialways keep a coach, but my coach
wasn't IPECK certified, so they weren'tnecessarily taking me through the same things that
I had learned or the the youknow, the process that I had gone
through for Core Energy, and soI started going through it again myself because

(45:37):
I got all my work books andall my everything. I started doing myself,
and I thought about my gremlin,and I realized that my gremlin was
that I'm not lovable, and itwas from a lot of the trauma from
growing up for you know, beingneglected or being abused or you know,
all these different things happening. Andso the extra schooling was not because I

(45:59):
didn't think I was smart, becauseI've always known when I was smart.
It's because I was trying to provemy value to other people and that way
they would love me. And soI'm getting emotional because it's still very much
a gremlin, and it's still verymuch a gremlin. But that's what I
realized. What's happening is that becauseI think that I'm not lovable, let

(46:20):
me do this so I can proveto people why I should be worthy of
their love or their respect or theircare or whatever the case might be.
And so that's my gremlins, myother ones, my gails, my assumptions,
my beliefs. The biggest limiting beliefthat I still fight with even within
my business today is that I don'tdeserve success and it ties to my gremlin,

(46:44):
which is I'm not lovable right becauseI'm not valuable to someone. I
don't deserve success in certain areas,and so I fight myself with unintentional self
sabotage. And the great thing Ilove about the IPECH program is it makes
you more conscious, so I cansee myself doing it like oh wait wait
wait, like and I can makea self correction. Um, it doesn't

(47:04):
I always tell people this, like, knowing and being self aware doesn't stop
things from happening. It makes youconscious of it so that you can decide
to do something different. And sothat's that's kind of where I'm at.
So that belief and that gale areprobably the two bigger ones that kind of
stood out and impacted me the most. Um and then the others I try
to like, wait is that true? Am I really? This is really

(47:27):
what they're thinking? Is this whatthey mean? So the assumptions and interpretations
very much easier for me to overcome, But the limiting belief and the gale,
I mean the gremlins hello, thoseare hard ones. Yeah, yeah,
so for for our audience, Soknow, Gails is the acronym for
gremlins, associate assumptions, interpretations,and limiting beliefs, which is what you

(47:50):
kind of just went went through there. Well, you did go through there,
And what what I'd love for youto just expand on for our audience
too, And this is like thework that you do is you know,
in what you were saying there,I was formulating a question of well,
then how did you overcome it?Right? But then you said something that
I think is even more important abouthow did you overcome it? But you

(48:12):
said about being self aware to consciouslymake a decision, And I'm interested if
you could share or expand on thatfor everyone. Yeah, I think that
it's funny because this is an ipetquote actually, but I probably won't say
it exactly correct. But like thebest freedom, or the biggest freedom that
we have is the freedom of choice. And we are at choice all the

(48:35):
time. So we get to choosehow we show up, what we do,
what we don't do, if weagree with something, if we don't,
if we choose to see something theway that we've always seen it,
or if we choose to see itin a different way, and that that
choice is what makes all the difference. But you can't be at choice if
you don't know what's going on,if you don't know why things are happening,
if you don't know why you're lookingat it this way, if you

(48:58):
don't understand, you know, thebeliefs behind whatever thoughts or actions that you're
taking. And so that's a bigportion of I help people with their businesses.
But we spend so much time onthe mind that it's amazing because that's
where our limits are. We weonly can excel as much as we believe
we can. And so when weif we don't uncover those beliefs or those

(49:22):
blocks that are kind of keeping usfrom wherever we're trying to go, then
we'll never get there, and we'llnever understand why will this be frustrated or
upset and not really truly have anunderstanding of what happened. And most of
the time it's us. It's internal. We are our biggest problem. Yeah,
And you know, I love thathow you articulated that, because so

(49:43):
often people say, you know,stop and think about it and stop and
pause. And while that's helpful,that's just step one, right, It's
like stop and pause, right,but now analyze the decision and why are
making the decision and why the why? Yeah, it's it's so helpful.
Was also really cool, UM.And I was so excited when I did

(50:06):
start when I was reading up aboutyou and checking everything out on your website,
and I was like, oh,I know she's ipeck certified, but
you didn't put the certification. Youdidn't put on your website. So I
was like hmm. But I waslike, now it's too much. And
then you're Bruce Schneider quote. Iwas like, yeah, that's it.
She's She's like, so what's funnyabout it? For me? I say
this quote all the time. It'sum, it's anonymous, it's a Chinese

(50:29):
proverb, it's it's a quote,but it's like the the student, the
teacher will appear when a student isready, and it applies to so many
things, and it's it's used inso many different ways. But like I
said, I just finished Module onelast week, and so I spoke with
my my advisor, my ipeck advisorrecently UM earlier this week, and we

(50:52):
were going over pricing and and itdid go up, just not significantly,
but a couple grand um. Andwe're going over at the different payment options,
and I was like, well,you know, I only signed up
for a Module one so I couldbring this awareness to my team, but
I did get so much out ofit, and I was like, and
I would love to go through thewhole certification process. So anyways, I

(51:14):
got off the phone with her andI was like, but I'm not sure
if I really want to go throughthe whole process and make this investment and
all this other stuff. And thenI'm preparing for our podcast and I'm reading
your bio and you're talking about howlike I would have paid double the amount
I would have done anything it was, even if I never coached a day

(51:37):
in my life, and you alsojust said it right here on the podcast
but you wrote it too, andI was like, huh man, I
don't know. This is this issome some powerful stuff right now happening.
It's it's so amazing. And MOBone is great. I actually took a
friend from from work to MOB onewith me and they took that back to

(52:00):
their team and they still are like, I think I want to go through
the Like they're still on the senseabout wanting to go through the program or
not, right, But MAD twoand three are the ones that are going
to give you all the tools thatyou get to bring back to people.
MAD one is very much an awareness, so you're you're learning, you're seeing
some basic techniques on how to coach, and I think it's it's great because

(52:22):
you now you know how to acknowledgepeople and to validate and you know,
you learn the basic, but twoand three are where you really get the
tools to kind of dig deep tothe core of whatever is going on so
that you can address it and helppeople move forward. And because it's all
practiced on you, because in theprogram, you're getting a coach the entire
time, and if your peer butthey're being coached and you're just you'll be

(52:45):
amazed at the insights that come outfor you, the choices that you make,
and then you can do this andto know you could do the same
for other people. It's it's incredibleAnd I'm just going to say I personally
would recommend it one hundred out often to anybody that's considering going through a

(53:09):
coaching certification. I genuinely, genuinelywould. It's so powerful and you already
have the where you're going to putit in place, but it's not going
to just impact your team. It'sgoing to impact your customers. It's going
to start impacting how you show up, it's going to start impacting all of
your other relationships. You're going tostart looking at so many things differently that

(53:31):
you're going to have a change inyour life and it's not going to be
able to help but spread to others. So think about the investment. Yeah,
it's funny gender it. You're rightbecause the first place we bring it
is home. When you just saidacknowledge and invalidate, I was thinking about
my wife right after a mad oneand I'm like, I'm like, let
me acknowledge and validate her. She'sa school teacher, and so she came

(53:52):
home and she always kind of likejust downloads her day, and you normally
try to come up with some solutionor some answer or whatever it is.
And to that day, I waslike, let me just acknowledge it.
Oh, so such and such happened. Okay, so suchince has happened.
I understand how you're feeling, honey, And she goes, thank you so
much for listening to me. Seelike, man, I'm like I just

(54:16):
found I just found work or thesame you did it at home. You're
gonna do the same thing at work. So at we used to I used
to work for the apartment, soI'd be the senior level for if if
something had to get escalated, thenit would end up coming to me.
And so I started teaching people howto de escalate calls. And I pick

(54:37):
that acknowledge and validate the biggest winnerever. I was like, sometimes people
just want to be heard. Theydon't they don't need anything but to be
heard. They don't want you rebuttingor challenging them or making them feel like
what they're saying that right, ifyou just acknowledge and validate, and you'd
be amazed, like this is operationstalk now. But like the talk time

(54:58):
for our teams that may managed escalationswent down by one hundred seconds because people
started practicing acknowledging and validating. Soit's time of my bringing it into work
because I did, Like that wasjust one one little skill that I started
making everybody have to do, andtalk time cut by one hundred seconds because
now people they're not venting anymore,they're just like, That's why I appreciate

(55:22):
you guys, because you you listento me or you do like your wife
said, thank you for listening.And there's no there's no arguing, nobody's
getting cursed out, nobody's you know, having a fight about different things.
So it definitely worked. It's cool. Yeah, And you know the thing
with it too, is like itsounds like it would take more time,

(55:42):
but you just proved that it doesn'tjust by doing something like that. All
throughout this experience, this journey thatyou've been on, you've been a leader.
You've you've led in you know,at home with your with your sister
and corp in the corporate world,taking on roles that weren't even assigned to
you, like just being like I'mgonna mentor your team too. So you

(56:06):
speak about leadership and what I whatI liked was that you kind of broke
it down into different categories of situationalleadership and servant leadership and and you use
them in different ways. And I'veI haven't really heard anybody speak about it
the way that you do, becauseso often we hear people say, you
know, I lead by example orI do other things which are which are

(56:28):
valid and wonderful. But I reallylike kind of like I guess the educational
stamp that you put on it,and I'm interested if you could share a
little bit more about those with us. Yeah, I think that leading by
example is always great. Which thenif we go back, this is why
you have to be self aware andwhy you have to make sure that you
understand because you can't lead by exampleunless you do that. So that that's

(56:51):
one thing that I think people haveto be really clear on. But um,
I've always I don't remember where,but it's probably been at least twelve,
maybe twelve or thirteen years that Iwas introduced to the concept of servant
leadership. And I didn't realize howaligned I was going to be to the
concept because it always it just madesuch perfect sense because I'd always had leaders

(57:15):
that were let me tell you whatto do, you do what I say,
and then that's that. And Ididn't realize that, well, maybe
they're more of a manager and notnecessarily a leader. Right, they're not
inspiring, they're not making me seethe vision. So it was and again
I've grown, but I definitely wasa rebel my poor previous leaders that have

(57:36):
me challenging them all the time.But I got introduced to servant leadership,
and when I learned that the goalof a servant leader is really not to
be about themselves, so your titleno longer matters. It's about creating like
this unity or this synergy amongst everybodyand the team, and it's about motivating,

(58:00):
empowering people and just kind of inspiringthem to do their best work.
And as a servant leader, oneof the things that I got to practice
a lot was not to say,okay, here's and I say this.
This is my disclaimer, because Iknow that there are probably leaders out here
that are listening like you can't dothat, so I say this. With

(58:21):
this, I'd always have my goalsright. There would always be my goals
or the strategic goals of the company, and that means that there are certain
things that need to be done andmy team to make sure that we can
hit those. But as a situational, unstar situational, as a standard leader,
I would just tell people we gotto hit these goals and that's it.
But as a servant leader, I'mempowering people to become their best self

(58:43):
so that they can reach whatever potentialthat they have. And I don't know
what their potential is unless I empowerthem to try to find out and so
I would actually make a safe spacefor you to make few mistakes because I
had your back, and I wouldlet my team know that, like you,
I want you to do this,but I got your back, you
know, so we won't. Wewon't fall, we won't, we won't

(59:04):
you know, just die out here, you know. Trying to get this
diffence. But but it helped meknow their skills, and so I started
learning how to place people appropriately.This person is an amazing communicator, They're
going to be great if I havethem here. This person doesn't have communication
skills, So I let them testedin this environment. I let them grow
it in a safer space. Andso I started playing around because I wanted
them to feel empowered. I'd startand it's not even just delegating, it's

(59:28):
just really letting them know that Ibelieved and trusted in them, so they
would feel empowered to take their nextstep. And it's been amazing. I
Actually, that's probably the hardest thingabout quitting Corporate America for me was that
I left my people behind. Likethat was the hardest thing because they're so
impactful to me. But with thatbeing said, you can't be empowering and

(59:52):
loving your team and giving them thisall the time, and which is why
I put situational leadership. So dependingon the situation, there may be times
where I'd have to step in andtake control just to make sure that we
could get certain things done. ButI tried to make that more like ten
percent of the time versus ninety.It requires me to be proactives to be
a servant leadership because I know thatI still do have to reach and hit

(01:00:15):
company goals. So now I haveto think about how can I make sure
we're hitting this while still giving themthe opportunity to become motivated and empowered in
who they are. And so it'sa little bit more work, and it
does take a bit more effort,but the results and the payout are amazing,
especially as you see people grow.I had an employee and I haven't

(01:00:36):
been working as his leader for probablyalmost two years now, and to this
day, I still get pictures ofhis children and his kids because he's like,
I love you, I missed you, you know, and I feel
it was great. But he waswith the company for nine years before he
started working with me, and whenhe started working with me, he only
wanted to be faced. His biggestthing was making sure that he wouldn't get

(01:01:00):
fired or lose his job because hewas so scared of like layoff. He
was the breadwinner in his household.That was just that's all he wanted to
do, is he wanted to bea good employee so that he didn't get
laid off. But I knew thathe could do more. I was like,
I don't want you to only beknown as the employee that can answer
this question. And I guarantee youthat if something were to happen, because

(01:01:21):
I don't know if you're going tohave layoffs or not. And this is
this is you know, a preCOVID even so I don't know if there's
going to be layoffs or not.Don't you think he'd have a better opportunity
if you added more skills to yourplate than if he didn't. And so
I had to get him to buyin. And he's like he never had
a leader that helped him see thathe could do something more before. He

(01:01:42):
always just had a leaders that wereokay with him doing a great job at
what he was currently doing. AndI have another employee that that has a
bracelet it says, what would Dianado? Because that's what they I just
thought it was hilarious. But he'slike whatever, he's doing something or he's
worked, and they're they've all beenmoved up, they've all promoted, they've
all gone to new roles, theyall have new leaders, they all have

(01:02:06):
seen like different things. And thatmakes me happy to know that where they
were keeping themselves stuck, intentionally keepingthemselves stuck, now they see potential in
so many other things, opportunities andso many other things because I took that.
I took the time to let themnot believe in them. And that's
what servant leadership is about. Tome, that that little extra step.

(01:02:28):
And you know, I think itrelates back to what you were saying earlier
about when you would speak on panelsand you would do speeches and you would
talk about being authentic and if thisisn't right for you, I mean,
you're you're adding value to the companyto what you just said there, and
that you're helping them realize their truepotential and find and learn the skills to
be able to elevate themselves. AndI think if the company, if the

(01:02:52):
corporation, the company, the business, whatever you want to call it,
can recognize that in that individual,then they just have a more valuable individual
absolutely, you know, and they'remore engaged, like they would come to
work just so pumped and ready todo anything and everything because they have this
behind them. And you talk aboutthe strength. I last, Strength Finders

(01:03:15):
is like my favorite assessment. Ilove that assessment. I love the ELI
assessment for different reasons, but I'mvery much behind the Strength Finder's philosophy of
don't work to build up gaps.If you suck at it, no matter
how hard you work, you're onlygoing to get okay. But if you
work to build up your strength thesethings that you are innately great at,

(01:03:36):
then just imagine the potential of whereyou could go and what you could do.
And so I always with every employeethat I've had, or anybody I've
mentored, or anybody I coach,we do a Core values exercise, We
do a Strength Finders assessment, andwe do an ELI assessment, And with
those three things, we can figureout what the right decisions are for you

(01:03:57):
in so many areas of your life. I want a promotion, yeah,
but you told me that it's importantfor you to be home every night because
you've got two new kids, andyou want to make sure you can fist
but this role so that you'd beworking ten to twelve hour days that doesn't
align with the values that you have, and they're like, you know what,
You're right, I don't want todo that, versus them getting that
job and being miserable and then bringingdown the team because they're miserable at that

(01:04:21):
job and not being productive because they'remiserable. So I do think it helps
an organization to go through this workbecause it makes sure that you have the
right people in the right places,and just to add to that point,
and then they bring that home,and they bring that home and then they
have insert limiting beliefs of like I'mnot good enough at work, I'm not

(01:04:42):
a good enough mom, I'm nota good enough whatever, and now they're
going, they're spiraling. So it'sit's very important work. I'm glad you
brought up that strength assessment too,because for me that was that was a
big turning point for me. Ididn't do a strength assessment, but I
can recognize in that. Gary Vtalks a lot about it about like focus

(01:05:02):
on your strengths and I just hiresomebody to do your weaknesses. He doesn't
say it like that, but youget what I'm saying. And I started
following him a lot, and hewould say it over and over again.
I was just like, yeah,why. So for me, what ended
up happening was I've spoken about itbefore where I'm dyslexic. I always wanted
to be able to read, andyou know, I can read, but
I can never read a book,and it was something that bothered me.

(01:05:27):
But then I would just be likewhatever, you know. But as I
got older and got into self development, I was like, I need I
want to read. All these likeleaders read and so I started trying to
read. And it wasn't until thatGary V video that I saw where he
was just like, stopped focusing onyour weaknesses and focus on your strengths.
And I was like, well,I'm not a good reader, like physical
book reader, but I'm a goodlistener. I always did really well in

(01:05:49):
school when I showed up the classand paid attention and was engaged in class,
but if it was like a classthat I had to go back and
read and highlight the textbook, Ihighlighted every single word on the xbook,
but it didn't do anything for me. So I realized I'm an audio learner,
and I'm a video learner. LikeI learned through YouTube, I learned
through audio, and so I starteddownloading audiobooks and I've just chewed them up.

(01:06:13):
Like I saw in your profile pictureand your headshot, you have the
Grant Cardon's ten xbook on your table. I read that book through audible.
I would have never picked it upto read it, but I read it
through audible. You know. Sofocusing on your strands changed my life,
It really did. And that wasbefore merit, that was before even getting
into ipack or anything like that.So I think that's huge. Just to

(01:06:34):
go back to this whole leadership piece. You know, another thing that you
brought up here and I'm interested inthe energy levels here is what's really cool.
Was you know, at IPECK wetalk about like when you learn the
different energy levels of you know,victim all the way to collaborator and everything
and everything in between, the helperand everybody, you learn that none are

(01:06:55):
good or bad. They all servetheir purpose. And what I thought was
an interesting correlation that you make withleadership is that you have these different levels
of leadership, of servant, ofsituational, and none are good or bad.
You just apply them differently, right. That's it's so funny because when
I started at an Ipech, Istarted realizing how the concepts apply to everything,

(01:07:23):
Like this applies to everything. Yes, there's no everybody's like, well,
I don't want to be the victimall the time, and sometimes sometimes
people need that. Sometimes you needto be consoled. Sometimes you need to
know that there are people that careabout you. It draws people in to
show you that they love you.Sometimes you need to be mad about something
because that's how you take action oror create change. And as you go

(01:07:43):
with the energy levels, you know, like sometimes you do need to tolerate
and accept and find a way tomove forward. So it just there's always
there's always a situation. The thinggoes back to what I said earlier.
It's choice. You get to makethe conscious choice of when you do,
what you do and why you dodo it, as long as you are
in control of that and you're notjust doing something because of fear. I'm

(01:08:04):
going to do this because if Idon't, then this will happen. I
have to do this or I haveto do that. That's when there's a
problem. That's usually when you cansee something's not right, something's not aligned.
It should always be, you knowwhat, I want to do this
because I want this, or Iwant to do this because of this.
This should always have I'm really pickyat it. My poor poor clients.

(01:08:25):
I'm like, I'm sorry, whatdid you say? Whenever they say I
have to, I'm like, I'msorry, what did you say? And
so they always they always like okay, okay, okay, you know they
have to adjust their language. I'mlike, I'm just making sure if that's
what you feel, that's what youfeel. But is that what you're choosing
or are you doing it because you'rescared of something? And so it's a
big it's a big difference. Youhave to just pick and choose what applies

(01:08:46):
where. I wish you were withme last night. I have a basketball
league. So I run a basketballleague and I and I play in it
as well. And we went Ihad a couple guys that were just shooting
way too much on my team,and we went about five possessions without touching
the ball, and I lost it. I was just like, but but

(01:09:06):
it was funny because you've brought ina few things for me of like the
past, right, So Last season, I was on a really good team
and I had really like three starson the team, and so I didn't
touch the ball much and I waslike, all right, that's fine,
you know whatever, you know,it is what it is. This season,
things got switched up a little bitwith the teams, and now we're

(01:09:27):
in the first game and I'm nottouching the ball again, and I was
like, wait a minute, what'sgoing And I'm a decent shooter, right,
So I was like, nope,I am. I made a conscious
decision to let my team know inthe first game of the season, I
am not having this because last yearI was like, I'll be I don't
know if it was victim, Yeah, you are three. You were tolerating,

(01:09:47):
compromising, allowing exactly last season,and this season I was like,
nope, that's I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. So it's
funny because last night I get home, I let them know I had a
lot of explicits on the court andthen and then I subbed myself out to
cool down. Um. And solast night I was going through it in

(01:10:09):
my mind and I was just like, all right, what could I do
differently? What could I have donedifferently. I was like, hmm,
you know, I'm running up anddown the court, I'm playing hard defense,
and I'm not touching it. Allright. I could speak to the
team, but that's not going tochange them that you know, that's not
really going to change them. Iwas like, I could move myself off
the team, but that's not goingto solve my problem because I could just

(01:10:30):
go to another team and for somereason, you know. So I was
like, what's the best way thatI could collaborate with my team? And
I'm talking about old men's league basketball, but it's it's it's it applied to
every situation. Whatever it is,you have to decide, and this is
this is one of the things thatthat I'm going through with the client.

(01:10:53):
Now you decide, Okay, thisis where you're at right now. You're
kind of in level three energy toor three energy. What would level four
energies should do? What would itbe at level five? What would it
be a level six? Okay,now which one do you want it to
be? And then you make thechoice. Right, And so it's a
question I do when I go shoppinglike at Target, Like sometimes I'll get

(01:11:15):
frustrated, I'll get frustrated because thingsdon't they're not always in their right place,
and somebody's like, that's this aisleand not there, and I'll get
mad. I'd be like, okay, okay, what would I be doing
if I was at a level fouror five? Like how would I see
this differently? And I do thateven shopping. So sometimes it's just a
matter of just taking the pause andasking yourself because our deep fall reactions are

(01:11:40):
not always our best reactions. Yeahyeah, And so that Paul's helps and
for our listeners since we are speakinga little IPEC language here, what we're
talking about in these different energy levelsis kind of like that what we always
hear, like the lose lose mentality, the win lose mentality, the win
win mentality and we all win oror only I win kind of mentality.

(01:12:01):
You actually, if you would liketo elaborate on a little bit, I
would love for you, as anexpert, to share a little bit more.
I can say, yeah, soI check. One of the things
that they teach is that at theend of the day, we're all energy,
and the way that we react andlive is just based off of the
energy that we have in the momentand there's technically seven levels. You can

(01:12:26):
move through any of them at anytime of the day. But it might
be as simple as how you feelwhen you drop your phone versus the way
you feel when you're around a bunchof like minded people, like get a
networking event or a conference or something. There's a difference in the energy that
you feel. And so at levelone and level two, those are considered
the energies that we use when weneed them, but they're not necessarily the

(01:12:50):
greatest for us to continue using longterm only because eventually it'll wear us out,
or it'll make us tired, orit make the people around us tired.
If you're always angry, you mightbe okay with that, but the
people that deal with you might notbe okay with that. But it's more
about like the overall impact of whateverthat energy is. A level three energy

(01:13:11):
means that you're compromising, you're seeingthe silver lining, you're trying to move
forward. You you're not necessarily happywith what happened or what the result is,
but you're just going to keep goingforward. A level four is heartspaced,
is what I like to call it. You're coming from a sense of
service, so you're giving, you'retrying to give and share with people,

(01:13:31):
you're trying to help others. Alevel five energy is one where you see
a lot of opportunities and things.So this is where you can say,
you know, maybe this happened thisway, but what it's almost I consider
level five energy the equivalent of agrowth mindset. So when you hear people
talk about growth mindset, it's whatI consider. I text level five energy,

(01:13:54):
Like you see this, what didyou learn? What could you do
better? What could you do different? Other opportunities are there? That's level
five. A level fix to meis that synergy. So how do we
how do we collaborate with others.We're all part of the big picture.
How do we work together to makethat big picture come to life? There's
more than just this moment, likeall of these parts play together. It's

(01:14:17):
we're all puzzle pieces to match together. So that's what we call level six
and then level seven. I'm notextremely religious, but I know that people
get this reference. It's what Icall the Jesus level. It's where where
you kind of you see the bigpicture while you're part of the small picture,
so like you know, you'll knowwhat's needed and you're still playing your

(01:14:41):
part, so you're creating and you'reparticipating at the same time. And so
that that's kind of the levels.And each one of those levels is going
to be equivalent to how you showup. So if you're feeling like a
victim, then you're going to befeeling you know, you're going to show
up apathetic, like I don't carewhatever, whatever. If you're feeling level
two energy, which is like moreanger, you're gonna be frustrating. You're

(01:15:02):
gonna be mad, you're gonna wonderwhy they did that. You're going to
be complaining or blaming somebody for doingsomething because you're upsets. So all of
the levels of energy are based onhow you feel, and how you feel
creates how you act. And soI always I always like to say I
go a little bit deeper than IPEXsays. I say. Your beliefs create
your thoughts. Your thoughts create yourfeelings, and your feelings create your actions,

(01:15:28):
and your actions create your results.So the way that you act is
what you get out of life,the way that whether it's a success or
whatever you think it might be,they all tie together. So what we
do in IPECK and what a lotof energy coaches do is we try to
get you back to the thought becauseif you can address it here, then
your actions are going to lead youto where you want to go. Yeah,

(01:15:50):
and I would also for the nonreligious out there, that's the way
dire circle, right, because yeahis what it is. Right, it
is and dire. And I alwaysthink about his story, um, which
which you know kind of like isone of those chicken soup stories of like,
you know, he and I don'tknow if it's a true story or

(01:16:13):
not, but it's you know,it's a Wayne dye or powable to use
the religious phrase of like you know, I met a couple in New York
and they said, everybody around hereis angry and miserable. So they moved
to Florida. And when I sawthem again, I said, how's Florida
treating you? And they said,everybody around me's angry and miserable. And
it's like, well, you knowyou are You're going to receive what you
are right, you know, orwhat you're a denominator here. Let's think

(01:16:38):
about this. Yeah, it's verytrue, because it's very true because we
know those areas have wonderful people.Um, you as a person that's living
in Florida. That's what I wasthinking about. I get to see a
lot of people up rover New York. I could tell you when I came
with my very midwestern Pollyanna Hi Hi, it wasn't always well received. But

(01:16:59):
now I've worn people down because Ididn't change, and so the people around
me started their energy started listing aroundme. It just it's just what it
is, you know. And that'swhat's so cool too. That I've learned
with this, with with this coachingis that when you can identify in yourself
and change it in yourself, youcould then identify in others. And we
can't change others. Um. Butwhen we can identify in others, then

(01:17:23):
we don't personalize it as much onourselves either. Yes, right, which
yes, that to me is hugewhere I don't personalize as much. It's
hard with family. It's hard withkids. It's hard with wives, spouses
and family members. Wives. Please, I am very happy with one.

(01:17:45):
Um, I don't. I don'twant any more workload. UM. No,
she's she's wonderful. Devin's amazing.UM. I want to talk about
your coaching business because we started offwith this this this folk panic rock,
this beautiful rock, and I reallywant to understand now how you were able

(01:18:05):
to take your learnings and build thisbeautiful business that you have. And it's
so clear on your website. I'mlike what you focus on, Like,
you just have such clarity that I'mvery interested in that and how you were
able to develop it. And youtalked about this with Grant cardone and the

(01:18:27):
ten X coach and everything. Sothat's what I'm digging into here. Yeah,
absolutely, So it's interesting. Iwas introduced to grant cardone probably i'll
see four or five years ago.I don't remember what year it was,
but I have a co worker whois At the time, we weren't close,

(01:18:49):
but we worked on the same floorand they wanted to go to this
conference and I love conferences that Ilove learning, and so I was like,
I'm listening to them asking everyone.They didn't have enough money to go,
but there was a special where ifyou'd buy one ticket, you get
one free, So they were tryingto see if they could find somebody that
would split the cost with them sothat they could go to this conference.

(01:19:12):
And they're asking everyone, They're askingeveryone, and again I'm not very close.
I know them because we work,but we're not friends. But I'm
hearing them speak about it, andI love conferences, and you could tell
how desperate they want to go.Everybody's telling them no. I was like,
I'll go with you, and they'relike, really, really you will,
and I was like, yes,I will, and so he was
super excited. We split the costof the ticket and it just happens to

(01:19:35):
be the ten next conference that's atthe Marlin Stadium, which was his biggest
event ever. So it's like thirtytwo thousand people. He jumped out of
a plane. He skydived out ofa plane to come to the stage,
like it was ridiculous. I wassitting there like what in the world is

(01:19:56):
happening or what is going on rightnow? And and you know, throughout
the event, I wasn't a bigfan because I was I'm not very big
on like a heavy, heavy salespitch, and everybody had a heavy sales
pitch except like one person. Oneperson, Pete Vargas. I don't know

(01:20:16):
if you've heard of him, buthe has a company called Advance Your Reach.
He's very big about putting people's messageson stages. And you're doing you
know, using stages to grow yourbusiness, etc. Etc. So I
signed up for his program and thatbecause Grant had purchased his company, they
did a fifty fifty partnership. I'msorry. Now I'm in the Grant cardone

(01:20:36):
ecosystem and at the time, againdoing self development, working on authenticity,
trying to make sure that I'm movingforward. I'd already had my coaching certification
at the time, so I knowabout my blocks things of that nature.
But one of the scary things aboutlimiting beliefs is that sometimes you don't realize

(01:20:57):
you had them until they come upright, And so unless you're like doing
the work to try to find them, you don't always know what they are.
And Grant started being in my emails, and I'm looking at this every
now and then. I'm not reallypaying attention, but I don't know what
happened. I started reading his emailsa bit more, and he started talking
about the ten X rule and theconcept about the ten X rule that at

(01:21:20):
the end of the day, mostof us just think small. I didn't
realize that that was actually true ofme also until I started reading that,
because I'm thinking I'm doing such agreat job working on myself and becoming a
better person. And I was like, wow, I'm still thinking really small,
like I don't I'm thinking, oh, maybe I can ask for like
a ten percent raise instead of thinkingthat I could go somewhere that would pay

(01:21:44):
me double my salary, you know, like just little things like that.
I don't realize until I started gettinginto his world and so very funny story.
I love to tell this story becauseit's ridiculous. So I you know,
it's it's time goes by. Istarted doing challenges, I start reading
his book, I start getting moreinvolved in like his concepts. Haven't done
a lot of his training or anythinglike that yet because I'm in corporate,

(01:22:08):
so I didn't really care about thesales training. I didn't realize at the
time that everything is a sale.The way we interact with each other,
the way we talk your relationship,everything is technically a sale, and sale
is all about communication, and soit could have been helping me, but
I didn't realize it at the time, and I slacked. I slacked off
my pan attention to it. Ijust totally ignored it because I had this

(01:22:30):
belief that, uh, that's notfor me, and so I started doing
these challenges. I bought a ticketto another growth conference and it was the
year of COVID and on five,a year after COVID, So twenty twenty
one, I'm going through my depression. Remember I had decided that I was
going to leave and I was coachingpart time. All of a sudden had

(01:22:55):
developed like anxiety, things that I'dnever dealt with before, and I had
been in the house. I wasalmost like, um, what is it
called? Is an agrophobic? Ialways forget their name. Where you just
won't you get the fear of leavingyour whole? I mean everything gets agoraphobia.
Yeah, I mean everything is beingdelivered. I didn't go out,
so I don't even know what thesun or the sky look like because the

(01:23:15):
way my house was positioned, youcouldn't even look out the window to see
it like that. And so I'dbought a ticket though, I was like,
you know what, I'm gonna gothrough this conference. I will you
pay for it. I'm gonna goto this conference. About forty five minutes
into the conference, I start anxietyjust goes off the chain, like I'm
sweating, I'm rocking, I'm poorpeople next to me. I'm sure they
thought I was like about to dieor something like, I'm just like like

(01:23:39):
trying to like get myself together,and I finally like I need to.
I need to. I need tojust get some fresh air because I'm like
feeling like I can't. I wantedto lay down on the ground. That's
how I felt like. I feltreally bad. So I get up,
I go walk. I'd probably taketen steps, and I think, so,
I guess I got my wish oflaying down on the ground, and
as I ain't, I don't knowthis at the time, I realized it

(01:24:01):
because of the scars and bruises Ihad When I got up, I hit
chairs, so I fell into chairsand like I cut myself under my chin.
I had a big bruise on myhip. All that to say,
after they checked me over and arelike, nothing's wrong, we don't know
why this happened, blah blah blahblah. Do you want to go to
the OFST. I was like,no, I'll go back to the conference.
I go back in the conference andthe very first thing they're speaking about

(01:24:26):
is Grant's license fee program and howto become certified to sell and train on
his content and material and I don'tknow what happened, but it was at
that moment that I was like,I'm gonna do that. I just I'm
like, I don't know if it'sbecause I hit my head, or if
it's because it didn't wake me upto clarity, or or did I go
crazy, but I said, I'mgoing to do it. I'm going to

(01:24:47):
become a licensee because at the endof the day, I'm in corporate I
love business. I love helping businessesgrow. I understand the concept of business
operations that nature. But the biggestthing that Grant does that he doesn't focus
on it that I realize is it'sall your mindset. Whatever you're trying to

(01:25:08):
do, whatever your targets are,the goals you want to hit in your
business, it's all your mindset.And I realized that I had an opportunity
to combine the IPET coaching, gettingto the core of who you are,
who you're supposed to be, whatyou want to do, what you want
to accomplish, moving past those beliefsto now being able to realize your success.
I realize I have the opportunity tomerge the two together and create my

(01:25:32):
own business. And so I talked. We talked about obsidy and meaning clarity.
A lot of times people need clarityin their business because we start things
because we might have been good atthem before. Maybe you open a barbershop
because you're a great barber, butthat doesn't necessarily mean that it's what you
should have done or what you wantedto do, or the way you're doing
is the way you thought was goingto align to your values and who you

(01:25:53):
wanted and how you wanted your lifeto be. And so I do a
lot of I do a lot oflet's take it back. What's the life
that you want wanted to have whenyou decided to be a business owner?
What was the reason he decided todo it? Was? What was coming
to you? Where did it comefrom? Why did you decide? Who's
your motivation? And then what didyou want your every day to look like?
If you had your ideal what wasyour every day? So we do

(01:26:14):
the ideal image right, and thenonce they do their ideal image, then
I helped them to an exit becausea lot of the times, our limiting
beliefs make us think smaller than weactually should. So you want to some
people I meet like their business,they're like, oh, if I could
just make three hundred thousand dollars ayear, that'd be perfect. And I
was like, well, what's foppingyou from making three millions? And then

(01:26:39):
we go through their belief that they'reholding them from thinking that they can do
that, because it's just a matterof thinking that they can achieve it,
and then we reverse engineer, wedo the math, and then we start
working on coaching to get them there. And then I helped them with all
those blocks that are going to comeup along the way so that they could
implement this plan to reach the goalthat they could be reaching. And once
they start hitting these goals, wayhas what they thought they could do.

(01:27:00):
Then they started dreaming bigger and biggerand bigger and bigger. And it all
started with me real life, Likeagain I hit my head and I don't
know what happened there, but Iwas like, there's an opportunity here.
People. People want to make extramoney, they want to grow their business,
they want to build revenue, butthere's something that's holding them back.
And a lot of times as themand so I realized I can merge the

(01:27:21):
two together and a city and cameto be h, that's so cool.
It is a funny story, afunny, interesting story of you hitting I
wonder what Grant would think about,Like, well, she hit her head
and so she became a licensee,became life. So they joked and Grant
Grant knows this story because he lovesthe licensees. It's a big deal to

(01:27:44):
him. So we meet him allthe time. And so Grant says,
like, I'm not sensing to myself. That's what he says, like,
I'm not sensing to myself, andthat's why I decided to become a licensee.
He is a very high energy person. He is. We we we
started talking about your your reading andreading Oprah's bio when we were first talking,

(01:28:06):
and um, what came out ofthat for you was some of the
the ideas or that you know,seeing somebody that looks like you, that
feels like you, that's gone throughyour experience, Um, seeing them reach
at a high level left such agreat positive impact on you. In the
work that you're doing today, howare you leaving that impact for the young

(01:28:30):
girls and the people in your community. I love helping other people, and
so a couple of years ago,everything's a funny story to me, Michael
By the way, so a coupleof years ago, I was dating someone
that was a director for a nonprofitand they they were telling me about getting

(01:28:53):
my twinkle, which is how youvolunteer, how you help others, where
you decide you want to make animpact for your community. And I was
trying to figure out what I wantedto do to get my twinkle in my
eye, that twinkle in the eyethat I'm just like, Oh, when
I talk about this, you couldjust see the light shining. And I
realized that I was passionate about peopleknowing that they could have that like that

(01:29:16):
freedom mentally that they had they wereat choice, that they could be free
mentally, but also that you couldbe free financially. And so I started
working with different nonprofits and a lotof smaller groups just volunteering, like,
Hey, can I come in,Can I speak to Can I speak to
the youth about you know, thesemindsets and these beliefs and how they're not

(01:29:40):
true and what they could actually dreamof and helping them see the possibilities.
And so I started just kind ofasking people if I could come talk.
And when I used to work incorporate America, we had a really big
relationship with like the Urban League anddifferent schools in Broward County, and so
I just started like happening to thepeople that I knew from those events and

(01:30:02):
those situations to ask like, hey, you guys see somebody to talk about
this, or hey, you guysneed this. And I love kids and
kids love me, and so Iget asked back, and I get asked
again, and now people that knowme know that I'm willing to support or
help. So I've spoken to churchgroups, I've spoken to domestic shelters,

(01:30:25):
I've spoken to different high schools,and I'm happy to do it. And
I try to get them all behindthe concept of just kind of continuously mastering
themselves because it's all about our selfleadership, right, because once you once
you learn how to lead yourself,then you're going to have success in whatever
area of life you want to gointo. Doesn't have to be business,

(01:30:46):
it can be anything, but youhave to learn how to master yourself first.
And so that's really the core ofwhat I talk about. But I
always leave them with a little grantwhose grant has this cute little booklet how
to be a Millionaire. And Ialways leave them because everybody wants to know
about money. They can't tell themthat you won't You won't make the success
that you that you'd like to andtrying to become a millionaire until you address

(01:31:09):
these mindset issues first. So thenwe kind of work into, now,
what would stop you from thinking thatyou could have this much and what would
stop you from doing the work andtaking the effort that it would you know,
doing the effort that it took toget here. And it's a fun
conversation. And I just like seeingpeople's eyes open to the possibility that they
can do more and that they canbe more than that they than they thought

(01:31:30):
they could be. And you havesuch a story that I'm sure resonates with
them of um, just just climbingout of your circumstance and and like you
said, addressing yourself and leading yourselfdown the path of success and whatever success
looked like for you at the time, whatever that was, like you said,
whether it's finance. They never believeme, Michael, They never believe

(01:31:53):
me. Everyone, everyone that Imeet, especially the children, they all
like, no, you grew uplike that. They have various functions about
the way that I grew up becauseof how I show myself today, and
I'm like, no, if yousaw how I grew up, So it's
always a fight to get them tobelieve me. And once they were,
they really like nearly really really,I can see the same thing that Oprah

(01:32:13):
and all the books did for me, Like, Okay, there is something
else possible. I could do somethingdifferent. I see that happen in them,
and it's it's a great, greatthing to watch. So what a
great compliment to you when they don'tbelieve you, because it's it's showing how
much you're truly living in that that'syour truth of who you are today.
You know, it's it's we workso hard on transforming ourselves. You know.

(01:32:36):
I did that for myself, thesame thing. And you're right because
people will say to me, oh, Michael, you're you're it's having a
positive mindset comes so easy to youor whatever, and I'm like, no,
No, I read affirmation cards.I have affirmation cards I AM cards
all over my desk and trust MeJury Module one all I rewrote all my

(01:32:58):
I AM cards. I have themall over my house, like my girls
see them. They're all over myhouse. They're on mirrors, they're on
the front of all of them scheduledon my phone as like alerts to come
up and remind me so I canbe like I wake up to them,
I go to sleep to them.Like, yeah, it's not easy.
It's a choice. It's a choice. You're living in that choice, which

(01:33:21):
which brings us to your mindset today? Where's it at? What are you
doing to keep this healthy mindset?You just mentioned you have these apps.
I know that you're doing other selfwork on yourself today. Yes, I
think that. I'll say this becauseI don't think people appreciate how much coaches

(01:33:41):
appreciate their clients. My clients helpedme a lot, because as you grow
and learn, I grow and learnwith you, and so that I just
want people to know that if youhave a coach, trust me that they
love you because they are They're gettingsomething out of coaching you, just like
you get something from being coached bythem. But I constantly I'm still a

(01:34:01):
book reader, so I'm always readingsomething I read very fast, and it's
it's interesting because you talk about playto your strength. So everyone's always like,
oh, you should listen to theAudibles while you're out driving or while
you're out doing this. I can't. I just cannot listen to an audible
book to save my life. I'venever finished one ever because I'll start listening

(01:34:24):
and I think that they read tooslow because I read faster than they talk,
and I think that I don't alwayslike their voices, and I'll be
like, uh, I don't likethe way this person said the voice.
The voice is kind of like sometimeslike I'll test out a book that I
want to read, and I'm like, ah, I don't know. Like,
to be honest, the Daily Stoic, like, I really wanted to

(01:34:44):
download his book and I like watchinghim in clips, but I can't have
him narrate the whole book to me. In terms of the speed, I
just listened to it like one timesten or something like that. So you
can speed it up. That's that'ssmart. And I just I just FM
like I'll stick with the paper orthe hardcover because I just struggle. I
struggle. That's good. You canread though, that's wonderful. You don't

(01:35:06):
need technology to help you with that. That's nice. Well, it's funny
you've mentioned being dyslectic. My nieceis dyslectic, and it's the same thing,
like we try to find like well, you don't have to do it
the same way everybody else is doingit, Like, what's another option where
you still can get what you wantto get out of it? And so
I applaud you for recognizing like,I don't need to copy this. I

(01:35:28):
need to do my thing and findmy success. So yeah, I read
a lot. I definitely schedule onmy phone to remind me, like and
I'll be like, oh yeah,sometimes you just don't think about it,
and it's just that mental reminder.So I have scheduled times that I remind
myself. I wake up to ameditation. It's like a morning meditation,

(01:35:49):
so it's very slow, and thenit brings me into my affirmation. I'm
not a person. I'm not anaggressive affirmation person. So people that I
love the ones like and do thisand do that, I'm not an aggressive
affirmation but I appreciate them because Iknow how it hyps other people up,

(01:36:10):
so I know who to recommend itto and who not. But I'll listen
to just some gentle affirmations. Ido a lot of frequencies, so like
listening to the frequencies while I'm thinkingthings through. I'll listen to hurts frequencies,
and I don't know, there's justsomething. I meditate, I do
yoga. I just try to goout and let the sun shine on me,
which is a great thing by livingin Florida. I'll just be like

(01:36:32):
and whatever I can do to justkind of keep me in that better frame
of mind, which has been evenmore interesting since I suffered from depression,
because I'm more it's a good thingand a bad thing, but I'm more
sensitive to my own emotions and theemotions of others in a way that I
never was before, and that vulnerabilityhas also opened up like some more just

(01:36:58):
self reflection. I do shadow orI do something. I'm not a big
journaler. I don't I love Ilike writing. I don't like journaling.
I've never been able to keep adiary to save my life. But I'll
speak. I'll speak about it.So I'll read the prompt and then i'll
report myself saying something. I'll justsit and i'll talk and I'll be like,
you know, actually I think this, and I think that, and

(01:37:18):
I think that, and I'll lookat it later. But yeah, so
whatever works for you, you justhave to find and everything doesn't work the
same day, I don't do allof this in one day. I do
different things, different times, differentdays. So I'm interested. So what's
this app that you do for journalingthat with the prompts? Because I want
this, So I don't use anapp for journaling. I I have books

(01:37:42):
that have the journaling prompt and it'llsay like this, but if you want
an app that does have some prompts, my favorite app is called The Pattern,
The Pattern and Yes, and it'sabout your patterns in life, your
timings, like where you are,what might be holding you back and bringing
for It's kind of where if it'ssimilar, I'll say it's like horoscope on

(01:38:05):
steroids, because it's not really basedon your horoscope, but it does take
into account like when you were born, but it has on there a question
of the day, and then thatquestion of the day, it asked you
what was what was the thing thathad the most impact on your life or
who was the person like like itjust ask you these questions and some of

(01:38:28):
them are are shadow work questions,like what's the biggest thing about yourself that
you that you wanted to change orsomething? And then some of them are
very positive, like who motivates youthe most? So I love the questions
that they have. It's like,my intake forms are are you telling me
I should just fill out my intakeform and I'll be fine, You'll be
fine. I love it. Andby the way, I just want to

(01:38:49):
say, you had the most investintake form I've ever I've ever done before,
but I thought it was so great. I was like, this is
so cool that he's like really digginginto all of this now instead of,
you know, necessarily like on theshow. Because it makes me think,
Michael, yeah, you know whatwhen I was growing up and this happened

(01:39:10):
here and this transformation here. SoI love it. I love it.
Thank you. Everybody responds differently toit. Some people take it as like
therapeutic, like like you may haveand what you're saying um and sharing,
and then some people just put acouple of little lines one liners. Both
work really well because I know theperson that gives me like one line is

(01:39:30):
probably going to elaborate on it somemore, or at least that's the faith
I have in them. And thenwhen you when you give me this,
you just give me like tremendous content, which which I really really am happy
to be able to dig into withyou. So, UM, I kind
of just want to conclude this withwith one thing that you left out of
one of the practices that you dothat I that you wrote, which I

(01:39:51):
think is one of the most important. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna put
this as my own thing here.Of the two g's, I'm gonna call
it the two g one is gratitudeand then the other one is giving yourself
grace. Grace. Yeah, andyou said that like that's like so important.
I think that we forget. Weforget, and it's so funny because

(01:40:14):
we're so much more compassionate to somebodyelse than we are to ourselves. And
if somebody makes the mistake, oreven in the business environment, if somebody
acts up at work, you don'talways unless they did something like ridiculously egregious,
you don't just fire them, right. You Usually you'll give them you'll
speak to them first, right,and then maybe you'll write them up,
and then maybe you'll put them onprobation, and then maybe then you'll have

(01:40:38):
a conversation. But you're giving themall these opportunities and chances to make a
correction. And we don't give ourselvesthat. We assume that we are supposed
to be perfect and do everything rightthe very first time, and we don't
give ourselves grace in the room andspace to learn to grow, to make
a mistake, to be okay withmaking a mistake. I mean, we
don't know we're making a mistake whenwe do it. At the time,

(01:41:00):
we're thinking we're doing the right thing. Hindsights twenty twenty, right, So
just giving yourself to grace as youmove through life. To say, you
know what, somebody what does somebodycall it? I don't even know.
I'm not going to remember. I'mgoing to text the tea later. But
the way that they said the wordis something like they're they're flawless or something.
I'm lawful. They're full of flaws, and I think we all are,

(01:41:23):
and I think that we have toaccept that and be okay with it
so that we can move forward andfigure out what's next and what else we
can do and how else we canachieve and how else we can make an
impact. Because if we don't allowthose laws to be part of our DNA,
and we only think we can beperfect, then we're being selfish because

(01:41:43):
we're robbing somebody from the truth ofourselves, and that robs them from the
truth of themselves because we mim it. We copy well said yeah, Grace's
grace to me. When I learnedit, it was like the most amazing
thing for me to be able toforgive myself for my mistakes, for my
past mistakes, for anything I've done. Um, it's just just really amazing.

(01:42:05):
This this has been so awesome.I knew we were going to have
so much fun when I knew youwere ipack, I was like trying to
lead up to it. I waslike, well, I gotta get I
gotta get some of this history stuffout of the way. Um, I
can't wait that. I was like, wait, did you just say,
Gail. I I wrote down acouple of notes of how I might introduce

(01:42:26):
it. I was waiting to seewhich which way I would introduce it.
So I've just I've had so muchfun with you, and um, You're
you're creating such an impact, You'resuch a wonderful example. UM. I
just I can't say anything more positiveabout you. Your website is beautifully done,
the work that you do, youryour story is so inspiring, and
I'm so grateful to have you onthe show today. Um, any last

(01:42:49):
any last messages that you like toshare. UM, I just want to
share thank you to you. UM, people wouldn't know of other people.
You're allowing people's messages to be her, their voices to be heard, and
there's going to be an impact ofsomebody. You're making an impact to somebody
with everything that you do. SoI just want to say thank you and
that I appreciate you doing this.You're very welcome and thank you as well.

(01:43:12):
And it'll be in the show notes. But do you have any handles
or links or email addresses that youwant to share? Yes, yes,
I am AT. It's Diana Reneeon all social media platforms and my website
is O Transforms dot com. Socome visit, check me out, schedule
time to do a free session.I like to do a little demo coaching

(01:43:33):
for people that don't know what it'slike or what it feels like to have
an IPET coach. We always liketo give a free example, So come
onto the website, schedule some timewith me and we'll show you what that
looks like. Awesome, awesome,that's AT. It's Diana Renee. AT,
It's Diana Renee. It's Diana reneeperfect and that'll be in the show
notes. Thank you so much forcoming on the show today. Thank you

(01:43:55):
so much, you have a wonderfulday. Speaks in you too. Thank
you for listening to The Michael EspositoShow. For show notes, video clips,
and more episodes, go to MichaelEspositoinc. Dot com backslash podcast.
Thank you again to our sponsor,dent Ten Insurance Services helping businesses get the
right insurance for all their insurance needs. Visit Denten dot io to get a

(01:44:17):
quote that's d N t N dotio and remember when you buy an insurance
policy from Denten, you're giving backon a global scale. This episode was
produced by Uncle Mike at the iHeartStudios in Pikeepsie special thanks to Lara Rodrean
for the opportunity and my team atMichael Esposito, Inc.

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Creating Long-Term Change with Diana Renee Taylor

1. The Podium