April 17, 2025 • 29 mins
On this episode of PASSIONEER Magazine: The Podcast, we’re joined by the dynamic Dez Stephens – Humanitarian Coach, Social Entrepreneur, and Author – for a powerful conversation on purpose-driven leadership, global impact, and the heart behind ethical entrepreneurship.
With wisdom rooted in compassion and a clear vision for change, Dez opens up about her journey to founding Radiant Coaches Academy, her global humanitarian efforts, and why authentic service is the key to long-term success. Whether you're a budding coach, a changemaker, or someone who simply wants to live with more intention, this episode will inspire you to lead with heart and take bold, meaningful action.
🎧 Tune in now and get ready to be inspired by one of today’s true passion-driven pioneers.
With wisdom rooted in compassion and a clear vision for change, Dez opens up about her journey to founding Radiant Coaches Academy, her global humanitarian efforts, and why authentic service is the key to long-term success. Whether you're a budding coach, a changemaker, or someone who simply wants to live with more intention, this episode will inspire you to lead with heart and take bold, meaningful action.
🎧 Tune in now and get ready to be inspired by one of today’s true passion-driven pioneers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to Passioneer Magazine, the podcast Well You're here, inspirational stories,
encouraging news, and in depth interviews with authors, influencers, CEOs
and thought leaders. Passioneer Magazine the podcast Bold Ideas, Brave Pursuits,
Boundless Inspiration.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello, Hello, Hello, thank you so much for joining me
Dez for Passioneer Magazine, the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So glad to have you on. Thanks for having me
absolutely now.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I cannot wait to share the all that you do,
how you do it and inspire someone to perhaps step
out and make it happen in their own lies. But
I realize that there may be someone who's unfamiliar with you,
and this is the first time they're being introduced to you.
So my first question is what makes you You tell
(01:11):
us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Well, thanks for asking. You know, this is a funny
question to answer because it's like, do I go with
my career do I go with something else? But as
a career, primarily I am a trainer of holistic coaches.
That's primarily what I do, life coaches, wellness coaches, business coaches.
But I'm also a film producer and I'm also a
lot of other things. Right, so I think primarily, I
(01:35):
would call myself a professional coach, trainer, and meaningful media producer.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Ooh, I like that meaningful media producer because that's what
it's about, right, putting something out there that is meaningful
not only to yourself but to those that will be
viewing your products.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now, with the all that you do, can you tell
us a little bit about what sparked your journey. So
many of the people that I've had the privilege of interviewing,
be it that they were authors or CEOs or mompreneurs,
(02:17):
there was a moment for them that really was that catalyst,
what really sparked your fire for that?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I absolutely remember this moment the first, you know, moments
I think sometimes happen over days or weeks or months.
But I remember having my son on a Monday, but
my last day at work was the Friday right before then,
Like I had worked all the way up through my
pregnancy knowing that I was going to have, you know,
a scheduled birth, and I remember thinking, Wow, that's kind
(02:49):
of bizarre that I'm working on a Friday and having
a baby on a Monday, Like, why didn't I take
more time for myself? So when my son was three,
I was home with my son. I was so privileged
to be home with him because I wasn't home with
my daughter, and I really felt like I missed out.
So at three years old, my son, I'm looking at
him in the living room, my husband's there, and he says,
(03:11):
why don't you do what you do for your clients
for yourself, Meaning at the time, I was a marketing coach.
You know how you're making all those people famous and rich,
why don't you do that for yourself? And my first
thought was I want to train coaches because I was
a coach. And then he said, I don't think you're
going to ever work for anyone else ever again. And
(03:34):
when he said that, I was just like wow, like
it made sense when he said it like that, Yeah,
but I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Chicago.
I didn't think about that kind of stuff growing up.
So that sparked my interest at least of doing this
on my own.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
M oh.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I love how he just kind of spoke that into
being right, He just spoke that into.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Your life and that I love that.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
It is so important the people that we have around us,
and that's an example. Why right, because he could have
he could have gone in the other direction, but thank
god he went in that in that direction instead and
really and really sparked something in you.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You do a lot of humanitarian work. You're an entrepreneur,
you're a coach or a trainer for coaches. Like you
wear a lot of hats. With that being said, how
do you approach the blending of all of that while
still being uniquely you. How do you allow your professional
(04:44):
and your personal to not blend too much so that
you lose yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I have found I've been an entrepreneur twenty years now
because I was fortunate enough to have another person in
my life also see something in me that I did
not see myself. And that was someone turning to me
at work one day and saying, you would be an
amazing life coach. And that was twenty years ago. So
here we are. I'm a business coach now, but you know,
(05:11):
coaching is coaching, and I thought at the time, I'll
separate my work and my personal life. But what I've
found over twenty years is it's not easy for me
to separate them, and I don't necessarily need to separate them.
For example, I call myself an accidental entrepreneur or an
accidental activist sometimes because all I do is follow my heart.
(05:34):
And we hear a lot about not coming from our emotions.
We hear a lot about you know, come from a
space of intellect when you're making decisions. I disagree. I
think we're heart centric beings. So I always follow my heart.
I follow what I would call my heart's calling. Some people,
of course, call it dharma or life purpose. But all
(05:57):
I do is I answer yes to things that feel
positive to me. And positivity to me is like helping others,
serving others, helping the planet, animals, things like that. So
if I have something in front of me, like a
film project or a new student or a new retreat
I want to do internationally, or an initiative with refugees
(06:20):
or something like that, I just ask myself, do I
have the capacity for this? Am I willing, able and
ready and capable of doing this? Right? Because we can't
save everything, We can't save everyone, we can't save the world.
We can't save every animal, every tree, every person. Right,
But I follow my heart and I say yes to
(06:42):
the things that I can, and if I need support,
I reach out for help. So I have found a
really good blend. I feel like my days are full
of work, but it doesn't feel like work and pleasure
or leisure sometimes, but it also is like I'm having
fun on vacation, on my retreats that are business.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I accidentally figured out how to travel the world with
my business. Yeah, I didn't have to save money to
travel because my business takes me around the world. So
accidentally I also did that. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Now I tuckle because I totally and completely understand the
blur is intentional. The line is the line, but the
blur is also the blur intentionally. And I remember having
that thought of first hearing if you love what you do,
(07:38):
you'll never work a day in your life, and I said, oh,
that's catchy, right, that's catchy. But the longer I do
what I do, I find that, like you said, it
is so incredibly true. There are some days that are
a little bit more work oriented. But then there are
(07:59):
some days where the work is so much fun that
you forget that you are working because your clients are happy,
the retreat is a success, and you just see that
it is a beautiful day. So I definitely understand there
now speaking of those successes, and I love how your
(08:19):
husband used one of your successes as that kind of
spark to remind you right of what to do in
your personal life.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
But can you share one of.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Those stories that comes to mind a success of a
client or a person in general, professional or community where
you saw them having that aha moment right and it's
like they're they're grabbing it and then boom they have it.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
I have so many examples, but one that comes to
my mind is a woman in Hunduras in Central America.
So I was forty seven years old before I even
got a passport. I was one of those people. And
I went to Honduras in twenty thirteen on a spiritual
retreat and I was owed by the beauty of the country,
(09:08):
the people, the beaches, the rainforest, the jungle, the mountains,
all of it, the food and all that. And I
decided to go back in two years to train holistic
coaches there. And coaching was not a thing there and
it was very new. Even life coaching kind of wasn't
a turn there. And this one woman came. There were
fifty women, five zero women that came for this training.
(09:30):
They all got free scholarships full scholarships worth ten thousand dollars.
And on the first day, Claudia came up and said,
can you coach me in front of the group as
an you know, can you show us what this is?
And I remember coaching her for about ten minutes about
a vacation she was going to take in a swimming suit,
you know, that she wanted to wear a bikini on
(09:50):
the beach with her family, and a goal around losing
about ten pounds to get into that bikini. And she's
talked about getting up early in the morning for walk,
you know, and then she started maybe training for running
in more than them. And I remember asking her during
the coaching what is it going to mean to you
(10:11):
to have that bikini on the beach with your family
in two months? And she just kind of had this
like big light bulb moment, like it wasn't really about
the bikini. It was just like this big epiphany she
had and she said, I just had an idea. I
think I might want to run a marathon. So she
went from I want to lose ten pounds to wear
a bikini too, I want to run a marathon in
(10:32):
ten minutes, right, she did run that marathon. By the way,
she started walking, she started running, she started training, she
ran the Chicago Marathon. She wrote a book. Then she
traveled the world on a book tour with this book
about this experience. She dedicated the book to me and
said that coaching session changed my life because I realized
(10:54):
what I want to do now, and now she's doing it.
So that's one example of what can happen when you
find the thing that's meant for you and you start
doing it.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I love that story. Thank you so much for sharing
that you are. You are so right there.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The power again of having the right people in your
life that can assist you, that can help you, that
can have that spark. I tell you, it makes all
the difference in the world. And there she is a
living testament to the power of that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Great job everyone. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
If you want to look her up z A. B.
L A. H. Claudia Zablah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love it now. As someone who is a social entrepreneur,
you are showing us that you help people through their hurdles,
but there are also some hurdles that you yourself have
to get over in order to help your clients. Also
get over those hurdles. You are making a path many
times where there is no path. With that being said,
(12:03):
there are some ways that others can encourage you as well.
So what have been some of the biggest challenges that
you have had to overcome and you were glad that
someone like you was on your path.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yes, I have struggled with building teams. That's my achilles heel,
and I think one of the reasons is I used
to work in corporate and I was that person that
fixed all the messes and organized all the everything, and
it's hard for me. I will just speak for me,
because it's not hard in general, but for me personally,
(12:43):
I found it hard to form a team where I
felt that their value was what it needed to be
for a social enterprise. So, for example, if someone comes
on a team and they're still kind of in that
corporate mentality, it's not going to work in a social enterprise.
It just won't. Maybe you came from nonprofit and you're
(13:04):
kind of in that brain and if you lean too
much that way, that can be a problem. So I
don't attribute it to their anything. What I attributed to
is maybe my management style is it what it needs
to be. So what I've decided to do about that,
after trying to form three different teams over twelve years,
is to hire someone to manage a team. So I
(13:27):
hired a CEO, and that was a really big step
for me because I was the founder and CEO for
nearly twelve years. And I will say that this person
that stepped in is a colleague I met many years
ago who I learned a lot from as a colleague,
and I just saw in her something that wasn't something
I had as a gift ability or talent. So I
(13:48):
took the big leap and I appreciated even though she's
younger than me, or we've been coaching, I think around
the same amount of time, so we're pretty equal, you know,
in terms of being in the profession. But wow, is
that a big game changer in my business to just
surrender to hiring someone who could do that for me?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Hmmmm mmm.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You know, I think that's gonna be an AHA moment
to someone listening or someone watching. So many times the
person in our way may be ourselves. I'm not saying
self sabotaging behaviors, but just kind of slow walking the
decision of should I step down? Should I do something different?
(14:29):
And the answer is absolutely yes to all of those
things that you're thinking about. Let someone else do that
to give yourself the space the room that you need
to do the something the something else. I love that
you were wise enough to make that decision that is
so smart, hard to do, but so smart. Thank you,
(14:52):
Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Now we have.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
A tendency to have a very purpose driven audience listener base.
Folks want to know what can I do, how do
I do it? What's going to change my life? What's
going to help me along this projectory with various industries.
As someone who can assist those as a trainer in
(15:17):
purpose driven mindsets.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
What have you found to be some.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Tips or some pieces of wisdom that have really encouraged
those folks.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
I think it's really important to think of your orbit
as local, regional, national, and international. So for example, I'm
from Chicago, but I was living in Nashville when I
formed my business, so I really focused on things like
Vanderbilt University being where I did my pilot program. Nashville
(15:50):
is a boomtown growing really fast, so I work with
the Chamber of Commerce and a lot of wellness initiatives
But then I thought about what could I do regionally?
And I was living in Nashville, which is within six
hundred miles of Nashville is eighty percent of the US population,
So I could drive to Chicago and one day I
can go to Atlanta and Memphis and Birmingham and Lousville.
(16:12):
And then I thought, well, I could be a speaker
in those cities. I could be a speaker in my
own city because Nashville is a convention city, but if
it wasn't, I would find the closest city to me,
and I would look on the speaker's convention website for
the upcoming conventions, and that would reach out to those
entities like the American Nurses Association something like that. I
(16:33):
would contact them and I would say, I would like
to be a speaker to your convention next year in
my town. Then I would think about national What national
memberships can I join? What national chamber? I'm part of
the lgbt QIA twos plus Chamber of Commerce in the
(16:53):
United States, so that affords me a membership beyond my region,
beyond my locality. And then I thought, well, internationally, what
do I want to do? So I work with the
United nations. I work with the International Coaching Federation, So
I think even with publicity, even with marketing. Sure, you
might do things in person where you live, maybe you
(17:13):
have a retail shop or you have local clients, but
also think about where else might your clients be, because
maybe they're not where you are, maybe they want to
come to where you are, like a retreat. So I
think it's really important do something locally, do something regionally,
do something nationally, and do something internationally.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I could not agree with you more. I think more
people need to say that right. So many times we
get stuck in our locality. Oh it's right, it's just
right here. But I want to be a booming voice
in my community. And they're only thinking maybe regionally. Maybe
(17:58):
they're they're local, but to them, the next step is
just that regional, and they're forgetting that. Other people need
to hear their voice. And I am so grateful for
the various platforms that we have nowadays where your voice
is able to travel a little bit further than it
(18:19):
would if you're not willing to drive or take a plane.
That is such great advice, such great advice.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Now, when it comes to the humanitarian side of what
you do, and you've given us some great examples of
how we can tap in, tune in, and be a
part of this largest community. When it comes to humanitarian coaches,
where do you see that going in the next few years.
(18:48):
Our world is shifting from one thought to another thought,
to another thought to another thought so quickly. How do
we make sure that we don't lose that humanitarian side
of us as well?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
There is a Russian woman, she lives in Los Angeles
who started something called Coaches Without Borders, similar to Doctors
without Borders. And I love this concept because it's humanitarian
and nature. It's kind of a homage, you know, to
the Coaches without I'm sorry, doctors without Borders. I think,
you know, following your heart is really interesting. It's it's
(19:24):
either you're going to say yes to opportunities that are
good for you or you're going to seek them, right.
I am definitely a seeker, but I think I just
respond well to requests. I'll give you an example. A
friend of mine said, I have some friends in Malaysia
in Kuala Lumpur, and they are refugees from the Middle
East and Africa, and they are teenagers and their parents
(19:49):
can't work legally, but they can make money. So they're
on Fiver and they're making you know, video editing and stuff.
And she said to me, what if we train them
as holistic coaches if they could make money online. So
I would have never thought of that, but I was like, wow,
that's a great idea. So we did that. And one
example from just that one yes, is a woman who
(20:11):
now lives in California because she's gotten her new assignment
to move for mental health reasons by the way, so
she and her son live in California now, and she's
one of my students. She's one of my graduates. Her
name is Parisa, and she becoming a professional Certified coach,
which is called a pcc credential in our industry, is
(20:33):
so astounding. This is a woman who, twenty six years
ago was born in Iran. I might not have her
age right, but I think she's around twenty six. But
she was born in Iran, grew up in Afghanistan. So
you can only imagine why she was a refugee living
in Malaysia for nine years waiting on an assignment from
the United Nations who finally got to move to California
with her son now her sister, and for her to
(20:58):
be able to apply for contracts you and funding and
grants is something I am so proud of. I cannot
tell you what this does for her and how happy
it makes me that I was able to do this
for her, and I'm not doing it really for her,
I'm doing it with her, And that is something I
(21:20):
think we sometimes forget how easy and simple humanitarian work is.
It's about helping our neighbor. It's about responding to a
friend who says, hey, I've got some people who could
use some support, and I just said yes, and that
yes led to not only a benefit to that group
of people, which was about twenty when we started, but
to now hundreds and hundreds more because now we decided
(21:45):
to make this program official, and we didn't really have
a name for it, but now we have a name
for It's called Rating Expansion Projects. So we call it
REP Right, REP Croatia, REP Malaysia, REP. On the Res
and the Res is Indigenous Peoples North America. So and
that's what my films are about, by the way. So
I think it's easy to be a humanitarian because you're
(22:07):
a human and humans naturally care for other humans. We
sometimes forget about that though, don't we. But I would
just say my yeses are more about is my heart
saying yes? And if it does, I act and I
act quickly. Yeah. Yeah, Because if a refugee needs support,
(22:30):
you don't want to wait a year to get support.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
If you just think about your own situation, would you
want to have to wait a year? You know, as Americans,
we're inpatient if we don't get assistant in five minutes, right.
So I can only imagine just the patients, the personal fortitude,
the belief, the faith that it takes to say I
(22:59):
am going to get there, I am eventually going to
be safe and be okay. I don't think people really
know the story, the emotional story, the behind the scenes
of what it takes to truly arrive somewhere that is
that is safer than the country that you were born in.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
That the full circle moment here is that getting a
US government contract to do coaching works outside of the
US in the Middle East. So that's a very full
circle moment. So awesome people in Afghanistan, Annie Ron and
Malaysia in places that she's been. So it's just it's
(23:44):
just it's perfection. It's what it is.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It's just really I mean, bring tears to your eyes
kind of moment, get goose bumps kind of moment you
know where you where you realize and you sit down
and you think, like you said, this has come full circle.
Oh my goodness, who would have ever thought so. I
love that. I love the work that you are doing,
and this is why I very much wanted to spend
(24:09):
some time with you and to share your story not
only with our listeners, but with our viewers as well,
because someone needs to know that, hey, this lady is
doing it, and either I want to be just like
her and do what she's doing, like exactly what she's doing,
or I'm going to take her story as inspiration as
that fuel to keep me motivated to keep moving forward. So,
(24:32):
by all means, please keep doing what you are doing,
and your voice is so needed in the world today. Now,
my last question for you is is that there is
yet another thing that you do, and that is you
are also an author. With that being said, can you
tell us about your most recent book.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
What is this title?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Now, of course we know it's available on Amazon and
wherever books are sold, but please put into our remembers
it's titled and tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
I called my book the Qualitarian, and I made up
that term when I was a vegetarian. When people would
ask me, oh, are you a lacto ovo pescoitarian, I said, well,
I'm a qualitarian because I only put quality food in
my mouth, which at the time happened to be vegetarian.
So I thought about this term beyond food, the company
(25:22):
I keep, the thoughts, I have, the emotions I express,
the food I eat. The food I eat the food
I eat because I'm a foodie. But I wrote the
book thinking about the environment and social aspects of our lives,
our career, our body, our money, our vacations. And I
do it in a way where it's kind of coming
(25:43):
from the coaches point of view. It's a little anecdote
about something that happened to me. Like one thing I
can think of for my book. Is no spoiler here,
But when I was first married, I now I'm married
to my second husband, but my first husband, great guy.
You know it didn't work out, but we have a
beautiful daughter, so no regrets. He would go to the
shopping store with my little shopping list and white rice
(26:07):
might be on the list. And what I mean by
white rice is you know, the top shelf. Uncle Ben's
in a box and he would come home with the
fifty pound bag from the bottom shelf. And I used
to always complain, you know, I don't want broken rice.
I don't want the broken one. I don't want the
starch you want. I don't want the one because you
saved a dollar buying it. What I really want is
(26:28):
the rice that I want, you know. And so it's
not about being rich. It's about you know, when you're
at the restaurant and you open up the menu, and
do you immediately go to the chicken dish because it's
lower priced, you know, to save money like my husband
does my current husband, or do you look at the
left side, not the right side, and decide what do
(26:50):
I want and then look at the price. Right It's
all about quality and it's not about having extra money.
I didn't have any money when I started my business,
by the way, I didn't I'd have an investor, I
didn't have a bank loan. And I recommend that I
recommend to start businesses without any overhead, because why I've
put stress on ourselves beyond that right. But my book
is a lot about I've been there too, and I
(27:14):
put a coaching tip and a qualitarian question with every
chapter for contemplation. So yeah, it's really a book about
living a life of quality over anything else.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
And as you were speaking, I said, you know, there
are so many over overlaps here and if only more
people could hear the story of those who have walked successfully,
because they too will find do I have an overlap?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Do I have something where I'm close? I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
People asked me for a few years, why are you
working for someone else? I thought your goal was to,
you know, be an entrepreneur, to do your own thing,
And I too said the same thing. I'm not taking
a loan out to start my practice. I'm just not
going to be in debt to someone else. I want
to be able to do it, not necessarily my way,
(28:10):
but just without that doom and gloom, you.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Know, tapping me on the shoulder. So I love that
you that you had that, and I have to agree
with you. With the food, right, that is.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Our own little personal way of to me self care.
What is the best thing that I can eat? How
can I treat myself today? To a little something that
is going to bring me joy. And great music and
great food for me are those little personal joys that
(28:44):
I can bring myself. So I love it. I love it,
I love it, and I do suggest to everyone please
pick up a copy of that book again. It's available
on Amazon wherever books are sold, and it very will
be the thing that changes your life. Love the questions
at the end. Does thank you so much for spending
some time with me here today on Passion Near Magazine
(29:07):
the podcast. I think you have definitely inspired someone. But
before I let you go, if someone wants to reach
out to you, if they want to follow you, get
in touch with you. What's the best way to do that.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
My name is Dos Stevens with a Z and a pH,
and my website is dos Stevens dot com. D E
Z S t E p h e n s dot com.
Pretty unusual name. It stands for desiree by the way,
but you can find me at does Stevens dot com
or radiantcoaches dot com.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I love it. Thank you again for being a guest today.
Thanks for having me. Absolutely
Welcome to Passioneer Magazine, the podcast Well You're here, inspirational stories,
encouraging news, and in depth interviews with authors, influencers, CEOs
and thought leaders. Passioneer Magazine the podcast Bold Ideas, Brave Pursuits,
Boundless Inspiration.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello, Hello, Hello, thank you so much for joining me
Dez for Passioneer Magazine, the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
So glad to have you on. Thanks for having me
absolutely now.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I cannot wait to share the all that you do,
how you do it and inspire someone to perhaps step
out and make it happen in their own lies. But
I realize that there may be someone who's unfamiliar with you,
and this is the first time they're being introduced to you.
So my first question is what makes you You tell
(01:11):
us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Well, thanks for asking. You know, this is a funny
question to answer because it's like, do I go with
my career do I go with something else? But as
a career, primarily I am a trainer of holistic coaches.
That's primarily what I do, life coaches, wellness coaches, business coaches.
But I'm also a film producer and I'm also a
lot of other things. Right, so I think primarily, I
(01:35):
would call myself a professional coach, trainer, and meaningful media producer.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Ooh, I like that meaningful media producer because that's what
it's about, right, putting something out there that is meaningful
not only to yourself but to those that will be
viewing your products.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Now, with the all that you do, can you tell
us a little bit about what sparked your journey. So
many of the people that I've had the privilege of interviewing,
be it that they were authors or CEOs or mompreneurs,
(02:17):
there was a moment for them that really was that catalyst,
what really sparked your fire for that?
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I absolutely remember this moment the first, you know, moments
I think sometimes happen over days or weeks or months.
But I remember having my son on a Monday, but
my last day at work was the Friday right before then,
Like I had worked all the way up through my
pregnancy knowing that I was going to have, you know,
a scheduled birth, and I remember thinking, Wow, that's kind
(02:49):
of bizarre that I'm working on a Friday and having
a baby on a Monday, Like, why didn't I take
more time for myself? So when my son was three,
I was home with my son. I was so privileged
to be home with him because I wasn't home with
my daughter, and I really felt like I missed out.
So at three years old, my son, I'm looking at
him in the living room, my husband's there, and he says,
(03:11):
why don't you do what you do for your clients
for yourself, Meaning at the time, I was a marketing coach.
You know how you're making all those people famous and rich,
why don't you do that for yourself? And my first
thought was I want to train coaches because I was
a coach. And then he said, I don't think you're
going to ever work for anyone else ever again. And
(03:34):
when he said that, I was just like wow, like
it made sense when he said it like that, Yeah,
but I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Chicago.
I didn't think about that kind of stuff growing up.
So that sparked my interest at least of doing this
on my own.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
M oh.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I love how he just kind of spoke that into
being right, He just spoke that into.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Your life and that I love that.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
It is so important the people that we have around us,
and that's an example. Why right, because he could have
he could have gone in the other direction, but thank
god he went in that in that direction instead and
really and really sparked something in you.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
You do a lot of humanitarian work. You're an entrepreneur,
you're a coach or a trainer for coaches. Like you
wear a lot of hats. With that being said, how
do you approach the blending of all of that while
still being uniquely you. How do you allow your professional
(04:44):
and your personal to not blend too much so that
you lose yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I have found I've been an entrepreneur twenty years now
because I was fortunate enough to have another person in
my life also see something in me that I did
not see myself. And that was someone turning to me
at work one day and saying, you would be an
amazing life coach. And that was twenty years ago. So
here we are. I'm a business coach now, but you know,
(05:11):
coaching is coaching, and I thought at the time, I'll
separate my work and my personal life. But what I've
found over twenty years is it's not easy for me
to separate them, and I don't necessarily need to separate them.
For example, I call myself an accidental entrepreneur or an
accidental activist sometimes because all I do is follow my heart.
(05:34):
And we hear a lot about not coming from our emotions.
We hear a lot about you know, come from a
space of intellect when you're making decisions. I disagree. I
think we're heart centric beings. So I always follow my heart.
I follow what I would call my heart's calling. Some people,
of course, call it dharma or life purpose. But all
(05:57):
I do is I answer yes to things that feel
positive to me. And positivity to me is like helping others,
serving others, helping the planet, animals, things like that. So
if I have something in front of me, like a
film project or a new student or a new retreat
I want to do internationally, or an initiative with refugees
(06:20):
or something like that, I just ask myself, do I
have the capacity for this? Am I willing, able and
ready and capable of doing this? Right? Because we can't
save everything, We can't save everyone, we can't save the world.
We can't save every animal, every tree, every person. Right,
But I follow my heart and I say yes to
(06:42):
the things that I can, and if I need support,
I reach out for help. So I have found a
really good blend. I feel like my days are full
of work, but it doesn't feel like work and pleasure
or leisure sometimes, but it also is like I'm having
fun on vacation, on my retreats that are business.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I accidentally figured out how to travel the world with
my business. Yeah, I didn't have to save money to
travel because my business takes me around the world. So
accidentally I also did that. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Now I tuckle because I totally and completely understand the
blur is intentional. The line is the line, but the
blur is also the blur intentionally. And I remember having
that thought of first hearing if you love what you do,
(07:38):
you'll never work a day in your life, and I said, oh,
that's catchy, right, that's catchy. But the longer I do
what I do, I find that, like you said, it
is so incredibly true. There are some days that are
a little bit more work oriented. But then there are
(07:59):
some days where the work is so much fun that
you forget that you are working because your clients are happy,
the retreat is a success, and you just see that
it is a beautiful day. So I definitely understand there
now speaking of those successes, and I love how your
(08:19):
husband used one of your successes as that kind of
spark to remind you right of what to do in
your personal life.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
But can you share one of.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Those stories that comes to mind a success of a
client or a person in general, professional or community where
you saw them having that aha moment right and it's
like they're they're grabbing it and then boom they have it.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
I have so many examples, but one that comes to
my mind is a woman in Hunduras in Central America.
So I was forty seven years old before I even
got a passport. I was one of those people. And
I went to Honduras in twenty thirteen on a spiritual
retreat and I was owed by the beauty of the country,
(09:08):
the people, the beaches, the rainforest, the jungle, the mountains,
all of it, the food and all that. And I
decided to go back in two years to train holistic
coaches there. And coaching was not a thing there and
it was very new. Even life coaching kind of wasn't
a turn there. And this one woman came. There were
fifty women, five zero women that came for this training.
(09:30):
They all got free scholarships full scholarships worth ten thousand dollars.
And on the first day, Claudia came up and said,
can you coach me in front of the group as
an you know, can you show us what this is?
And I remember coaching her for about ten minutes about
a vacation she was going to take in a swimming suit,
you know, that she wanted to wear a bikini on
(09:50):
the beach with her family, and a goal around losing
about ten pounds to get into that bikini. And she's
talked about getting up early in the morning for walk,
you know, and then she started maybe training for running
in more than them. And I remember asking her during
the coaching what is it going to mean to you
(10:11):
to have that bikini on the beach with your family
in two months? And she just kind of had this
like big light bulb moment, like it wasn't really about
the bikini. It was just like this big epiphany she
had and she said, I just had an idea. I
think I might want to run a marathon. So she
went from I want to lose ten pounds to wear
a bikini too, I want to run a marathon in
(10:32):
ten minutes, right, she did run that marathon. By the way,
she started walking, she started running, she started training, she
ran the Chicago Marathon. She wrote a book. Then she
traveled the world on a book tour with this book
about this experience. She dedicated the book to me and
said that coaching session changed my life because I realized
(10:54):
what I want to do now, and now she's doing it.
So that's one example of what can happen when you
find the thing that's meant for you and you start
doing it.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
I love that story. Thank you so much for sharing
that you are. You are so right there.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
The power again of having the right people in your
life that can assist you, that can help you, that
can have that spark. I tell you, it makes all
the difference in the world. And there she is a
living testament to the power of that.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Great job everyone. I love that. I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
If you want to look her up z A. B.
L A. H. Claudia Zablah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love it now. As someone who is a social entrepreneur,
you are showing us that you help people through their hurdles,
but there are also some hurdles that you yourself have
to get over in order to help your clients. Also
get over those hurdles. You are making a path many
times where there is no path. With that being said,
(12:03):
there are some ways that others can encourage you as well.
So what have been some of the biggest challenges that
you have had to overcome and you were glad that
someone like you was on your path.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
Yes, I have struggled with building teams. That's my achilles heel,
and I think one of the reasons is I used
to work in corporate and I was that person that
fixed all the messes and organized all the everything, and
it's hard for me. I will just speak for me,
because it's not hard in general, but for me personally,
(12:43):
I found it hard to form a team where I
felt that their value was what it needed to be
for a social enterprise. So, for example, if someone comes
on a team and they're still kind of in that
corporate mentality, it's not going to work in a social enterprise.
It just won't. Maybe you came from nonprofit and you're
(13:04):
kind of in that brain and if you lean too
much that way, that can be a problem. So I
don't attribute it to their anything. What I attributed to
is maybe my management style is it what it needs
to be. So what I've decided to do about that,
after trying to form three different teams over twelve years,
is to hire someone to manage a team. So I
(13:27):
hired a CEO, and that was a really big step
for me because I was the founder and CEO for
nearly twelve years. And I will say that this person
that stepped in is a colleague I met many years
ago who I learned a lot from as a colleague,
and I just saw in her something that wasn't something
I had as a gift ability or talent. So I
(13:48):
took the big leap and I appreciated even though she's
younger than me, or we've been coaching, I think around
the same amount of time, so we're pretty equal, you know,
in terms of being in the profession. But wow, is
that a big game changer in my business to just
surrender to hiring someone who could do that for me?
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Hmmmm mmm.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
You know, I think that's gonna be an AHA moment
to someone listening or someone watching. So many times the
person in our way may be ourselves. I'm not saying
self sabotaging behaviors, but just kind of slow walking the
decision of should I step down? Should I do something different?
(14:29):
And the answer is absolutely yes to all of those
things that you're thinking about. Let someone else do that
to give yourself the space the room that you need
to do the something the something else. I love that
you were wise enough to make that decision that is
so smart, hard to do, but so smart. Thank you,
(14:52):
Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Now we have.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
A tendency to have a very purpose driven audience listener base.
Folks want to know what can I do, how do
I do it? What's going to change my life? What's
going to help me along this projectory with various industries.
As someone who can assist those as a trainer in
(15:17):
purpose driven mindsets.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
What have you found to be some.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Tips or some pieces of wisdom that have really encouraged
those folks.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
I think it's really important to think of your orbit
as local, regional, national, and international. So for example, I'm
from Chicago, but I was living in Nashville when I
formed my business, so I really focused on things like
Vanderbilt University being where I did my pilot program. Nashville
(15:50):
is a boomtown growing really fast, so I work with
the Chamber of Commerce and a lot of wellness initiatives
But then I thought about what could I do regionally?
And I was living in Nashville, which is within six
hundred miles of Nashville is eighty percent of the US population,
So I could drive to Chicago and one day I
can go to Atlanta and Memphis and Birmingham and Lousville.
(16:12):
And then I thought, well, I could be a speaker
in those cities. I could be a speaker in my
own city because Nashville is a convention city, but if
it wasn't, I would find the closest city to me,
and I would look on the speaker's convention website for
the upcoming conventions, and that would reach out to those
entities like the American Nurses Association something like that. I
(16:33):
would contact them and I would say, I would like
to be a speaker to your convention next year in
my town. Then I would think about national What national
memberships can I join? What national chamber? I'm part of
the lgbt QIA twos plus Chamber of Commerce in the
(16:53):
United States, so that affords me a membership beyond my region,
beyond my locality. And then I thought, well, internationally, what
do I want to do? So I work with the
United nations. I work with the International Coaching Federation, So
I think even with publicity, even with marketing. Sure, you
might do things in person where you live, maybe you
(17:13):
have a retail shop or you have local clients, but
also think about where else might your clients be, because
maybe they're not where you are, maybe they want to
come to where you are, like a retreat. So I
think it's really important do something locally, do something regionally,
do something nationally, and do something internationally.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I could not agree with you more. I think more
people need to say that right. So many times we
get stuck in our locality. Oh it's right, it's just
right here. But I want to be a booming voice
in my community. And they're only thinking maybe regionally. Maybe
(17:58):
they're they're local, but to them, the next step is
just that regional, and they're forgetting that. Other people need
to hear their voice. And I am so grateful for
the various platforms that we have nowadays where your voice
is able to travel a little bit further than it
(18:19):
would if you're not willing to drive or take a plane.
That is such great advice, such great advice.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Now, when it comes to the humanitarian side of what
you do, and you've given us some great examples of
how we can tap in, tune in, and be a
part of this largest community. When it comes to humanitarian coaches,
where do you see that going in the next few years.
(18:48):
Our world is shifting from one thought to another thought,
to another thought to another thought so quickly. How do
we make sure that we don't lose that humanitarian side
of us as well?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
There is a Russian woman, she lives in Los Angeles
who started something called Coaches Without Borders, similar to Doctors
without Borders. And I love this concept because it's humanitarian
and nature. It's kind of a homage, you know, to
the Coaches without I'm sorry, doctors without Borders. I think,
you know, following your heart is really interesting. It's it's
(19:24):
either you're going to say yes to opportunities that are
good for you or you're going to seek them, right.
I am definitely a seeker, but I think I just
respond well to requests. I'll give you an example. A
friend of mine said, I have some friends in Malaysia
in Kuala Lumpur, and they are refugees from the Middle
East and Africa, and they are teenagers and their parents
(19:49):
can't work legally, but they can make money. So they're
on Fiver and they're making you know, video editing and stuff.
And she said to me, what if we train them
as holistic coaches if they could make money online. So
I would have never thought of that, but I was like, wow,
that's a great idea. So we did that. And one
example from just that one yes, is a woman who
(20:11):
now lives in California because she's gotten her new assignment
to move for mental health reasons by the way, so
she and her son live in California now, and she's
one of my students. She's one of my graduates. Her
name is Parisa, and she becoming a professional Certified coach,
which is called a pcc credential in our industry, is
(20:33):
so astounding. This is a woman who, twenty six years
ago was born in Iran. I might not have her
age right, but I think she's around twenty six. But
she was born in Iran, grew up in Afghanistan. So
you can only imagine why she was a refugee living
in Malaysia for nine years waiting on an assignment from
the United Nations who finally got to move to California
with her son now her sister, and for her to
(20:58):
be able to apply for contracts you and funding and
grants is something I am so proud of. I cannot
tell you what this does for her and how happy
it makes me that I was able to do this
for her, and I'm not doing it really for her,
I'm doing it with her, And that is something I
(21:20):
think we sometimes forget how easy and simple humanitarian work is.
It's about helping our neighbor. It's about responding to a
friend who says, hey, I've got some people who could
use some support, and I just said yes, and that
yes led to not only a benefit to that group
of people, which was about twenty when we started, but
to now hundreds and hundreds more because now we decided
(21:45):
to make this program official, and we didn't really have
a name for it, but now we have a name
for It's called Rating Expansion Projects. So we call it
REP Right, REP Croatia, REP Malaysia, REP. On the Res
and the Res is Indigenous Peoples North America. So and
that's what my films are about, by the way. So
I think it's easy to be a humanitarian because you're
(22:07):
a human and humans naturally care for other humans. We
sometimes forget about that though, don't we. But I would
just say my yeses are more about is my heart
saying yes? And if it does, I act and I
act quickly. Yeah. Yeah, Because if a refugee needs support,
(22:30):
you don't want to wait a year to get support.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
If you just think about your own situation, would you
want to have to wait a year? You know, as Americans,
we're inpatient if we don't get assistant in five minutes, right.
So I can only imagine just the patients, the personal fortitude,
the belief, the faith that it takes to say I
(22:59):
am going to get there, I am eventually going to
be safe and be okay. I don't think people really
know the story, the emotional story, the behind the scenes
of what it takes to truly arrive somewhere that is
that is safer than the country that you were born in.
Speaker 4 (23:21):
That the full circle moment here is that getting a
US government contract to do coaching works outside of the
US in the Middle East. So that's a very full
circle moment. So awesome people in Afghanistan, Annie Ron and
Malaysia in places that she's been. So it's just it's
(23:44):
just it's perfection. It's what it is.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
It's just really I mean, bring tears to your eyes
kind of moment, get goose bumps kind of moment you
know where you where you realize and you sit down
and you think, like you said, this has come full circle.
Oh my goodness, who would have ever thought so. I
love that. I love the work that you are doing,
and this is why I very much wanted to spend
(24:09):
some time with you and to share your story not
only with our listeners, but with our viewers as well,
because someone needs to know that, hey, this lady is
doing it, and either I want to be just like
her and do what she's doing, like exactly what she's doing,
or I'm going to take her story as inspiration as
that fuel to keep me motivated to keep moving forward. So,
(24:32):
by all means, please keep doing what you are doing,
and your voice is so needed in the world today. Now,
my last question for you is is that there is
yet another thing that you do, and that is you
are also an author. With that being said, can you
tell us about your most recent book.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
What is this title?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Now, of course we know it's available on Amazon and
wherever books are sold, but please put into our remembers
it's titled and tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
I called my book the Qualitarian, and I made up
that term when I was a vegetarian. When people would
ask me, oh, are you a lacto ovo pescoitarian, I said, well,
I'm a qualitarian because I only put quality food in
my mouth, which at the time happened to be vegetarian.
So I thought about this term beyond food, the company
(25:22):
I keep, the thoughts, I have, the emotions I express,
the food I eat. The food I eat the food
I eat because I'm a foodie. But I wrote the
book thinking about the environment and social aspects of our lives,
our career, our body, our money, our vacations. And I
do it in a way where it's kind of coming
(25:43):
from the coaches point of view. It's a little anecdote
about something that happened to me. Like one thing I
can think of for my book. Is no spoiler here,
But when I was first married, I now I'm married
to my second husband, but my first husband, great guy.
You know it didn't work out, but we have a
beautiful daughter, so no regrets. He would go to the
shopping store with my little shopping list and white rice
(26:07):
might be on the list. And what I mean by
white rice is you know, the top shelf. Uncle Ben's
in a box and he would come home with the
fifty pound bag from the bottom shelf. And I used
to always complain, you know, I don't want broken rice.
I don't want the broken one. I don't want the
starch you want. I don't want the one because you
saved a dollar buying it. What I really want is
(26:28):
the rice that I want, you know. And so it's
not about being rich. It's about you know, when you're
at the restaurant and you open up the menu, and
do you immediately go to the chicken dish because it's
lower priced, you know, to save money like my husband
does my current husband, or do you look at the
left side, not the right side, and decide what do
(26:50):
I want and then look at the price. Right It's
all about quality and it's not about having extra money.
I didn't have any money when I started my business,
by the way, I didn't I'd have an investor, I
didn't have a bank loan. And I recommend that I
recommend to start businesses without any overhead, because why I've
put stress on ourselves beyond that right. But my book
is a lot about I've been there too, and I
(27:14):
put a coaching tip and a qualitarian question with every
chapter for contemplation. So yeah, it's really a book about
living a life of quality over anything else.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
And as you were speaking, I said, you know, there
are so many over overlaps here and if only more
people could hear the story of those who have walked successfully,
because they too will find do I have an overlap?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Do I have something where I'm close? I agree with you.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
People asked me for a few years, why are you
working for someone else? I thought your goal was to,
you know, be an entrepreneur, to do your own thing,
And I too said the same thing. I'm not taking
a loan out to start my practice. I'm just not
going to be in debt to someone else. I want
to be able to do it, not necessarily my way,
(28:10):
but just without that doom and gloom, you.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Know, tapping me on the shoulder. So I love that
you that you had that, and I have to agree
with you. With the food, right, that is.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Our own little personal way of to me self care.
What is the best thing that I can eat? How
can I treat myself today? To a little something that
is going to bring me joy. And great music and
great food for me are those little personal joys that
(28:44):
I can bring myself. So I love it. I love it,
I love it, and I do suggest to everyone please
pick up a copy of that book again. It's available
on Amazon wherever books are sold, and it very will
be the thing that changes your life. Love the questions
at the end. Does thank you so much for spending
some time with me here today on Passion Near Magazine
(29:07):
the podcast. I think you have definitely inspired someone. But
before I let you go, if someone wants to reach
out to you, if they want to follow you, get
in touch with you. What's the best way to do that.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
My name is Dos Stevens with a Z and a pH,
and my website is dos Stevens dot com. D E
Z S t E p h e n s dot com.
Pretty unusual name. It stands for desiree by the way,
but you can find me at does Stevens dot com
or radiantcoaches dot com.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
I love it. Thank you again for being a guest today.
Thanks for having me. Absolutely
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.