293: The Radical Sabbatical

Tanya Dalton: Does your life spark joy? I’m not asking if your life is good or if life feels okay. Does it spark joy? When was the last time you slipped into bed at night and thought, today felt amazing? Because if it’s been more than two or three days, that’s too long. I’m Tanya Dalton, a best selling author, motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur, and oh yeah, wife and mom.

So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life. As a productivity expert, I’m here to help you choose the extraordinary life. This season, we will be exploring how we can create more joy and intention into every single day. And it doesn’t have to be so hard. This is The Intentional Advantage.

Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 293, and it has been a hot minute

since I’ve been here. You know, I find it really interesting, somewhat fascinating, that my last episode was called The Pregnant Pause. I had no idea how pregnant that pause would be.

Because that episode aired the end of June, and here we are in February. Life took a little bit of a detour. A lot bit of a detour. We’re gonna talk about that in just a little bit, but I have John on the show, and we’ll talk about how this is gonna work moving forward with you on the show in just a little bit.

John Dalton: hi everybody. Glad to be back. anxious to keep the podcast going after a little bit of a break.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, I am too, because, like I said, the pause wasn’t exactly intentional. I knew I was going to take a break. I knew that I was going to take a month or two off just to do my normal summertime time off. And then it got extended, and it got extended again, and then it got extended again. So I feel like I need to talk about what I’m calling my radical sabbatical.

John Dalton: Well, I like that.

Tanya Dalton: You like that? Yeah, because it was, it was pretty radical. There was a lot of reassessing, realigning, and realizing. Right? Really taking an inventory of what was going on in my life. And that’s why I wanted to come back with this first episode asking that question of, does your life spark joy? Because I feel like so often we’re going through life, checking the boxes, not really doing the things that matter most to us.

But we’re just in this routine, this rhythm of this is what we do. This is how things work. And I think to some degree, I was in that. I was in the overachieving. Looking for recognition. That kind of mode. But then I also had a lot of other things happening behind the scenes. So, let’s just kind of dive into it.

The Radical Sabbatical & The Today Show

Tanya Dalton: Because I’m going to be really honest with you guys about what this radical sabbatical looked like. Because, spoiler alert, it looked like a murder scene at times. And I’m not joking.

John Dalton: No,

Tanya Dalton: I’m

John Dalton: you’re not joking at all.

Tanya Dalton: No, not joking at all.

So let’s, let’s go back, first of all, to the summer, because I literally feel like I fell off the face of the planet from July on, because in July, I was taking my normal summertime off the podcast.

I had gotten a call from the Today Show. Which is like, the show, right, to be on, felt like the pinnacle of all the things I’ve been working on, the culmination. I mean, I’m just gonna be really honest with you and say, I’m the type of person, I like to roll out the trophy case. It looks really impressive when I pull out the trophy case and I say, I do these things and I have these accolades.

And I think a lot of us tend to do that. I don’t really like that about myself, if I’m totally being frank. In fact, I’ll notice myself kind of dropping things into conversation just to make sure that people are impressed with me. Ugh. And that’s what I’ve been caught in this trap of doing, right? This trap of, how does everybody else see me?

So, there

John Dalton: we all do that. So I don’t I don’t want you to feel bad about everybody does that. Right?

Tanya Dalton: That’s true. That’s true. I think you’re right. Everybody does do that. But for me, it was like, okay, The Today Show called, they literally called me. So that was a really big deal. Hey, can you fly up here to New York? We’d love to have you on the show. Al Roker has this idea for this, this segment.

We’d love to have you. Oh my gosh, yes, we dropped everything. We were supposed to be on vacation with my best friend Erica, who was on the show last season. We were supposed to be on vacation with Erika and we had to cut that vacation short for me to go up to New York. I did have Erika go with me, so that was a lot of fun.

We had a great time. But here’s the thing that I don’t think anybody ever talks about. Going on the Today Show feels like this giant accomplishment. That cost me over $1,000 to go do because they don’t pay you to go on the Today Show. They don’t pay for your plane ticket. They don’t pay for your hotel room.

No, they don’t pay for anything. So, there I am, taking my pictures, right? In front of the Today Show, doing the things, being all excited. And I left there and I thought, what am I doing this for? Am I doing it because it just looks really damn good to everybody else? Or am I doing it because it really fulfills me?

And I sat and thought about that for a while. Not that I don’t want to go back on the Today Show. It was fantastic. And I have to be honest, the staff, everybody behind the scenes was so amazing. The producer of the show was fantastic. But it just really made me start questioning,

Why am I doing these things?

Am I doing these things for me? Or am I doing these things because it looks so good to everybody else?

So that was the first thing that kind of me pause the very, very pregnant pause, apparently it was, it made me think, and it made me question and wonder whether these were the things I wanted to do.

Radical Sabbatical & The Murder Scene

Tanya Dalton: And in the meantime, behind the scenes, I was dealing with a lot of health issues. And I have to be honest. I feel like I’ve said, I have to be honest several times, but that’s, that’s really what I’m wanting is to just lay things on the table and tell you what happened, where I was, what it looked like.

But I have thought long and hard about whether to share with you what was going on behind the scenes with my health. Because I feel like we, we have done such an excellent job as a society normalizing menstruation. Right? It’s not even a big deal to say that. I can say that to my dad. I can say the word menstruation to my dad and he doesn’t even flinch or bat an eye, which is fantastic. But we don’t talk about the other end of the deal. We don’t talk about menopause, or perimenopause, or all that goes into leading up to that. And for me, this past year has been rough, to put it mildly. And for those of you who are under the age of 40, you probably haven’t experienced this yet. Where you go to the doctor, and it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter what your symptom is. It could be I’m not sleeping well at night or I just kind of feel spacey or I stubbed my toe and it hurts. The doctors will say, Oh, it’s just a symptom of menopause. Oh, that’s just menopause. Everything’s a symptom of menopause because they don’t know what the symptoms really are.

John Dalton: the thing I think that was the most shocking to me is I wasn’t really surprised that there’s not a lot of information out there but when you would go to the doctor, whether that’s your, you know, general practitioner doctor or even your gynecologist, They really didn’t have any answers, right?

It was, like you were just saying, it was always like, Oh, you’re premenopausal, right? But there was no other discussion beyond that about why this is happening, or this is what you can expect, or this is how long it should take, here’s what we can do, it was just kind of, even by the medical people, dismissed, and it was, it was weird, and frustrating, I know for you, and to me, I just, it was upsetting.

You know, that it’s that almost taboo to deal with it.

Tanya Dalton: part of it is honestly, in diving into a lot of the research with it, most doctors don’t get. More than a half a day’s training on menopause and what those symptoms look like and what it is. And they just lump everything that women experience into this bucket of menopause or perimenopause and that’s a problem.

So for me, just to let you guys know what was going on behind the scenes, I was having excessive periods where I was losing sometimes two plus cups of blood at night. Two cups or more and I would get up in the morning and it would look like a murder scene I’m not kidding I literally had to call the kids into my room and say I need you guys to see what this looks like because if something Were to happen to me and I were to disappear I need you to know that dad did not do anything to me because it looked that horrific.

And in fact, as we were getting into, you know, after the today show. So after July, I started having a period that did not stop until January. So I think from July until January, I had 5 days. Where I was not having a period where I was not bleeding. And this is a thing that a lot of people don’t want to talk about, I think, because it’s kind of, I don’t know, for some reason it’s taboo.

And it makes us feel like we’re turning into old women or something. I don’t know what it is.

My Body Was Clearly Telling Me

Tanya Dalton: I wanted to share it with you because I knew that my body was telling me, you know what, you need to stop. You need to take a break. You need to take a step back. We need to focus in on this and take care of you before you go back to doing the podcast, before you go back to doing other things.

So it was really important to me to listen to my body. And I think so often we don’t listen to our bodies. We don’t take the pause. We don’t and I know let me just say this. I know that for me being able to step away from work is a luxury. That is nice. I’ve worked really hard to create a nest egg. John works hard and is able to make enough income for us to.

To live which is fantastic. But even like, taking a break or kind of stepping back, not always pushing the gas, we’re always going for the next accomplishment. We’re always going for the next rung of the ladder. And no one says to you, you don’t always have to keep growing. It’s okay to have a plateau, a very intentional plateau, where you just breathe.

I mean, think about it. Life is like a marathon. And can you imagine if you’re at a full sprint the entire time during a marathon? But we don’t think twice about doing that in our daily lives. That we’re just going and pushing, and that if you aren’t growing, you’re dying. Is that whole belief out there.

Which is the hustle culture. as much as I’m anti hustle culture, I totally bought into that. If my business wasn’t growing, it was somehow dying. If I wasn’t setting these ridiculous goals, I mean, people say, if you don’t set a goal that scares you, you’re not really setting goals. And I think it’s okay to sometimes say, you know what? I need to take a step back. I need to breathe for a little bit. I need to walk on this part of the marathon. That’s not failing. It’s taking care of you. And that’s the part that I feel like is missing in a lot of the conversations we’re having in today’s world. So for me, this whole health issue caused me to stop and ask questions.

What’s going on with my body? What do I need to do? Do I need to keep pushing the gas pedal down? Or can I, can I let up a little bit? So I chose, which is very anti Tanya, right? Like I’m a go, go, go girl. And I love my trophy case. I love to pull out that trophy case and show all my accomplishments. It’s true.

So for me to say, I’m going to stop and not do anything and very intentionally choose, I’m not going to put any content out. I am not going to email. I am not going to create, I’m not going to do the podcast. That was a difficult decision. It took going against every ounce of who I am because I am a people pleaser and an overachiever.

Hmm, that is 100 percent the role I have played my whole life. Feels comfortable, feels good. And I felt I had to go counter to all of that.

The Worst Word

Tanya Dalton: But this is why I think a lot of times people end up in these midlife crisises because they don’t stop. They don’t take a pause. They don’t put the car on cruise control or walk during the marathon.

They just keep going. And then they think someday when I retire, someday when I have enough money or someday whatever that is. Then I will be able to stop.

I think someday is the worst word in our vocabulary. Because we keep feeling like there’s this finish line and it keeps moving back.

At first it’s like someday when I get the job I really want.

Well, okay, then let’s say you do get the job you want. Well, someday when I get the promotion. You get the promotion. Well, someday when I get to this level. Or someday when I land this account. Whatever it is, we keep putting off the breathing, the stopping, the finishing, going through the finish line and going, you know, I need to wrap myself with one of those aluminum blankets and eat a banana and just rest for a little bit.

John Dalton: It’s hard for us to do that.

Tanya Dalton: I wanted to kind of take a step back for a second because, after that trip to the Today Show and you were having those issues and you’re like, I think I need to take a break. that’s so unlike you, right, that I knew something was, was wrong,

John Dalton: And it was, it was more than just what was going on with your body. you had been pushing for so long with inkWELL Press, the books, the podcast. And just give, give, give that it was time for you to take care of yourself, you know, and I, I just want to say that I’m, I’m proud of you for recognizing that and taking that step.

and I knew at that point it was important for me to support you and say, okay. Yeah, let’s, let’s take a step back and figure this out. And, I know that wasn’t easy for you. and I hope that everybody who listens to this podcast and who, you know, was either confused or didn’t understand why you weren’t there

you know, you got a lot of nice emails, a lot of nice notes from people. that we really appreciated. but it was time for you to take care of yourself. I know how much you like to take care of people, whether that’s here at home making us dinner, which is always delicious or whatever it is.

but you needed to stop and take care of yourself. And, that, that was important. And I think that was a really good step for you. And I think along the way, and I know you’re going to talk about all this, but you’ve realized a lot of things. Over the last few months, but I just wanted to commend you for recognizing that that was necessary because a lot of people don’t because we do have that pressure to just go and hustle and the next thing you know, you have some kind of disease brought on by stress or anxiety and, so we all need to kind of take stock sometimes and take a break.

Tanya Dalton: Thank you. I, I appreciate you saying that because it was, it was a hard decision. There was a lot of crying. There was a, there was a lot of crying in my time away. There was a lot of soul searching and a lot of what is it I’m doing. And one of the things you’ve heard me say before is

Burnout’s not caused by overwork, it’s by not finding meaning in your work.

And I think that was happening for me. I felt like a lot of what I was doing. Was lost in the routine of what was expected of me, that heavy weight of expectation and obligation. I’ve got to get the podcast out. I’ve got to get these things done. These people are depending on me.

I have to do these things. Nevermind the fact that I have two children who need me and want me and all these other things. Yes, they’re 20 and 17, but lots of things are happening with them behind the scenes, right? And so it was an incredibly difficult decision to make because I worried and I stressed about letting everybody down.

And I think that’s what we do is we’re so busy worrying about everybody else. We don’t take stock of the fact that, I mean, you’ve heard me say this before

You cannot shine your light on others if your battery needs recharging.

And my battery needed recharging and my body was saying, if you’re not going to listen to the tiredness and the fatigue, I’m going to show you another way.

I’m going to make it really, really clear. And it was really, really clear that I needed to take a break. So I really, like John said, I got some amazing messages from so many of you who are like, are you okay? Is everything all right? I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.

Feeling Like You’re in The Void

Tanya Dalton: Because part of what I think. was eating away at me was this feeling of talking to the void. I felt like, you know, that scene in stranger things where 11 goes and she goes into the void and it’s just this dark room and she’s like, hello, hello, hello. Right. And no one’s there. And sometimes when you are doing what I do with the podcast and writing books.

It can be very isolating and I feel like here I am pushing things out and I don’t get that return of energy. I’m putting a lot of energy out and I’m not getting energy in because I’m not having that interaction and that energetic exchange that I love. I mean, that’s truly one of the things that fires me up and gets me excited is when I’m talking to people or even when we’re chatting back and forth on a discussion thread and they’re like, Oh yes, I love that.

I can feel them getting fired up. That lights me up and that energy feeds me So John, you kind of alluded to this, but this pause for me caused me to rethink, how am I doing things? Do I like how I’m doing them? So clearly I still like podcasting. I love, I love coming on here and bringing this back.

So I’m excited to be bringing this back. But one of the things that I really felt was missing was that sense of community. many of, you know, I left social media January 1st of 2022. And I feel like when people ask me, like, how was it? do you miss social media? I’m like, I feel like I got an energetic haircut.

You know, when you get your haircut and you’re like, Oh my God, it feels so good. That’s how I felt with leaving social media because I wasn’t mud wrestling with the trolls in the comments. I wasn’t dealing with the snarky, passive aggressive, comments. I wasn’t dealing with any of that. Or can we get, can we even discuss the creepy DMS I got on a regular basis?

John Dalton: Oh God, do

Tanya Dalton: had so many creeper men saying weird things to me in my DMs. Not okay. So it felt really good to leave social media, but the thing I missed was you guys, I miss the interactions I would have with you, or sometimes you would comment and I would comment back and then you would comment again, and we would have this exchange.

And so when I was away on this radical sabbatical, I, I thought about that. That’s one of the things that I really wanted to bring back. And so because of that, I’m wanting to reiterate and change. I told you the radical sabbatical is reassessing, realigning, and realizing. So some of the realizing I did was I miss that.

I want to realign with what’s important to me. And I really did have to reassess like, oh, do I like what I’m doing? And I wanted to bring back that feeling of community. So I am moving my platform over to Substack. Because Substack creates a space that is ad free. It is sponsor free. I don’t like my content being dictated by other people.

I don’t want other, I don’t want to have ulterior motives where it’s like, well, I got to make sure I plug this person’s thing, or I need to make sure that I’m selling whatever these sponsors are paying me for. I didn’t like that model. and I, I didn’t like the algorithms. I also didn’t like the creepers of social media. I think that goes

John Dalton: Yeah, it’s kind of the worst part, isn’t it? Yeah.

Tanya Dalton: Oh, my God, the worst. I mean, some of the things that some of these people would say was like, shocking. So I knew I wanted to move somewhere that I could do that, where there wasn’t a lot of clickbait headlines, and there wasn’t a big push for ads.

And Substack for me feels like this hub where we can go deeper with what we’re doing on the podcast. And we can have community there because we can have discussion threads. We can have discussion threads every week. I’m in fact, that’s 1 of the things I’m planning to do on Thursdays. Having this thing called Thursday threads

where on Thursdays I will post a thought provoking question and then we’ll comment and we’ll go back and forth in the comments and have this, this back and forth conversation about what do you think about this? How would you answer this question? That’s exciting to me. And I love with Substack that I can have this hub for all this content.

What’s the Plan Moving Forward?

Tanya Dalton: So let me tell you a little bit about how it’s going to work because right now, the podcast has been coming out every other week, which has been a great schedule for me. It gives me time to really do my best work on the, on the podcast. But I’m kind of looking at it as this week A, week B. Like we have a week A, then we have a week B, then we go back to week A, then back to week B.

During week A, the podcast comes out. So like today, the podcast is out. On a Tuesday, that same week, I’m gonna share some sort of extra. Resource, maybe an activity, a download could be a training, could be just a story or an insight that I didn’t talk about on the podcast, a way to go deeper. So I’ll share that during the same week as the podcast.

Then on Thursday, we’ll have a Thursday thread where we will have a conversation about something that we talked about here on the podcast, or I’ll take what we talked about on the podcast and take it a step further and create this conversation. Then on week B, Which is the week the podcast does not come out.

I’ll do a newsletter, which is going to be more comprehensive than what I’ve done in the past. And then again, we’ll have a Thursday thread. So we’re going to have community every week on Thursdays. And so I love this idea of then we go back to week A and we go into another topic, right? The topics will still build just like they always have in the seasons.

The season is, does your life spark joy? Which is why we’re starting with this episode. But we’re going to just continue to go deeper into these topics because I want you to feel like you have the space to apply it. And so I’m calling this new space of mine, not rocket science. You know why? Because

honestly, a lot of times when I meet you guys in person, or I walk off stage, or I meet someone who’s read The Joy of Missing Out or On Purpose, they go, it’s so simple. a lot of what you teach and talk about is very simple. It’s easy to implement and I can actually do it.

And I say, yeah, it’s not rocket science. So it’s funny, and I talk about this, I have a little essay already over there on Substack, where I talk about how it took me, like, three full pages of coming up with ideas to come up with not rocket science. Because we tend to overcomplicate things.

John Dalton: Yeah, a little

Tanya Dalton: Including

me! It’s totally ironic. We all overcomplicate things. So it really is this idea of allowing us to go deeper. The other change that’s coming is that John is going to be on the podcast. producer. So not a co host, but he’s going to be here making comments, being the snarky voice in the background from time to time,

John Dalton: more like a

Tanya Dalton: in his own two

John Dalton: right?

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, the goofy sidekick. So adding in his two cents for here and there. And part of it was, I feel like I go to this room. Right here where I’m standing right now. And I go and I stand in front of a camera and I talk and there’s nothing coming back. And I really was enjoying a lot of these conversations I’ve been having with other people.

And so who do I like to converse with more than my husband? I can’t think of anyone. So he’s going to be on the shows with me, 50 50. Conversation because my sweet, fantastic introvert husband is like, hell no, I don’t want to be a cohost. I want to talk maybe 20, maybe 30 percent of the time.

John Dalton: Yeah, well, let’s be honest. Most of our conversations are not really 50 50. Are they? You’re, you’re much more of the talker, right?

Tanya Dalton: let’s be honest. You married me. So the conversations wouldn’t have to be 50 50.

John Dalton: That’s the balance. I was looking for. I like the 70 30. That’s more my

Tanya Dalton: Exactly. That is more your style. So he’s going to be here on the shows with me. If I have a guest, and I do already have a guest lined up for this season, I’m really excited about, he won’t be on because I will be having a conversation with that guest. the funny thing is, or I guess it’s not so funny.

I actually love this. We get so many emails when we have John on the show anyways, because people are like, I love the way you guys banter. And I mean, this is, this is how we talk all the time. So, again, 70 30, so it’s totally normal for us. So that’s, that’s how it’s going to work. I am going to tell you that I’m going to continue to give out free content as much as I can, and a lot of the not rocket science site is going to be free content, but I am doing a premium access version of it because I want this.

To be my main vehicle. I want this to be the thing that I do, and I do it really, really well. And I have to pay my light bill. My kids do like to eat three meals a day. My mortgage does need to be paid. And Chase Mortgage, if I tried to pay them in hugs, would probably put out a restraining order, quite frankly.

So this is, this is going to be what I do. I want to spend more time, more energy, more focus, giving more to you guys. So I’m making it super affordable. It’s like, you know, I think I looked, it’s less than a caramel macchiato at Starbucks every month because I wanted it to be Something that you could easily say, yep, this is this is worthwhile.

Podcasts will continue to be free. Newsletters will continue to be free. And as we start this off, everything will be free for like the 1st month, but then we’ll start adding in some content. And honestly, this is going to protect us from the trolls and the creepers because. I know that anytime I’m in a paid community, we don’t get the flame throwing.

We don’t get the over politicized comments or the snarky, comments. And so I really want it to feel like a safe container for us to have conversations, not just for me, but also for you, where we’re able to really get to know one another.

John Dalton: for me, the community piece. When we were talking about it, it made me think of what you thought a Facebook group was like in 2015, you know, you thought it was a, kind of a safe place where you could share and be open and you quickly learned that it’s not right, um, for some people it is, but then some people come in and

They’re there to just tear people apart. Right. and unfortunately that’s what social media has become. I think this is a really great way for you to put that community back together in a way that feels. good for you and is healthy for everyone else, right? Because those free, open, no holds barred kind of Wild West communities out there are, everybody knows what they turn into.

So I’m excited about this for you because I think that piece of community has been missing for a lot longer than just the last six months. so I’m excited to have that part of it back.

Tanya Dalton: I am too. I think conversation is one of the things that’s missing in today’s world, right? And conversations can change the world. and that is what I want more of. I want more conversations. I want to hear more from you. I want to hear what you are dealing with, what you’re struggling with, and let’s work on it together.

So I’m, I’m also very excited about it. I think it’s going to be great, which is why I wanted to start this first,episode with this idea and this concept of what’s sparking joy for you.

What is YOUR Joy?

Tanya Dalton: What is important to you?with the whole Marie Kondo movement that happened over the past 10 years, We’ve talked about what sparks joy with your belongings, what outfits you wear that spark joy, but what about sparking joy in your life?

What is it that really ignites you and recharges you? It’s not just about, Oh, I like this. It’s, What recharges you? When you get really clear on what those things are, it makes it so much easier to navigate and move forward. It really does. And I know for me, this pause has been great for me asking those questions.

What makes me happy? What sparks joy for me? What are my essential needs? Right and essential needs is something that I have, I have shared with a lot of people who’ve taken my courses in the past and it’s actually 1 of the 1st things we’re going to be doing and putting over at the sub stack site. so I’m really excited about that, because I already have the 1st activity for you to dive deeper to figure out.

What does spark joy for you? What does bring you happiness? So I’ll share the link to that here in just a little bit. I really want you to figure out what are the things that make you happy? What are the things that bring, not just like, Oh yeah, I like that. Or yeah, that’s okay. What sparks joy for you? I have a, I have a good friend who, she was telling me the story the other day about the fact that her mother in law had come to visit and stayed at her house and she had gone away with her husband and they came back from their trip.

And her mother in law was like, I Marie Kondo’d your house. And she said, What? Wait, what? She said, yeah, I threw out all the things that didn’t spark joy for me. I didn’t like those towels you had, so I threw them away. And I didn’t like this in your house, so I threw them away. And I’m like, oh my god. It’s not

John Dalton: kind of missed the point there,

right?

Tanya Dalton: It’s not about what sparks joy for others, it’s what sparks joy for you. So we’re gonna be idea and that concept thr season. We’re gonna be ta of things, including our will be about setting up to feel really intentiona in your mornings, really Because we all do have needs. We have essential needs that have to be taken care of for us to feel whole and good and recharged.

Right. And so I’m really excited about that activity. So you’ll be able to go actually today, once this goes live, that activity will be available.

just go to tanyadalton. com slash connect because that’s what we’re gonna be doing there. We’re gonna be connecting. So you can already see we’re going to take this a step further.

And then on Thursday. We’ll have a discussion thread where we’re going to take some of these ideas and take it a little bit further. So, this is very exciting for me because truly, when we find what sparks joy, when we find what makes us really, really happy, it makes all the difference in the world.

I can’t tell you how good it was for me to take this step back, to take a breather, to focus in on truly what did my body need. Because I’m still working through some of those health issues. What does my body need? What does my mind need? I also did some therapy while I was gone. Still in therapy. Feels really solid.

Not gonna lie, I’m probably bringing some of that into the podcast and into the sub stack as well. and, you know, just being cognizant of what it is I want in my life. What it is you want in your life. So let’s get really clear on that.

John Dalton: Well, I think one of the things that You have discovered in the past six months while taking this break, is that you do love writing and you miss writing.

And I know, and I’m, I’m pretty sure there’s a podcast episode about the last book and when that came out and everything that happened. with the publisher because it was kind of a nightmare. but that kind of killed the joy of writing for you for a while. and I’m excited that this is now going to give you the opportunity to start writing again.

There’ll be, obviously, this is a shorter form than a book. but it gives you a reason or a platform or, you know, another vehicle to write again. and I think that’s important to you and I, I’m happy that this radical sabbatical, that’s one of the things that has come back around because I know that you missed it and I could see in your face when you discovered it that this was like, oh good, I get to do this again and it’s.

It doesn’t feel heavy anymore. It feels like,a release, a way of being creative, and I’m excited to see, what all of those pieces that you were putting out there on those, I guess that the A week or the B week, I’m not sure, but whenever that week is that you’re writing.

I’m excited to read all of those things, and I hope everyone else is, too.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah. Well, we’ll get the flow as it starts going. It may seem confusing with A week and B week, but you’ll start to get it. It’ll start to flow really easily. You know, me, I like a little bit of structure. That’s what I like about productivity. It gives me a little bit of scaffolding. So I know. what I need to work on and what I need,

So that’s the beauty for me of the A week and the B week, but it’ll flow really easily and really nicely,because I think you can do things that make you happy and it can feel easy. I’m thrilled to be back.

I’m thrilled to have you here listening. I cannot wait for this new iteration of what we’re doing, and we’re going to do it together. So I hope to see you over at Not Rocket Science. Go to tanyadalton. com slash connect to sign up. Those of you who are already getting my newsletter, my emails should have already gotten an email from me, last week letting you know I was bringing you over.

If you didn’t, make sure you head over there and subscribe. So tanyadalton. com slash connect. This is going to be a lot of fun, and I’m excited about John and I doing the show together. I think there’s a lot of things that, you know, there’s a lot of things that spark joy. John is one of the things that sparks the most joy for me.

So I’m thrilled to have you here,

John Dalton: Thank you. I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be a part of it. It’s always, it’s always fun, so I’m glad I’m gonna be a part of it almost every week. So, that’ll be great. Ha

Tanya Dalton: that now. We’ll see how he feels in a few weeks. All right, everyone. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I hope it gets you thinking about what sparks joy.

Don’t forget to head over to TanyaDalton. com slash connect. I have a whole activity for you to do to help you discover your essential needs.

So head there now. If you’re already on my newsletter list, you already probably got that email from me this morning. All right. Until next time, I want you to keep this in mind. When we take the time to pause, when we take a step backwards and we really allow ourselves to reassess, realign, and realize what is important, that’s when we’ve got the intentional advantage.

**This transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

 

Tanya Dalton is motivational speaker who talks to corporate audiences, entrepreneur groups and non-profits to help them be more productive, set goals and find more meaning in their work.