290: Liberation: Smashing Old Models with Ali Brown

Ali Brown: Giving myself permission to create something that was exactly the opposite of what had given me so much confidence in the past.

My identity was so based on what I had done and produced and delivered, that I needed a shift to that in discovering who I was being again.

And that led to me abandoning those scorecards for a success that I had in the past. And that was hard. That was agonizing.

There’s still people to this day who do not understand the decisions I made and

I don’t care cuz I’m happy.

Tanya Dalton: I don’t know what’s scarier. Staying where you are in that space of already being uncomfortable or stepping into something new, which is also uncomfortable, nine times outta 10, that new space, that’s uncomfortable, you’ll acclimate, you’ll figure it out.

Staying where you are is not the answer.

Hello, hello everyone and welcome to the Intentional Advantage Podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 290 and what you just heard, there is a little snippet of what we’re going to be discussing in today’s show.

Our theme is liberation, letting go of what everybody else thinks. So often in our worlds we are, we are living by other people’s rules.

We’re letting our scorecard of success be based off what everybody else is doing and what everybody else thinks, and I want you to let go of that. I am so excited because today on the show we are gonna be talking about finding the magic in your every days. And yes, there is absolutely magic in your everyday lives

We are gonna be diving into the benefits of aging. We spend way too much time talking about bottling youth, when the truth is it would be amazing to bottle aging, ugh, give it to the younger people because truly there are so many benefits, so much wisdom that we receive as we age.

We’re even gonna be talking about when is a woman in her prime. We’re gonna have a lot of fun on today’s show. I am excited because I have Ali Brown joining me today. she is one of the world’s most recognized coaches for women entrepreneurs. She’s been on the show before. She is a great friend of mine. She’s also the host of Glambition Radio. She is the founder of the Trust. A private premier network for seven and eight figure women leaders. She has been included in the Inc 500 list of fastest growing private companies, she’s also a Forbes woman to watch and an EYs winning women entrepreneurs. She is an incredible woman. We’re gonna have so much fun today. So let’s go ahead. Let’s dive into today’s show.

There’s a spiritual art to work and life. I’m not talking about sitting in silence on a mountaintop or chanting mantras for hours a day, but finding meaning in your work in everyday life can increase your productivity, boost your happiness, and yes, make you feel so much better about your days. I’m Tanya Dalton, a bestselling author, motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur.

Oh yeah, wife and mom. So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life, but as a productivity expert, I’m here to help you choose the extraordinary life. This season, we will be exploring work, parenting, personal growth and more. Because when you choose to be intentional, every day can be filled with meaning.

Let’s create the world we want our daughters to live in. This is the Intentional Advantage.

Tanya Dalton: Ali, You and I were like, okay, we have to hit record because we have been, you know, before we get started, I’m like, okay, we’re gonna talk about a few things and get ourselves warmed up. And then you and I we’re, we’re already off and going and already saying things that we should have had record

Ali Brown: We couldn’t get off the pre-call we just had so much fun already. But now we’re gonna have more fun.

Tanya Dalton: We always have fun . One of the things that we were just talking about that I think is kind of funny is, I was prepping you for what we’re gonna be talking about.

But I said, you know, we’re shooting for somewhere around the 30 minute mark, maybe a little bit less, a little bit over. And it’s funny because when I first started this podcast, 289 episodes ago, I was really, really strict and adamant about it had to be 20 minutes almost to the nose, like so precise 20 minutes because that’s what people expected of me and this is what I said I was gonna do, and it was so claustrophobic.

I love that this is so much more open and easier and there’s a lot of ease to that, and I think that’s probably where we’re gonna be talking about today.

Ali Brown: You, you basically got me till the DoorDash arrives on the hour because you can’t let I’m in, I’m in the Phoenix area. You can’t let anything sit on the porch for longer than 30 seconds or it will explode. It’s, it’s already very hot here, so I think I got lemongrass tuna today and it’s like a cold dish, so I do have to go get that.

But I’ll,

Tanya Dalton: do have to get that.

So the DoorDash is our limitation. We have, we have the DoorDash arriving and so otherwise, Ali is here

What does liberation look like?

Tanya Dalton: I’m excited about this because you and I, we were just talking about this, this idea of liberation, which has been a big theme for you. I know, and , I think I said before we hit record loosening up the corsets. You know what I mean?

Letting things go a little bit less structured. It’s less rigid. I, it’s, it is a busting out.

Ali Brown: We are busting out. I like that metaphor. I actually just thought of that. You said it before and I didn’t think of the visual like busting out when you take off like that tight bra at the end of the day, you know that type of feeling.

Tanya Dalton: I don’t think there’s many things better than that time when you’re taking off the bra at the end of the day, quite frankly. But it is. It’s like this loosening up and I’ve, I have been watching you and you’ve been watching me, and we’ve been going through this in very much the same way.

This loosening up, this more organic way of working, of doing life, of

not feeling like it has to be quite so rigid.

I feel like. When I was younger, there were these very rigid set of rules of what was good, what was bad, what was right, what was wrong. And now I’m thinking to myself, well who? Who even made those rules for me? And I feel like you’re going through that too in a lot of ways.

Ali Brown: I’ve been going through that I think since I was 14, I just,

I’ve vacillated between,

I have a an immense disgust for authority and structure and format. And at the same time, parts of me are scared. What will happen if I don’t have that as a real part of my business in my life? And I think those are the two places we kind of vacillate, you know?

And because that gives us. It gives us confidence, it gives us something to follow. Right. And I do think there’s so many layers to this conversation. I mean, there’s like my personal story and even many people who have been following me know, like 10 years ago, my business was completely different.

I mean, I was scheduled every five minutes of the day that we had programs for programs, for programs. We had just, I mean all this complexity. Then I went through this period of nearly wiping the slate after I had my kids, which is a great time when you really question what’s this all about.

And then getting back to a very simple business model, right? Which I continue today. I simply run The Trust network for the women it all the amazing women like you. And then I do private coaching and that’s all I do. There’s that business model level of it. But I also see so many of us going through it personally on this personal level, vacillating between the lives that I think we thought we were putting together, checking the boxes in a certain way because that will lead to our happiness to now I see women, I see women just doing 180 s like they are cleaning the slate.

They’re cleaning out relationships, they’re cleaning out just all these. Things to make room for either new dreams or dreams they always had underneath. It’s such an exciting time and that’s why I wanna talk about this because it’s as if there’s two different worlds right now, and there’s the people who are insistent on doing things the old way.

And then there’s those of us who are, it’s like, I feel like, like corks are popping. Like there’s these bits of liberation. And every time we see someone do something like this or do something like off the norm, like homeschooling like I did for two years too, right.

It’s just, it’s, it’s kind of just popping our cork too. We’re like, oh, boo. Like boop, boop. All these little ideas and this liberation everyone’s gonna do their own thing right now. That, that’s just how it is and it’s an exciting time for that.

Being On The Right Path Might Look Wrong

Tanya Dalton: I feel like we were all sold this bill of goods that there was this starting point and this endpoint and this life map we were supposed to follow. If you did X, you were gonna achieve happiness. If you just did these couple of things, you jump through these hoops, you bend and twist and make yourself work for this, whatever this map was, then it’s all gonna work out.

And then all of a sudden you realize

this is not at all what I signed up for. This is not what people told me it was gonna be like.

And I think there’s a little bit of us that worries. Oh, am I failing? Am I not doing what I’m supposed to be doing? I used to say to myself,

just let me be on the right path.

I just, I wanna make sure I’m on the right path.

And the funny thing is, I was always on the right path. It didn’t matter if my path went left or right or went around in a loop. It was the path that was designed for me.

And I think that realization is something that’s really been dawning on me recently it doesn’t matter what that path looked like it was always meant to be mine.

Ali Brown: I like that cuz visually you think of like, do I need to be over here? Do I need to be over here? But just like right now, where I am is perfect and whatever I need next will appear. And, and so you’re creating that path as you go with what’s presented to you, what’s in front of you, what the, just kind of what happens.

It’s this new organic way of working that some of you listening to this right now are watching this will be like, oh my God, this is how I’m living. Some of you would be like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s okay. But

Tanya Dalton: It’s totally okay.

Ali Brown: so many of us now are truly trusting ourselves.

Creating Space for Magic to Happen

Ali Brown: And when you start doing that, and, and here’s the thing, Tanya, that I’ve discovered too in like the last year or two, especially, When you, at the end of the day look back and count all the magical things that happened because you trusted yourself or gave yourself space or allowed yourself to go on vacation or any

things will happen that can be quite magical.

It’s really interesting bec and, and takes a lot of that fear away. I know for me that’s taken a lot of the anxiety away when I realized, okay,

Good things happen when I rest.

Good things happen when I take a vacation.

And just reminding myself that over and over and seeing the evidence of that, you gotta give yourself evidence. And I think that’s the tricky part. And so for me, that’s an awareness kind of game that I’ve had to make sure I pay attention to.

A Scientifically Proven Way to Find Magic

Tanya Dalton: It’s absolutely an awareness game. It’s funny because I actually have a little practice that I do at night, and it’s called The Magic I Saw Today. What was the magic I saw today? It’s another way of expressing gratitude in a lot of ways, because the magic is what you are grateful for. So when you take time to witness the magic, it makes it so, and this is completely scientifically proven.

Your reticular activating system will start filtering for that magic, for those things that you are grateful for.

The idea of gratitude or magic is not woo woo. It is a hundred percent scientifically proven.

If you start searching for it, it starts coming to the forefront more and more for you and I. I think that’s really exciting because once you start to acknowledge, oh, you know what I really loved?

I really loved that I spent time outside today. I was just saying to you before we hit record, being outside is so important to me and I’m so happy at this time of year where I can be outside more because I know for me, a break doesn’t feel like a break unless I’ve gone outside and I have breathed a little bit of fresh air and I have sat in the sunshine.

Just for a couple of minutes. That does everything for me. And there’s a little bit of magic in that.

Ali Brown: I love, of course you have a process for this. I just should have asked you, Hey Tanya, do you have a process for this? It’s in one of your books. But I love that in making it a conscious thing. And sometimes I remember to do it with my kids, which is a really nice thing to do at night with them when you’re tucking them in that gratitude, because I’m the same thing happens to them.

You see their little brains starting to do all this, and it’s heartbreaking. You’re like, oh, they do the same thing.

Why It’s Easier to See the Negative Instead of the Positive

Tanya Dalton: Our brains are wired that way. Our brains are wired to see the negative, over seeing the positive. And that goes all the way back to our cave ancestors, who, when you touch the fire, you don’t wanna touch it again, right? It’s a response in your body to keep you safe.

So for every negative thing that you experience or think you need to think five or six positive thoughts. So when I’m in a real negative state, I very intentionally will sit down and I, when I recognize that I’m in a bad mood or someone else recognizes it for me, that I’m

Ali Brown: Yeah,

Tanya Dalton: I immediately sit down. John will say,

You need to write down a couple things you’re grateful for. And it’s true. I sit down and I think, what are five things right now in this moment? Not yesterday, not this morning, right now. Sometimes it’s as simple as I’m really glad that I have a warm house to be in because it’s raining outside.

Or maybe it’s, I’m really glad that these jeans fit today. little tiny things. That add up and that will automatically start shifting your brain. But

Your brain is like Velcro for the negative and it’s like Teflon for the positive.

The positive things just go away and the negative stays and we, we have this tendency to do this with ourselves, to not take the time to fill up that marble jar.

For those of you who’ve read about that in The Joy of Missing Out We don’t take the time to fill up. What have I done? Well, cause I can guarantee you’ve done a lot more things well than you’ve screwed up today. It’s just taking time to take stock of that.

Ali Brown: This sounds annoyingly simple but it’s these things that are so critical that we overlook that are so basic, like these basic parts of enjoying.

All of this and this whole ride, it is this simple, and I think that’s why we freaking fight it. Oh, we fight it. And I’m fighting this now.

We were talking earlier in the pre-chat too about, you know, I’m finding myself now in a place of being okay working so organically that I know if anyone else came into the business right now, they’d be like, how are you doing this?

And just feeling. Into my day feeling into who I need to call. I mean, I have notes. I, I have paper, I have a computer. You know what I mean? Like, there’s, there’s, there’s things like I have go, you know, we have like, you know, we, we keep an eye on things and there is a basic framework, but personally how I’m being and leading now, I almost beat myself up over it because,

Tanya Dalton: Mm-hmm.

Ali Brown: From your perspective, does that come from I, I’ve, I’ve thought it comes from being scared of what happens if I don’t do all the things that I used to do in the business.

Right? Checking the boxes and having the spreadsheets and doing things very methodically. There is a fear that if I don’t do all that stuff, what will happen?

Time Management Doens’t Work

Tanya Dalton: Can it really feel this good? I think that is a frightening question that people ask themselves. Can it really feel this good? And the answer is yes, it really can. But the problem is, is we have been so conditioned, so trained, so, so conformed into what we are supposed to do, that when we do something that feels different, it feels wrong, it feels naughty, maybe, or ooh, who am I to do that?

And it’s funny because this ties in really well with my Oxford Talk for those of you listening today, my Oxford Talk just came out last week and it is about how we’re all living to this very antiquated work model of the 40 hour work week, which was invented in 1926.

1926 by Henry Ford.

Now at the same time, they were still using leeches and mercury cure diseases. It’s an outdated model and yet we feel like if we’re not working a 40 hour work week, or if we’re not doing this nine o’clock to five o’clock or whatever the hours are for you, that we’re doing something wrong and it’s all gonna fall apart.

It’s just a house of cards. And the truth is, when we give ourselves that space, when we give ourselves that room, we allow space for more to come in. We allow space for more goodness to come in. And then it’s not a question of is it okay to feel this good? It’s, oh, it really does feel good.

It feels amazing.

Ali Brown: Yeah. And even when we have these freedoms now, you know, being able to travel and work from anywhere and all this stuff, it’s, it’s still really hard to shake that programming. I mean, we grew up seeing, I mean, I grew up seeing my dad work that, 40 plus hour work week. when we all got into the working world, you know, when I was young outta college, you just, this is just what you do.

And I only worked in the real world for like seven years, maybe Max. Honestly, when I say real world, I mean I had a, a job with the W2 and paycheck and, you know, had to be there. And so, and I still remember when I started my first business, I was at my desk at like, you know, 8:00 AM you know, I have no one calling or anything or expecting me, but I felt like, okay, I gotta make this shit work.

You know, like I was, I was sitting and, and ready and even now, it’ll still kind of come back and, and bite me sometimes and be like, just nibbling at me, you know, during the day. Like, oh, you need to be available for everybody, or, oh, you should be at your desk right now. Or just, it’s, it’s really hard to shake that.

And so I, I’m actually gonna apply what you just said. When you look at all those good things that happened during the day, I’m gonna add a layer to this and also, where did they happen? Where did they happen? Was it when you were at your desk, you know when it was, when you were at your desk working on spreadsheets?

Or was it when you were at the pool? Is it when you were taking a walk? Is it when you were with your kids? Right, because that for me, cause I need my evidence based, boost, I’m gonna add that onto that.

Tanya Dalton: I love that because we all know our best ideas happen when we’re in the shower or we’re driving in our car, or we are somewhere away from the desk. And that’s because our brain is continuing to to think on whatever it is you’re working on, but it now has space to explore. You’re letting it outside of that little jail so we can actually enjoy itself and it starts looking for creative solutions and ideas.

So nine times out of 10 when you find the magic, it’s not gonna be sitting in your desk chair, it’s going to be somewhere else. It could be going and having your lunch at the park outside of your office. It could be sitting in your car waiting for your kids while they’re at soccer practice. It’s these places that it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s magic,

because we expect it to happen.

In this very constrained, very narrow space of work and work looks like this for you, watching your dad. For me watching my dad, this is what work looks like. It looks very masculine. It looks like traveling a lot. It looks like working long hours. It looks like getting up and leaving the house at six o’clock in the morning.

For me, that’s what I thought work looked like because that’s what my dad did and it, it’s taking all of that and flipping it on its head. I just, I feel like so often we are living to these models because we’re worried about what is everyone else gonna think.

If I do go outside, if I do take a break, if I do stop the hamster wheel and I hop off, what is everyone else gonna think about that?

Your Scorecard for Success

Ali Brown: This leads to the conversation that I’ve been having for a long time. I know you have too, Tanya,

What are the metrics we are now honoring for ourselves and how we measure our success?

For the longest time I’m gonna share mine was money. Abso freaking lutely. I mean, that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

That was the point to work your ass off. That was the point to build this company. That was the point. And when I wasyounger and had a lot more energy, I was like, yeah, you know, I’ll be at my desk and, and every five minutes I’d be doing all this stuff and it was fun for a while. And then, For me, I know for those of you who know my story when it came around to gosh, it was about 2010, was I, I was invited to be on Secret Millionaire, and I’ve shared the story a million times.

when I was on that show, And then also a few of other things happening in my life at the time my dad had passed in 2008, you know, after working those long weeks.

Like what did that get him? In the end? He died, he had a heart attack and died. Lot of things kind of come together in my mind going, okay, is this, is this kind of it? Like what am I gonna be doing the rest of my life? And, and, you know, am I gonna just be like launching forever? Like, is this what we’re doing?

You know, I don’t want my My epitaph to say, you know, she was an online marketer. Like that was, you know, my, my gift to the world. I’m like, what else is there going on? I started taking things apart the scariest thing in that whole journey though. And the whole journey was me giving myself permission to create something that was exactly the opposite of what had given me so much confidence in the past. That’s where I was previously untouchable and this was like a whole new. Place for me to go where it wasn’t about what I was doing, it was about being okay with the fact that personally, for myself, like I’ve proven myself, and what am I creating next?

My identity was so based on what I had done and produced and delivered, that I needed a shift to that in discovering who I was being again.

And that also led to me abandoning those scorecards for a success that I had in the past. And that was hard. That was agonizing. People ask me today still, like, what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done ? And they’re expecting even like motherhood, which is a close second to what I’m about to share.

Geez. I mean, I had no idea. And you know, there’s all these things that they maybe expect me to say and I’ll say that time of my life when I was dismantling everything I was known for. All the ways that I’d measured my success and decided to just change it completely. And all of you listening, I think it’s a critical time, an exciting time for you to get clear on how are you going to judge your success now?

Is the amount of time off, is the least amount of hours worked compared to what you can produce? Is that the amount of people impacted? Like, get really clear on that. And then I love how Tanya, at the end of the day, you know, you’re counting magical things. This leads into something we need to create for this area and like how are we measuring our success in a new way?

And I think you probably already have a process for this. You’re about to tell me what it is and where to find it and what page. Right. Okay. Yeah, you do.

Get clear on those two or three things you are gonna judge your success on because it’s not gonna be like anyone else’s.

And then don’t hang around all the people who judge their success in a totally different way unless they understand you. Cuz I had people looking at me too also, like I had three heads and was losing my mind and like, why is she making these decisions?

There’s still people to this day who do not understand the decisions I made and I don’t care cuz I’m happy.

Why I Left Social Media (and Don’t Regret It)

Tanya Dalton: And it’s okay. I mean that’s exactly how I felt when I made that decision to leave social media, which you are alongside of me in all of that, right? You are cheering me

on

Ali Brown: were all watching in the trust. We were like, whoa, she’s gonna do

Tanya Dalton: You really gonna do it. And it was scary. I’m not gonna lie. It was frightening because that absolutely was a metric for success. I had a, a very high number of followers. I felt like I was very successful in the social media space. And I wasn’t fulfilled by it. I didn’t love it. It, it really wasn’t doing for me what I needed it to do.

It was doing the exact opposite because it was such a metric of success for me, a vanity scorecard that I felt that

I was losing who I really wanted to be in pursuit of the likes or the follows

or any of those things. And that’s when I made that decision, oh wow, we’re not doing this. We’re gonna, we’re gonna go ahead and cut this off course, and we’re gonna move forward and we’re gonna try new things.

And I don’t know what’s scarier. Staying where you are in that space of already being uncomfortable or stepping into something new, which is also uncomfortable, nine times outta 10, that new space, that’s uncomfortable, you’ll acclimate, you’ll figure it out. Staying where you are is not the answer.

I think this, evolution, this, continual growth and this shifting of your identity is so important.

Why It’s Easy to Get Stuck in an Identity

Tanya Dalton: I loved how you talked about that there, because identity is an anchor point for us, I think. Who am I? And I think the question of who am I isn’t one we ask nearly enough. I want you to start asking yourself, who am I? And do I like me? And if the answers are not satisfying to you, we need to shift that.

And it’s, it’s not hard to change your identity. It’s making the choice to do it. That’s the

Ali Brown: hard part. I wanna add on something too. How old are you now? Do you share that

publicly? How old are you? Yeah, how old are you?

Tanya Dalton: Well, when this comes out, I will be a week away from being 49.

The Benefits of Aging

Ali Brown: Okay. All right. I wanna show this for all you women too, cuz I’m, I’m turning 52 and yes, you could look like this. Um, With a lot of work and a little money.

When you get into your late forties and fifties, this becomes easier. It becomes so much easier now.

you know, my, my twenties were about trying everything on and figuring out what wasn’t working and what worked and who I wanted to be. Thirties was right. Here’s my plan. I’m gonna freaking work it. This must be who I am, right? I’m gonna build this freaking empire and kick ass and take names.

And then forties was, Stopping. I think breathing, listening, going, okay, what’s, what is this really about? And now I’m so clear, like that’s the joy of this age. And you, you know, when you’re younger, you hear women their fifties saying, it’s gonna be great. You’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But I’m telling you it is cuz

you stop giving a s**t what other people think.

You’re so clear on who you are and what you’re interested and not interested in, and. I’m just having so much fun and I, I want, I wanna talk about this more with, with women because I think the liberation that I’m seeing, and most of the women I’m working with are in, they’re like, you know, I’d say forties and fifties, like, there is, there is a turning point for them.

There is a place where they are realizing their power in who they are and what they really wanna do and who they really wanna be. And it’s just, I’m just over the moon for it. Like it’s the, my, my favorite age range when I’m working with clients to work with because their, their vision gets bigger, they’re so confident and they’re ready to make some big changes.

And that, that to me is just so exciting. We start, we started with the word of liberation, right? And the women are the ones making these big, big shifts right now.

Tanya Dalton: I love what we’re saying here because I feel like so often. We think about aging and getting older as this terrible thing or this thing that we wanna avoid. We want to bottle youth. I wish we could bottle age and give it to the younger women because you do step into so much confidence and you feel more self-assured, you feel okay asking that question? Who am I? And do I like who I am and do I like where I’m going? All good

questions. And we’re not afraid of it. I think so often when we are in our younger years, there’s so much pressure to be all do all for everybody else, whether the everybody else is your friends, your coworkers, your parents.

That’s a big one, right where we bend and twist who we are for who our parents want us to be. I think it’s really powerful when you step into your power, and that does seem to happen very naturally as we get to this age of, in our late forties and into our fifties. You know, it’s so funny because

When Is a Woman In Her Prime?

Tanya Dalton: there’s been so much talk lately about when is a woman in her prime, right?

The whole Don Lemon thing

Ali Brown: right.

Tanya Dalton: Right. That whole fiasco where he kept pushing and saying that a woman’s in her prime in her twenties, thirties, and he, I think he said maybe her forties. So I, what I thought was really kind of funny is I took that question from Don Lemon and I went into chat, G P T, and I asked chat, G P T, when is a woman in her prime?

You know, you wanna know what it said? A woman is at her prime when she’s at the peak of her physical, emotional, and intellectual capabilities. It’s usually between the ages of 25 and 40 when she’s at the height of her reproductive capacity.

Ali Brown: Oh, interesting. Interesting. They’re

linking. Yeah. Yeah, that’s,

Tanya Dalton: and I wanna say, wow, you have no idea. This is why. I know that’s a whole nother conversation, but I asked at that because I was. You know, I wrote an article for Forbes about AI and making it human-centered. That’s a perfect example of why you can’t just take what everybody else is saying,

This is what Chat G P T does is it goes in its scours, the internet and it pulls its opinions, its thoughts from other places when the truth is I get to decide when I’m in my prime. My prime can be right now, or 15 years from now, I wanna look and go, you know what? Nevermind now is my prime. When I’m 80, I wanna say, you know what?

Nevermind now is my prime.

It’s a hundred percent a mindset. It really is.

When you’re in your prime is not decided by anybody else.

It’s decided by you,

and that’s powerful.

Ali Brown: I love that like you decide, decide it’s your prime, just claim. It’s your prime. It changes your whole mindset when

How To Stop Procrastinating (or whatever you think holds you back)

Tanya Dalton: Yeah. Well, it goes back to what you were saying too, about your identity. You know, I was having a, a call with Jack cuz Jack and I do coaching calls. I am Jack’s accountability coach on Friday afternoons. I am not mom, I’m his accountability coach. He’s 20 years old and in college we get together. He ranks how he’s feeling about the different areas of, you know, his procrastination and distractions and all of those things.

And he said to me, he said, mom, I just, I need more discipline. And I go, oh honey,

You don’t need more discipline. You need a new identity.

You need to change how you look at yourself. Stop calling yourself a procrastinator because that’s the problem you’re identifying as a procrastinator. Choose to see yourself as someone who turns work in on time.

Choose to see yourself as somebody who gives himself plenty of space and time. And he started doing that and he was like,

that totally shifted everything. I’m like, mom knows what she’s doing every now and then.

Ali Brown: Yeah, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? I

love that

Tanya Dalton: I

Ali Brown: this kid. Do you send Jack a bill, by the way? Do you send him a bill for that?

Tanya Dalton: The problem would be I’d have to pay the bill

anyway, so he’s pseudo adulting at this point, which means he’s an adult, but I’m still paying the bills. So yeah, no Bill. No bill,

Ali Brown: Yeah, just getting ideas from you mine are a ways off from college, but thinking through

Tanya Dalton: Yeah,

Ali Brown: what I’m gonna send them the bill for.

Tanya Dalton: He couldn’t afford my bills, trust me,

Ali Brown: Yeah. What

Tanya Dalton: back. Yeah. Well, I think that’s the thing is I realize that’s one of my gifts. That’s one of the things I’m really good at. So why not give that to my kids? Right. I, I know I can identify myself as a really good coach. I’m really good at coming into situations and seeing what needs help.

So taking off my mom hat that identity for an afternoon, Fridays at four o’clock is when we do it. And putting on my coaching hat specifically for my son has been really interesting and fascinating to watch because he opens up in very different ways for me and talks about some of his struggles and some of the things that he’s been challenged by.

So it him in many regards. Like it helps me, right? But it also helps him. So it’s been really interesting to watch. But I think it does go back to that whole idea of the magic, right? Seeing the magic, choosing who you wanna be. Do you wanna be magical or do you wanna just be who you’ve always been?

Ali Brown: and the energies right now are so supportive of this. Really, if you’re listening to this and you’re kind of feeling what’s going on, and I’m not gonna get too woowoo deep today, but there is an ascension of energy right now for people who want to be more this way and, and work more this way and be more organic and human led and feel our way into things.

And it’s all, it’s, it’s there. Just like tap into this current right now. So take a chance for yourself today. Recognize the magic that Tanya’s talking about. Just all this stuff is even more powerful right now. It’s kind of the stuff that we all at, at least meet, you know, I I, I heard and learned about years ago and started doing some of the, you know, think focusing more on what I was thinking and, you know, attraction based success and things like that, and getting more aware of that.

But man, now stuff’s happening quickly. Like if you tap into this stuff right now, You’re on fire, like if you tap into this magic right now.

Tanya Dalton: I think you’re absolutely right and I think it is. Tapping into who you are, how you want to be, what your identity is, what the magic is that you’re experiencing in the world. That’s it’s, it’s really, it goes back to what, what we were talking about earlier. It’s not rocket science. None of it is difficult or complicated.

It’s astoundingly simple.

It’s how you choose to think that completely shifts and adjusts your reality. We’re in complete control. We have full dominion and authority over what our world looks like in so many regards, yes, there are things outside of us that we cannot control and political things and things happening in the world, but there’s so much we can control.

I think we lose sight of that. I think we forget.

Ali Brown: That, that’s a good one to end on and leave people with really, you know, I could be guilty of skimming the news a little too much cuz it’s like just crazy. Like, it’s just

Tanya Dalton: It’s

Ali Brown: like I’m skimming the headlines going like, ok, everything’s gone cuckoo. And then I get back to like, what, what am I controlling today?

What is it within my control? And then focusing on that and the magic of that and the power of that. I think that’s where you and I align really well, Tanya.

Tanya Dalton: Oh yeah, we absolutely do. Ali, we could talk all day, but your

Ali Brown: know

Tanya Dalton: DoorDash is about to arrive

Ali Brown: we have to do this again. We’ll do like a part two

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So Ali, why don’t you leave us with a final thought. If you could give the listeners or the people watching this on YouTube, one piece of advice, one sage statement, what would that be?

Ali Brown: Hmm. Trust yourself.

Tanya Dalton: Hmm. It’s so true and it’s so powerful, so simple.

Thank you so much, Ali.

I hope you really enjoyed that conversation with Ali Brown today. I know I did. I think that’s what I’m really enjoying about this season is just the organic nature of these conversations. I find that in my private life when I’m not hitting record on a podcast, This is how these conversations go. We go really deep with each other and we just let down the, the facades.

We let down the guard and we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. I think my favorite thing that Ali said in today’s show was she said, My identity was based on what I had done and produced and delivered, and I needed to shift that to discovering who I was being again. And that led to abandoning the old scorecards success that she talked about, and she talked about how that felt amazing.

I think there’s so much that happens when we let go of identities. That is definitely a theme I have been exploring in my own life, in my own world. I’m actually planning on doing a show on identity later this season because I think it’s so important. But what it all boils down to is this concept, this idea of trusting yourself. Trusting that there is magic out there. I want to encourage you to do that activity I mentioned on today’s show, the Magic I saw today. Just take a few minutes at the end of your day and write down what was the magic in today. A lot of times it’s, it’s looking deeper than just, what am I grateful for?

It’s deeper than that.

Sometimes the magic for me is as simple as taking my break outside, sitting outside in the sunshine, and then the hummingbirds come over and start chasing each other and taking time away from the craziness and the hecticness of my life to just.

Enjoy watching hummingbirds. There’s little tiny bits of magic. Sometimes it’s noticing the coincidences in my day or the synchronicities or the things that I wanted to have happen that did happen. So take just a few minutes. I have a little journal that I leave next to my bed. inkWELL Press has fantastic journals.

Uh, grab a journal, keep it next to your bed, and you just jot down a couple of things. Your brain will start filtering for that magic and truly, that’s when you feel like everything shifts. Because there is magic out there. Ah, so much magic. Today’s show was amazing. I did wanna remind you that I did talk a little bit about my Oxford Talk on today’s show, and I mentioned that next week is my birthday.

Gonna be the big 49 next week. So one way that you could really help me celebrate my birthday is going and watching my Oxford talk. You can go to tanya dalton.com/oxford. It’s called. How time management is killing your productivity, and it’s got some similar themes to what we talked about here today.

So if you enjoy today’s show, go and watch my Oxford Talk and please share it with everyone. Oxford Talks is a brand new iteration of TED Talks so that some of the organizers of TED and the organizers of masterclass have gotten together to create this new Oxford Talk, and it’s just starting out. And what will really help me, what I would greatly appreciate is if you would go watch it, share it with your friends.

And let them watch it as well. I want this video to be big because I really believe in the messages that are there, and I know you do too because you’re here with me on the intentional advantage. So go to Tanya dalton.com/oxford. I would really, really appreciate that support. It would mean everything to me, and it would be the best birthday present ever.

All right. Let’s talk about our main takeaways from today’s show. What I want you to walk away from today’s episode is that idea of trusting yourself, that idea of believing in yourself, that idea of leaning into who it is you want to be. When we are truly authentically ourselves, that is when we lead the best.

That is when everybody else wants to follow us because we are so authentic. And yes, it takes vulnerability. Yes, it requires letting down your guard. Ah, but that is when the magic truly does happen, and that is when you know you’ve got the intentional advantage.

Ready to take action on what we talked about on today’s episode. The easiest way to get started is my free take five challenge, five minutes a day for five days. That’s it. And yet it will boost your productivity and double your happiness. I can promise you thousands have taken the challenge. Go to Tanya dalton.com/take five to join or click the link in the episode notes.

And don’t forget to follow the intentional advantage on your podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

**The Intentional Advantage is a top podcast for women who want to be more productive. This episode’s transcript is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

 

Tanya Dalton is top female motivational speaker. She has been called the best productivity speaker for companies, organizations and corporations. Her keynote talks focus on balance, finding meaning in work, habits, time management