252: Living On Purpose

Extraordinary is a choice. Take that in, soak it up because of the hustle grind, repeat mantra that society has been touting for decades. It had it all wrong. I’m Tanya Dalton. I’m a seven figure entrepreneur best-selling author speaker, mom, and rule-breaker I’m here to help you live to your fullest potential. That’s what this podcast is all about. The Intentional advantage is doing life on our own terms.

Define the status quo and seeing ourselves outside of the tie-dye definitions. Society’s name for us. It’s intentionally choosing to step back away from the chaotic rush of your every day and choosing, choosing to see that it’s your world and it’s filled with opportunities. Let’s challenge the bedrock beliefs that so many have wholeheartedly trusted because we were told they were truths. Let’s have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

Let’s choose to be extraordinary. Hello? Hello, and welcome to the Intentional advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 252 and it’s a brand new year. So welcome to 2022. Lots of exciting things are ahead of us. I love a brand new calendar year. First of all, you have 12 months just laid out in front of you,

just waiting for you to take advantage of them. Like that is so exciting to me, but then the other thing that’s exciting is I now officially off of social media as of January 1st, 2022. So just the past couple of days, I made it official. I announced it here on that episode earlier this season called taking a stand. And if you haven’t listened to that,

you might want to give it a listen because I really do go into why I’m no longer on social media, but even as I was gearing up for the January 1st date, I started really stepping down and not being as active at all on social media. Oh wow. I can’t even tell you how amazing it has been. It’s really been so liberating, so peaceful.

And I feel like I’m so present. I’m so much more present with my family, with my friends, with myself. And so I’m excited about 2022, because truly this is a year. My word of the year is audacious. I’m going to be audacious in my life. I’m going to be audacious in my business. I’m going to do things differently.

I didn’t go into business to do things like everybody else. And I was finding that’s what I was doing. I was doing the same things. I went into business to break the rules. And then I started following someone else’s rules, the rule that said I had to be on social media. And so since making that decision, it’s really challenged me in a lot of ways to really think about how I’m running things in other aspects,

my life, not just social media, but even here on the podcast, do I like the way things are going? And I do like it about certain things, but I want to change some things up. I want to have more fun. I want to, I want to really shake things up from time to time. And so I’ve been thinking about some ways that we can have a little more fun here on the show while still having incredible shows filled with great information and actionable strategies and tips.

But what can we do to, to enliven it a little bit? So I can really enjoy coming into this room by myself and talking to you because it is a little bit of a surreal experience when I’m in a room by myself, but I’m chatting to all the, you know, tens of thousands of you out there, but what can I do to make this more fun?

And you’ve probably noticed that we’ve had John on the show twice this season, which is a record, which is fabulous and amazing. And I’m looking to get him on the show more often, but what other things can we do to really shake things up a bit? And so I thought about it and I thought, you know, it’d be a lot of fun is to do something we’ve never done here before.

As we start off this brand new year, let’s do something very different. And that was, you know, in thinking about the seasoned topic of on purpose, really it’s about the heart of what we talk about in the book, in my book on purpose, which came out in October and I thought, you know, what would be really great is to pull one of my favorite interviews that really gives a beautiful overview of what it means to live on purpose.

So when I thought about which interviews I really loved being on, and I was on like, gosh, I’ve done probably so far at this point, just in the past three month period, probably like 60 to 70 podcast interviews. So there’s a lot. So I had a lot to choose from, but one in particular really stood out to me. And that was the podcast episode from Whitney Johnson,

who runs a podcast called disrupt yourself. She is incredible. And she and I have gotten to know each other over the last several months. She has a book coming out later on in January and she and I have really aligned to help each other and to support each other and to encourage each other as we geared up for our book launches. So Whitney did an amazing interview of me that I thought this is just too good not to share with you guys.

So that’s what we’re going to do today. I’m going to introduce you to Whitney. And the great thing is, is you’re going to meet Whitney today cause she’s interviewing me on her podcast. So you’re going to hear that. And then in just a few weeks, I’m going to have Whitney on my podcast. So you get to know her even more.

So this is a great way to meet Whitney and to really get to know her because she is so incredibly smart, so many great questions that she asked me. She really dives deep into what it means to live on purpose. So let’s go ahead and dive into the episode. Shall we? So Tanya, your book on purpose, I love the double entendre.

Can you tell us why you decided to write this book? Oh yeah. I love this because it’s funny. It turned out to be a very different book than I originally thought I was going to write. You know, I had my first book, the joy of missing out, came out in 2019 and Harper Collins asked me to write a second book.

And so I sat down with my editor and we, we talked about what I could write the second book about. And we said, oh, we should do goal setting. Everybody loves goal-setting. We, I could talk about goal setting all day long. I’ve taught thousands of women how to set and achieve their goals. So I thought that would be a cakewalk.

No problem. Right. So I sit down and I map out, I do a whole outline. I create like a writing schedule for myself. I have it all perfectly laid out in February of 2020, and then March of 2020 happened. And I think we all know how that went. All the plans went out the window because suddenly I’m homeschooling my kids.

I’m filling out PPP paperwork for my business. I’m trying to negotiate, navigate how things work with my team at the office and everything else. And I didn’t write and I didn’t write and I didn’t write the whole writing schedule, went out the window. And what was amazing is, you know, as I was having this very intentional pause in my writing,

I was watching these conversations and listening to all these things that people were talking about through the pandemic. Like what have I been doing? Am I happy with how I’m spending my days is this really what life is all about and all of those things. And when I sat down to really start writing the book, I began to realize goals are not the goal that I think a lot of times we believe that it’s when we accomplish X or Y or Z,

when I make this much money or achieve this level on the corporate ladder or when I do these things and suddenly I’m going to be happy. Like all of a sudden when I get to the other side of that finish line, that’s where happiness lies and really goals are the vehicle to get us to that bigger life. I really wanted to tackle those questions of like,

why am I here? What am I called to do? What is my, what is my bigger purpose? And that’s really what began to unfold very beautifully as I sat down to write. And so for somebody like me, a productivity expert, throwing out your perfectly laid plan feels it’s a really interesting feeling. And yet it was so freeing in that the book that came out of me having this pause and really allowing the shifts to happen is so much better than what I would have written if I had started off and stuck with that whole outline.

I truly believe that. So it’s a COVID baby. It’s a COVID baby, without question. Yes. I think there’s a lot of gifts that come out of what we’ve just been through. One of the biggest gifts is that really intentional pause. You know, sometimes it’s easy to miss the gift because we don’t like the package it’s wrapped in and that was a pretty ugly package.

But what a gift it’s been to have this moment in time to really step back and take a good look at we are living, do I like what I’m doing? Do I like where I’m going? That’s the big gift in all of us. Oh, I completely agree. As you said, such a challenging or you implied such a challenging time, but there’s such a gift and I love how you said that,

but you have to decide, what did you say about the packaging and the wrapping? Say that again? Yeah. Well sometimes, sometimes we miss the gifts because of the package it’s wrapped in. You know, a lot of times the gifts we get are really the things that are the failure though. There’s sometimes the trauma, they’re the things that we don’t like.

And we want to just kind of sweep them underneath the rug and not look at them, but there’s a lot of gifts in that. And that’s really what we experienced with the pandemic, not the prettiest gifts, didn’t like the packaging. It was all wrapped up in, not the best looking thing. And yet hidden inside of that was this magical moment that the whole world stopped to really reflect.

And I think that’s really powerful. All right, let’s end the podcast, Tanya. We need to hear all right. So one thing that you said in your book, once you accept responsibility for your own life, you can do anything. Do you feel like this pause that happened? You know, you thought you were going to write this one book,

you ended up writing another book on a scale of one to 10. How do you feel like you moved? You know, were you a five in terms of accepting responsibility for your own life? And as a consequence of this process, now you’re at a seven. Like how much do you feel like you moved over the past couple of years? I love this question because sometimes that number shifts a little bit,

right? Sometimes it’s higher and sometimes it’s lower. There are certainly times in my life several years ago where my, my responsibility rating would be probably like a four where it was just like, life is happening to me. I have no control over anything. I just want the magic pill. Tell me what it is. I need to do the magic system.

And it’s been through the course of the past several years, really? That I’ve really shifted to understand that, yes, there are a lot of things in this world that I cannot control. I mean, if I were to make a list of all of those things, it would be like the length of a football field, but the things that we can control are so strong,

they’re so mighty. And when we choose to focus in on what we can control, that’s really when we take that ownership over our life. And when we are, we’re the one in charge for me, you know, we’re coming through all the things that we’ve experienced pre pandemic pandemic. I would say my rating now would be like an eight or a nine without question,

because it really is about the power of choice, the choices that we make on a daily basis that we get to choose what that life looks like. That that life is not just this thing that happens to us on repeat where it’s just like, this is just how life is. No, that’s not how life is. Let me choose to disrupt that pattern.

Let me choose to step into what I really want and feeling confident in doing that, doing it. Guilt-free that’s another big part of that. All right. So let’s start to dive into this idea. You talk about how we have these big dreams. We struggled to pursue them. Tell us why. And in the book you have an intriguing headline, Matt Damon and Natalie Portman walk into a bar.

I think you said it was, yes. Let’s just talk about some of the reasons why we don’t do these bigger dreams that we have. Oh yeah. I really, I thoroughly love this question because I love to talk about how our brain works, because I think when we understand how our brain works, we can disrupt it. We can change the way that it works.

We can, well, we can, first of all, normalize it and say, oh, this is why I’ve struggled with whatever it is or this is why I’m doing these things. So there’s this amazing study that I love. And I, I nerd out on these kinds of studies because I think it’s so fascinating to understand exactly how your brain works.

So there’s this amazing F MRI study, where they had these participants in an MRI machine, which basically lights up the different areas of your brain that are activated. And they would have these participants talk about themselves right now, today in the present. And sure enough, like a Christmas tree, a certain area of the brain just starts lighting up. So then they had the same participants talk about themselves in the future.

Now the future could be three years from now, could be three weeks from now could be three hours from now, but it’s you in the future. And what’s interesting is a very different part of your brain lights up when you talk about yourself in the future. But the most interesting part of the whole thing to me was this. They would have those same participants talk about Matt Damon and Natalie Portman,

and that same area of the brain that lights up. When you think about yourself in the future, that lights up. When you talk about these strangers, these people that we kind of know. So in other words, for our brain us in the future is not us. It’s someone who looks and acts and talks and thinks, and even has your same name,

but it isn’t you, your brain prioritizes what we’re doing today, because, well, I mean, your brain is wired for survival. Your brain is like, we need to survive the saber tooth tiger. It’s part of that caveman brain of ours. And it’s prioritizing what we’re doing today over. What’s going to happen to us in the future, which explains why we buy the expensive shoes instead of saving for our 401k,

why we eat the cookie today instead of eating the carrot, because the person who has to deal with the repercussions, the person with no money in their 401k, well, that’s not me. I don’t have to worry about that. That’s somebody else who has to deal with it. And so it really is fascinating how our brain prioritizes today versus us in the future.

And when we understand that it really starts to make sense why we’ve struggled with our goals in the past, why we’ve had a hard time connecting to our purpose because our brain is really wired to want us to focus in on today. So What’s the workaround. What do you do now that you know, that what Do you do now that, you know,

you can really hack your brain to make it work for you. And I think there’s a lot of really fascinating ways to do it. And this is where I think technology is so amazing. I mean, even on Instagram and Snapchat, you can use these filters that automatically age you. So studies have shown that if you look at a picture of yourself with age progression,

you’re actually going to save more money for your 401k. You’ll save more money for retirement. So you can have pictures of yourself where you look like yourself in the future, or let’s say that your goal is to run a marathon. Well, you could find a picture of somebody running a marathon, crossing that finish line and superimpose your own image of your face on top.

Doesn’t have to be perfect, right? You don’t have to have an expert do that for you just even tape it on top of a printed picture and start to see yourself in the future. When we start to connect who we are in the future, we start to connect our actions up today with that person doing that action or accomplishing that goal or whatever it is.

So there’s just a couple of really simple, easy ways that we can do that. So How have you applied that for you specifically? What did you do? Did you take your head on a, on a person running a marathon or something? Well, I have no interest in running a marathon unless I’m being chased by the saber tooth tiger. So no,

not for that one, but I have used the age progressed pictures of myself for saving for my 401k. I think that it’s really powerful to see that. And I’ve used age progressed pictures of myself in other ways when I’m setting a goal, or when I’m thinking about who it is, I want to be as a business owner, even putting superimposing a picture of yourself on the cover of Forbes magazine and doing some things like that,

those types of little tweaks and changes we can make really make a big difference in us seeing the value of the work we’re doing the small steps we’re making today to get to that bigger tomorrow. So that’s just a couple of ways that I’ve done it, but there’s lots of different ways we can do that. When you Put that picture of yourself on the cover of Forbes magazine,

how did it feel? Well at first you’re like, is this silly, right? And I think this is, this is part of our subconscious kind of coming in and saying, what are you doing here? Come on. This is silly. And then I was like, why is this silly? Why is this not a possibility? And I started really questioning the,

is the silly talk for myself because part of the, oh, this is kind of a silly thing is, is that shutting down that opportunity, that possibility that this could happen. So really when I’m superimposing a picture of myself on the cover of Forbes magazine, I don’t just put a picture of myself on Forbes magazine. I also think about what I want the headline to say,

what does the headline look like for me? And it’s really about who I am as you know, somebody who starts a foundation and somebody who’s a philanthropist who gives back to the community. And so when I started doing that and really rounding out that story for myself, that’s when I began to really connect with it more. So it’s almost like creating a backstory of how I got there.

That made a big difference for me. I love that. I love the explanation and I love that you did that. That just makes I like you even more. So are there any particularities or idiosyncrasies as it pertains to women? I know you’re writing a book to women, but what have you discovered around that? Yeah, it’s really fascinating. I think especially as women,

our brains just work differently and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s a beautiful thing to acknowledge and to accept. I think it’s a wonderful thing that our brains work differently than how men’s brains work. I think that’s part of, you know, I tell my kids on a regular basis, this is what makes the world an amazing place is that we are all so different.

We need that diversity, even if the way that we think, what I think is so interesting with women, that’s so different from how men think is that we, as women have been primed and programmed by society to really be rule followers. You know, we see this time and time again with girls succeeding and just excelling at school where we are rewarded for following the rules.

But when we step out of line outside of the rules, we’re told that we are bossy, right? Boys are never told that they’re bossy. Boys are told that they’re overconfident. And what happens is we begin to associate this idea of being a boss of not following the rules as being something that is bad innately. And so we’re so busy trying to play by the rules that it holds us back.

In fact, there are numerous studies that show that if there’s a job application that’s out or a job offering, a woman will not apply unless she can check the boxes of a hundred percent of all the qualifications, whereas a man, 60%, 60%. And they’re like, yep, I can totally do that job as a woman. We’re worried that we’re not following the rules.

If we can’t follow a hundred percent and that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with the fact that the men are applying at 60% good for them, right? It’s really, why is it that we feel the need to play by these arbitrary strict yet always changing rules that society has for us. And what’s wrong with bending the rules a little bit. I think that that holds us back in so many ways from really seeing ourselves as the experts that we are.

And I think that when we choose to not see ourselves as experts, it’s no surprise that other people don’t see us as experts and don’t turn to us automatically. So it’s really about rising up recognizing that there are rules there, but rules are meant to be broken or bent or changed or shifted or crossing that line a little bit, stepping into who you are that you get to define who you are.

You choose your identity. Other people will accept you as you present yourself. So if you want to be taken seriously, present yourself seriously. If you’re wanting to, let’s say, start a business, don’t call yourself like a hobbyist. Don’t say, well, I’ve got this little business that I’m doing or good. This little thing on the side, that’s making it small,

right? That’s making yourself small. It’s cramming yourself inside this tiny little box, choose instead to call yourself a successful entrepreneur or an up and coming entrepreneur or a savvy business owner. Think about how we’re identifying ourselves and choose to step into that fully. The world will accept you. As you decide. I was just about to ask you about your hack.

And it sounds like your hack is, use your words, your words, to describe yourself as you imagine yourself to be. We had, oh, probably months and months ago now, but Marcus Whitney on the podcast, and he was talking about how he wanted to become a programmer. And he didn’t say, I am becoming a programmer. He said,

I am a programmer. And then he became a powerful a programmer. You said it early in your career, when you were playing small, you had someone say to you that you trust you were being selfish. Say more about that. Yeah, this was, this was the thing that shifted everything with my mindset. I think it’s really powerful. I think that a lot of times,

especially as women, that we don’t want to put ourselves out there because we’re worried that we’re being selfish by putting ourselves out there that we’re not giving enough to our family, or we’re taking all the limelight away from other people. Or, and we struggle with that as a, as a gender, really putting ourselves out there. And the truth is every single one of us is designed for greatness.

Every single one of us has incredible gifts to offer up to the world. It doesn’t matter if you have a big platform or you’re someone famous. In fact, we talk in the book about the fact that regular, everyday people have the ability to affect 80,000 people’s lives over the course of their lifetime. So if you have these amazing gifts and you have the ability to impact 80,000 people,

why would you hold back? Why would you not step into it fully? If you’re choosing to withhold your gifts, the greatness that you could offer the world, the impact you could make, that is truly being selfish. You’re keeping all of that away from everybody else. And when I realized that, wow, I’m being selfish by not sharing my story by not helping other people with my gifts.

That’s when everything began to shift and to fall into place with me, that I really began to recognize my place in the world and how important I am, how important every single one of us are to this amazing ecosystem that we’re a part of this society. Okay. I can’t remember. How did you get to the 80,000 number? I remember reading that,

but I totally forgot. So we live an average of 73.3 years in our lifetime, and we meet on average about three people a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, you know, the grocery clerk checking us out when we’re buying our milk to the neighbor down the street to the other parents, cheering on their kids at the soccer game alongside of us.

So we’re meeting an average of three people a day, three people a day, 365 days in a year, times, 73 years, that we’re alive. And on this earth, that’s about 80,000 people, which is a staggering number. When you stop to think about it, we think that we don’t just as regular everyday people don’t have the ability to change lives,

but 80,000 people, that’s a lot. That’s a stadium full. Wow. How is fear your ally in All this? Well, I feel like fear is one of those things that we allow to hold us back, that we have these fears inside of us and we’re afraid to step forward. And a lot of times our fears really are just perception, fears,

but not really survival fears. In fact, one of the things I talk about in the book is the number one fear that people have is if you’re public speaking a fear that will definitely not kill you. You’re not going to die. I mean, if your audience falls asleep, you’re still going to survive that, right? So this is the thing is we give into our fears,

even when they’re not really survival fears, our body is primed for fear. And that’s again, that’s our, that’s our beautiful brain, helping us avoid the saber tooth tiger to stay alive. And so we allow that fear to set in, even though it’s a very natural thing, it’s something that we should be experiencing on a regular basis. It keeps us from touching the fire or stepping out into traffic.

Fear is a great thing. And we see fear as our enemy when fear can be our greatest ally. You know, for me, when I made the decision to start my own business and really go for it to grow that business, I had a goal at the time of really growing that business. So I could absorb my husband’s MBA income and he could come work alongside of me and through some of the twists and turns of life.

He ended up getting laid off of his job. And so the fear was very real of, oh my gosh, what am I doing? Going out here chasing after this big dream of mine with zero business experience under my belt, mind you not a single business class in college? What was I doing there? What, what would this mean for our kids?

Would they go hungry? I mean, my kids do like to eat three meals a day. They kind of demand that, right. Are we, are we going to be homeless on the street? Or what does this look like? And instead of saying, okay, this fear is overwhelming and I’m going to go curl up into a ball. I let that fear circle me like a shark.

Like, yeah, what if this did happen? Maybe I could allow that to push me even more that, yes, this is the direction I need to go in because I don’t want that worst case scenario to happen. So instead of feeling like we always have to be fearless because fearlessness doesn’t really exist in all walks of life. I mean, it does.

In many regards, we get in the shower without fearing that we’re going to fall down and crack our skull open. We get into a car without fearing that we’re going to get into a car accident every single time. So we have moments of fearlessness, but it’s okay to embrace fear. Let’s focus in on the courage and the bravery, because that’s so much stronger than being fearless.

And that reminds me of what your definition of resilience that you you’ve adapted a bit from the American psychological association where you said resilience is the ability to acknowledge and accept your own shortcomings and use that knowledge to your advantage. It really is. I mean, the thing is, is trauma failure. The parts of our past that are littered with things that we don’t love that does not make any one of us unique.

Every single one of us has a past that’s filled with all kinds of regret and sadness and things that we don’t want to necessarily repeat. But when we acknowledge it, when we accept that these are parts of who we are, that we’re not perfect. And we were not designed to be perfect. We have strengths and we have weaknesses. Let’s embrace both.

When we understand who we are as a whole, we can use that to our advantage. We can play to our strengths and let’s play to our weaknesses. If I know I’m not good at something in my world, how can I make a system work? So that, that weakness becomes a superpower for me? How can I make it? So that becomes easier for me.

So it really is this idea of let’s push against regret because the opposite of regret is really this idea of resilience, that regret and knowing what you don’t want, knowing the things that you don’t want to repeat. Oh, so much more powerful than knowing what you do. I can promise you right now. If I said to your listeners, make a list of 10 things that you want in the future,

they’d be like, oh gosh, 10. I mean, think about it right now. 10 things. Okay. If instead I said, think of 10 things right now that you don’t wanna repeat 10 things that happened to you in your past, that you don’t want to have happen again. No problem can go with that list. Probably come up with 15,

not 10, but with beautiful is we can use that regret as a springboard. We can push against it when we know what we don’t want, we can push against it to the opposite that tells us what we do want. It’s so much powerful to know what we don’t want. So for women who are feeling their long-term goal, growing up was, I want to be a mother.

I want to run a household and now their children are starting to grow up and they’re going to be empty nesters and are now feeling like they need to do something more. What advice would you give them who are just, they’ve got this yearning and they’re not quite sure where to start. Yeah. Well, I feel, yeah, I can tell you that.

First of all, because I, I started off life thinking I was going to be a stay at home. Mom, you know, I was a teacher for several years. And then I quit teaching when I had my son Jack, who’s now 18 and just headed off to college and I still have one at home, but, you know, I thought I was gonna be a stay at home.

Mom. I really thought that that’s who I was quote unquote, supposed to be. And there was always this pole within me that I wanted more. And I felt like shouldn’t, I be fulfilled enough by motherhood. And I felt guilty for not feeling a hundred percent filled up to the brim with motherhood. And so I think first of all, it’s walking away from that feeling like,

is there something wrong with me? It’s okay to want more. It’s okay to have a life outside of what you do as a mother. If we were designed to have motherhood, be our end, all be all purpose for the, our entire lives. We would be flies. That’s what flies do they have babies? And then the babies are up and out and then they die.

And yet we were made for so much more, right. We were made for so much more. And so really first of all, accepting that that’s okay. Let’s let’s if I could do one thing for women, honestly, like if I had a superpower, if someone were to come down and say, I’m going to give you the gift of one super power,

it would be to destroy guilt just to get rid of guilt because it does us. No. Good. And I think guilt is what holds us back a lot of times is that we feel like, well, I should be completely fulfilled by being a mother. And it’s okay that we’re not, and it’s okay to shift into something new. In fact,

I like to say that when we chase, after our big dreams, as mothers, no matter how old our kids are, whether we’re turning into empty nesters, or we have young children who were in preschool or just born, or, or whatever age, when we do that, we model for our children. We model for our daughters, what a woman is capable of,

that she can go after her dreams and it’s okay to chase after them. We want that for our daughters. If you were to ask any mother what they want for their daughter, they would say for her to do what makes her happy, right? So why is that not enough for us? And here’s the thing we’re modeling for our daughters, what is possible,

but we are modeling for our sons, what a woman is capable of as well. You know, I’m very proud to have raised a feminist who’s off as a freshman in college who doesn’t think twice about the fact that his mom is a CEO and that’s, my husband works for me to him. That is just natural. Like why is that a big deal to anybody?

We’re really establishing new models for our children when we go after our dreams. And so think about what a gift that is for our children, that we’re creating a brand new world for them through our own actions. So go for it. Do the thing that you’re really wanting to do. The thing that gets your heart on fire and ignites your soul go after that,

because that benefits your kids in a thousand different ways. Tanya, As you’re talking, I continually finding myself, wanting to say amen to everything you’re saying, it’s awesome. I feel like I’m at a revival. It’s fantastic. I do tend to get up on the pulpit just a little bit. I give it up because I want women to feel as passionate about what they do is I feel about what I do.

I think it’s fantastic. So let’s talk a little bit about the S curve. So in our work, we use the S curve as this visual model for people to think about what growth looks like, and depending on where you are in your growth, and you’re going to do some things differently. And it also orients you. So when you’re doing something brand new like this,

you know, the woman that you were just talking, two of her children are growing up, but she’s going to do something new. You’re going to feel really uncomfortable and awkward. And that normalizes the experience. And then you, you know, you’re moving along and you eventually get to the top of that S curve and you figured it out. And so you’ve got to do something new.

So there’s this growth cycle that you go through. You work mostly with women, where do you think women most struggle? Is it to gain traction, to start something new? Is it to stay focused once they move into the sweet spot? And or is it when they get really good at something and they feel like they’ve got it figured out and they can’t do it anymore,

they stay too long because they perhaps feel guilty. Do you find that women struggle at different points along the curve? Just riff with me for a moment? Yeah. Well, I think every one of those points in the S curve has its own pitfalls, right? There’s different ways that we get stuck. I would say honestly, probably the place where I see most women getting stuck as the launch point.

That very beginning where they’re grasping for knowledge. I think we get to a point in our lives and it’s not a very old point. I would say by the time we’re like 30, we’re like, I should know everything, right? Like I should have myself together. I should, I should know these things. And so there’s this whole idea of if I don’t know how to do something either it’s not right for me,

or I’m not right for it or whatever. And, and I think we struggle with the not knowing. And we struggle with what that’s going to look like to the outside world, which just plays again on those fears, those perception, fears, because most of our fears are not the survival fears. There are the perception, fears of what will people think will people think if I go back to school and get a degree,

look at me. I’m 50 years old. What am I thinking doing that? Or who do I think I am thinking I can go do something new. When if you really look at some of these women who are doing amazing thing, I’m Julia Childs didn’t start cooking until she was 40 years old. Did not know how to chop onions, learn how to do that.

When she was 40 years old, they’re awaiting, hadn’t sewn a single wedding gown until she was 40 years old. I think the not knowing oftentimes holds us back because we think that we’re going to look stupid. And I think we have this fear of looking foolish and looking silly. And when in reality, the beautiful thing that happens when we don’t know what’s possible is anything is possible.

Our opportunities are endless when we don’t have the expertise. When we’re starting something fresh and new, we have so many more opportunities for innovation and let’s use your favorite word here. Disruption. We have so many opportunities to really step fully into whatever it is we want because we don’t know what’s possible. And that’s an amazing thing, but we don’t step into it because we think that that looks silly that if we’re learning something new,

I’ll tell you this. Google is like my best friend and Google never judges. You, you can Google the same thing 10 times in a row. And Google is not like, Hey, dummy. That’s not how you know. I mean, this is the thing is we have so much information at our fingertips. There are videos we can watch. There are,

you know, Google searches we can do. There are all kinds of blogs and resources and so much richness of knowledge. Don’t fear stepping out of your comfort zone. You know, that’s the thing that happens when we’re learning something new. It means we step out of our comfort zone, even if we’re already uncomfortable where we are. We fear stepping out of that comfort zone because it feels like sweat pants and Netflix,

right? That’s what our comfort zone feels like really when we’re challenging ourselves. That’s when we get reignited. That’s really, when we get into that zone of greatness, where we’re just operating on all cylinders and feeling the wind in our hair, that’s when the excitement happens. So it is getting out of our own way. So that’s so fine. So one of my husband’s favorite films is pride and prejudice where Keira Knightley is on top of the Moore’s and they play this wonderful music called Lizzie on top of the world.

And when you said that wind blowing in your hair, that’s immediately what I thought of. So that’s very fun. I mean, what exhilaration, right? Exactly. That’s what starting up something new is exhilaration Right now at this moment. And you look at all the advice and counsel that you are giving to the world, which advice right now this week,

yesterday, this morning is been, you’re wrestling with, you’re trying to do this a little bit better. I have to tell you I’ve done a lot of interviews for this book. And no one has asked me this question, and I think it’s such a great question. It really is because a lot of times, you know, when we’re writing books and we’re writing advice,

sometimes I feel like I’m writing it as much for the reader as I am for myself in many ways, right? Like it’s sometimes I need to be reminded of things as well. I would say there’s a whole section of the book that I talk about the myth of the multi-passionate person, that we have all these shiny objects that we want to chase. And we,

we gathered them together like a squirrel and we have all these ideas and that can Steiny us, that we don’t move forward. I like to say that one, my husband’s main jobs for me is to just to stand off on the side and say the word narrow, narrow, cause I’ve got 75 ideas and every single one of those ideas has about 36 different versions to it.

So I could really easily go off the rails and just get into that realm of just overwhelming myself with all the ideas, which is why I think it’s so important to give yourself a container of time, to give yourself a container whenever you are brainstorming or coming up with ideas. And I use that term container of time a lot because in my mind’s eye,

when I picture a container of time, it looks like a Tupperware container, oddly enough, but it’s got these high rim sides. It’s got a start time where I get into that container. And it’s got a stop time where I get out of that container. And so I very purposely give myself those containers because I know that’s one of my weaknesses. So here I am publicly announcing yes,

that is a weakness for me. It is certainly something that I talk about because I can really speak into that because I understand that issue. I understand the problem of wanting to do hashtag all the things I could do this, or I could do that, or I could chase after this, or I could do this and we all need someone in our life to go narrow.

And that’s one of the things I hope to do in this book is to help people narrow in. And that’s why we have the activity where we talk about how do you narrow in the book? So where can people find You the best place to really find me is Tanya dalton.com, which is my main website. You can find links to my books there,

both the joy of missing out and on purpose, both of which can be purchased anywhere. Books are sold, but you can also find links to my own podcasts, the Intentional advantage there as well. So Tanya dalton.com, that’s the best place to connect with me. What was most useful to you in this conversation? So may have been something said, but it may have been something not.

Yeah, I was really, I had not seen the S curve of learning before, and I was really intrigued by that really got my brain thinking about it and then thinking about the different pitfalls that happen in each one of those spots. So that was really, I love that I’m walking away thinking about that even more. And what does that look like and where do I think I’m falling in certain areas of my life in that S-curve so I found that really fascinating.

I love that. All right. Any final thoughts for us today? Yeah. Well, this is what I would love for your listeners to do. If today you heard any tiny piece of advice or a thought or a strategy or a tactic or, or anything like that, or if it spurred you to, to, to want to feel the wind in your hair a little bit on the Moore’s like Keira Knightley,

this is what I would love for you to do. I would love for you to choose to take action today. So, because we’re saying today, that’s a very small container of time, so it can’t be a big action, right? Because the thing actions can overwhelm us, what is something can do today? That would be small, tiny, itty bitty little step that would build a little bit of momentum to get you to that life you want.

It might be stopping to do a little reflection. It might be thinking about how you’ve been playing by the rules in your own life. It could be thinking about those 80,000 people and what your gifts could look like for them, whatever it is. I want you to take action today, do one small thing to build a little bit of momentum, because here’s the thing.

When you take one small step, the second step is easy and the third step becomes easier. And then that fourth step becomes bigger. And then that fifth step is running and that’s how we get to the life we want. So take action today. Wasn’t Whitney, just incredible. I love the questions she asked me and the depth we were able to go to together.

In this episode, she has a fabulous podcast. I really could not recommend it enough. I find so many great strategies and ideas, and she just gets me thinking in a lot of different ways. And as I mentioned, Whitney will be coming onto my podcast. So she’ll be here in a couple of weeks. She’s going to be episode. I believe it’s 255.

So you’re going to hear even more from Whitney in the coming weeks, but this was a really great way to get to know her, to get, to understand a little bit more about the book on purpose and what that means and what it looks like. So I hope you guys really enjoyed that. Let’s keep thinking about ways that we can, we can do things outside of the box.

You know, I’m really going to be working hard to come up with ways that we can connect in other ways, ways that we can add a little more fun and energy into the show. I’d love to hear from you guys. You can send me a note anytime@helloatTanyadalton.com. Also, if you’re signed up to my newsletter, which you can do at Tanya dalton.com/email,

you’ve probably noticed they’re a lot different than they used to be with timestamps. And I give more behind the scenes. This is kind of my way of showing you what’s happening and kind of peeling back the curtain in ways that I don’t do in the podcast itself. So if you get my email each week on Tuesdays, just hit reply and let me know what you think.

Any ideas, any thoughts I’m willing and open to hear them. I don’t know about you, but I am just fired up about 20, 20 to 20 20, 20, 21. They were a little bit of a shit show. And so I am ready to really do things on my own terms, really reclaim who I am to, to bring in more fun and energy,

to bring more who I am behind the scenes here in front of the microphone. It’s going to be a fun year. I’m excited for it. I hope you are as well, because the truth is when we live on purpose, when we start aligning with what fires us up and gets us excited, makes us want to pop out of bed in the morning.

That’s when we have the Intentional advantage. Thanks so much much for joining me today. Quick question though, before you go, do you like prizes? When you leave a rating and review of the Intentional advantage podcast, you’ll be entered to win my life-changing course, multiplying your time. Simply leave the review and then send me an email@helloatTanyadalton.com with a screenshot. I choose one winner at the end of every month.

So go ahead. Do it right now. Just a quick comment with what you loved about this episode or the show in general and a rating and send it our way. Not going to lie by stars is my favorite, but I’d love to hear what you think of the show. And if that’s not enough of an incentive for you to win the multiplying your time course,

I have to tell you the reviews are the number one thing that supports this podcast. And me, it’s the best way to spread the word and get business tips and strategies to all those other women out there who need it. So there you go. Two great reasons for you to go and leave a review right now. So go ahead and do it,

send that screenshot my way, because I want to give you a free course. And thanks again for listening today. I’ll be back next Tuesday and I’ll plan to see you then.

 

 

The Intentional Advantage has been called a top female hosted productivity podcast. This transcript was created using AI.

 

As a woman productivity expert, Tanya Dalton, speaks about issues that affect women such as time management, finding balance and setting achievable goals. She has been called one of the best female keynote speakers by audiences around the world.