284: Reclaiming Agency with Steph Tuss

Hello, hello, everyone, and welcome to the Intentional Advantage podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 284. We’re diving into having a sense of agency. In today’s show, we are in our season where we’re talking about the spiritual Art of Work in life. And I knew we needed to have a conversation about ownership choices, understanding who you are, regardless of what everybody else sees. And if you listened to our last episode, you knew this is where we were heading. Today on this show, I have my good friend, Steph toss, Steph is the CEO of life is now Inc. She’s an incredible person and such a great resource she has really, she’s really pushed me into becoming the best version I can possibly be. And that’s why I knew I wanted to have this conversation with her where you guys could listen in because we’re actually talking about someone very unlikely you might be surprised, who we’re going to be discussing on today’s show, because we’re going to be talking about Pamela Anderson, we’re going to be talking about the documentary that came out on Netflix, and really looking and dissecting a little bit about that documentary, and how we think that Pamela Anderson really showcases what agency looks like, in today’s show, we’re going to talk about how do you have more ownership over your life, especially when other people are telling you who you are or what you are expected to be? How do we really set good boundaries? How do we turn it on its head when we don’t like the way people perceive us? And we’re going to talk about society’s expectations of us. I want at the end of the show for you to feel like you have more agency over yourself. So let’s go ahead, and let’s get started. Here we go.

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. 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 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. 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.

Steph – this is what I love about you. We were supposed to record our conversation last week on Friday, and you Vox heard me and you were like, things are crazy things are going on. Like I can’t make it work. We were like Okay, so we scrambled and we’re like, let’s just meet Tuesday morning. I Voxered you Saturday, like noon, I think. And I said, Oh my god, like I’m so happy that we hadn’t had our recording or our conversation because I said, I just watched the Pamela Anderson documentary, which just came out this weekend. As we record this just came out this past weekend. I said I want I want to talk about that on the show. And you said got it totally got to watch it. I love that you’re so game to like, dive into these things. I love that about our friendship. And I love that about you.

Steph Tuss
It was a good recommendation. I was like, yeah, 100% I mean, let’s do it.

Tanya Dalton
Again, one of the many reasons why I love you. So just so you guys know, listeners, Steph and I, we had a conversation before we got started. I was like we are not talking about the documentary until we hit record because I I want everything that we talked about to be absolutely a real conversation. So I’m curious, first of all, what did you think of the Pamela Anderson documentary?

Steph Tuss
Well, I think first it’s good to know like when the whole Pamela Anderson, you know, sex tape, stuff came out. I was like a sophomore in college or something. I was not I could care less about Motley Crue. Like that wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t paying attention to the news. Like, I was fully engrossed in my own life. And whoever I was seeing whatever I was studying, which was kind of cool. Actually, I didn’t really have my own experience with it, because I just knew about it by hearsay. Yeah, kind of on the periphery, right of life. It was very much on the periphery. Yeah, like I wasn’t the same age, right? And

Tanya Dalton
so same thing where I was like, I was worried about worried worrying to the next party. Who I was dating, or Yeah, I didn’t care about any of that.

Steph Tuss
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee was an anomaly. It was not a concern for me. Like I was like, I don’t know who these people are. I don’t give two shits, who they are like, whatever. So I came at it from a really open mind. Like, I wonder what this actually is. And I sort of knew that she wasn’t a Baywatch fan, like, never watched me watch and so I really just kind of knew her name and sort of knew her background and then I knew Tommy Lee interestingly enough, Tommy Lee got some coaching from from David the second time he was in prison. So it actually sparked an interesting conversation between David and I, my business partner, which is really fascinating. But I ran the emotional ran and emotional roller coaster watching this documentary. I was mortified. I was horrified. I was just so angry. Yes, it was a fantastic depiction. Now, obviously, it’s one sided, which is fair, because, you know, up until that point, it’s been very unsightly. very one sided. Not Pamela Anderson side.

Tanya Dalton
Exactly. Everyone else’s side. It’s everybody else’s perspective. And poor Pam is like off in the corner, just saying nothing. Yeah.

Steph Tuss
And I just, I have a lot of respect for her. Like I, yes, I deeply respect her. I think that if anyone has an excuse to be totally self destructive, to be angry to be a victim, you know, I think it would be probably her, and she just, she just refuses to accept victimhood, which is incredible. It’s so incredibly now,

Tanya Dalton
Doesn’t it just make you I feel like I walk away with a whole different respect, because I’ll back up and say, I watched the Pam and Tommy Hulu series you did, which I have to say, we watched it because it had some good buzz to it. And I was like, Well, I don’t know. And again, it was on the periphery. So I was like, Oh, I kinda remember that. I found that to be fascinating to watch, because I had, I had never thought about it from the perspective of privacy laws, and, you know, agency and autonomy, and the ability to choose who you are, instead of the media pushing this whole identity, which they did onto her, which totally gonna say I fully adopted thought of her as a bimbo thought of her as just this one dimensional person, which is completely incorrect and unfair. Yep. And so watching that documentary, I was so angry, because which I think we’ll dive into in a little bit, just the way the courts even perceived her that she was public property and her body and it the women’s rights that were involved in that case, I never even like never crossed my mind, because to me, it was about a sex tape, and nothing more. And yet, it was so much more.

Steph Tuss
I want to know more about the court proceedings, because I just find it so appalling that she was even questioned the way that she was questioned that she was deposed the way that she was deposed, because it had nothing to do with the fact that it was stolen property that was being used for someone else’s profit, like they completely manipulated the situation. And where was her representation? Like, I feel like I don’t know enough about that to be super, super angry about it. But the fact that she was questioned in the way that she was sexual abuse, like it was

Tanya Dalton
100% why women don’t report rapes. It’s 100%. why women don’t talk about the sexual harassment that happens because you then do become the victim because they are just attacking you on every front. So for those of you who have not watched the documentary, I really do encourage you to and yes, there’s some nudity in it. But it is it is fascinating. Basically, just to give you guys just a quick overview. She sues because Penthouse wants to post the pictures of her nude. And the California courts are like, no your body’s public property because you’ve chosen to show it in the past. Now, if she was a watch, if she was a car, nobody would say this belongs to everyone because it’s been out in the world. But they did that with her with her body. When in the deposition, they asked her about her sexual history, her sexual acts her you know why she did the thing she did. And it was so invasive, and she was like pregnant with her second child at the time. And she had to walk away from the case because she was worried about the health of her ever unborn baby, because it was so traumatizing. It’s, it’s upsetting.

Unknown Speaker
Yeah. And it’s interesting, because, you know, she was both molested as a child and then raped as a child. And she talks about the impact that that had on her life. And I think any of us who’ve been, you know, violated or molested in any way, we totally relate to that feeling. You know, she had a lot of body shame. She wanted to hide. She was very shy. And her posing for Playboy was actually very healing to her because she felt like she took her power back and she took her own her own like autonomy and agency that but when the sex tapes were released, it actually put her right back into where she was when she was a young person feeling totally violated. They were private tapes that were made only for the two of them. Her most private intimate moments with her husband, like her private moments with her house. I’ve been, I’ve been have been stolen. They’re being like slapped all over the internet was a huge violation.

Tanya Dalton
Such a huge violation. So no matter where you stand on sex, this is a moment between a husband and a wife. It’s consensual, and yet it was made into pornography. And, you know, we had a whole episode a couple of seasons ago, where we talked about sex confidence and why women don’t feel confident with good, healthy, enjoyable, pleasurable sex. Let’s just look at that. I mean, who was vilified Tommy, Tommy Lee wasn’t vilified. She was throughout that whole thing. But I want to get into this this idea too, that you you just touched on, because I think it’s really easy for us to sit in judgment of somebody who shows their their breasts who poses naked, right? Like, hey, I’ll raise my hand and be like, I totally judged her thought of her as a bimbo. I all those things. But she has this history of molested as a child by a female, babysitter, raped, and she had a lot of body shame. And for her the whole idea of posing for Playboy, and she talks about how that shoot that first shoot she does with Playboy, it totally freaked her. And that was her way of taking back her body, it was her way of living on her own terms, and letting go of all that guilt and shame. And I think it’s really easy for other people to look at that and go, that is bad, you’re a bad person you are wrong, and how you’re coping with these traumas. Now, obviously, we didn’t know that was her coping mechanism for the traumas. But we look as an outsider, all of us do this to other people. And we lay judgment on what they’re doing. And I think that’s really interesting to dive into. Because it’s so easy to look at what other people doing and label it black or white, good, bad, right. But a lot of people’s coping mechanisms, the ways that they find their own agency don’t really look healthy. I watched this really interesting interview with this doctor who deals with patients who are in drug rehabilitation facilities. And he tells a story about he’s talking to this to this woman. And he’s like, you know, what’s going on with you? How are you? And she said, Well, clearly, clearly, I’m self destructive. Clearly, I want to die because I keep putting drugs in my body, and I can’t seem to stop. And what he said totally reframed the entire thing for me. He said, I don’t see someone trying to kill themselves, I see someone trying to survive, I think that you are absolutely doing everything you can to survive whatever happened to you and your past. You’re numbing it. And this is your, your way of coping. This is the way that you are moving forward. And I think I think that’s really freeing to look at that as when we have these unhealthy things that we’ve done for ourselves, whether it’s drugs, or alcohol or posing in Playboy, I don’t think a lot of my listeners that pose for Playboy, but you never know, or whatever it is, it’s not self destructive at all, can we let go of that idea that what we’ve done in the past is self destructive, and just acknowledge those were coping mechanisms. Hey, they may not have been the most healthy coping mechanisms, but it was a me trying to survive in the best way I could with the tools I had available. Right? I just think that is a total reframe, on how we look at how people deal with trauma, because we’ve all we all have these negative coping mechanisms that we’ve done in the past, every single one of us have coped with micro traumas traumas, with a lowercase t traumas with a capital T. In unhealthy ways. Yeah. And, and that’s okay, that you’ve done that. Once you get to a spot, then we can move on and we can try to find healthier ways. But I think that’s a fascinating way to look at it, how we’re surviving.

Steph Tuss
It removes the shame, it removes the shame. Yeah, and that’s the most damaging thing, right? Like, it just it’s just makes it okay for you to for you to have made the decisions that you’ve made and moved on. I also think with Pamela It was fascinating that she’s from a small town in British Columbia and went to a football game. She ended up on a jumbotron ended up on the Jumbotron, and then was contacted by Playboy because someone saw her on the job boat like

Tanya Dalton
what it’s so crazy. Like that happens. I know. Like it was clear

Steph Tuss
to me and she was like, what this is what and then, you know, she gets flown to LA and never been on a plane before. Never been on a plane before she even asked her mom. Hey, should I do this? And her mom’s like, go for it. I don’t know many moms back in the oh my god, late 80s, early 90s. Then like yes, go pose for Playboy.

Tanya Dalton
Let me just think about that interaction with my own mother. Mom. I want to go Yeah, that would not have gone down the same way. If at all, yeah, not only she from a small town, she’s from a small island. Yes. And her mom was like, there was one point in the documentary she talks about her mom’s like, don’t go to the mainland, this is in Canada, there was a shooting in Texas. On that’s pretty far away, and she’s like, it’s all connected. I mean, she lived a very sheltered life with parents who had a very dysfunctional relationship. There was a lot of mental and physical abuse with her own family. And so he or she is raised in this very sheltered way, being molested, being raped during that timeframe as well. And then off into the great big world of not just like, hey, I’m gonna move to someplace, I’m moving to LA to the Playboy Mansion. It’s kind of crazy.

Steph Tuss
She was she was still so young, right? Like, I can’t imagine the the thought process. And the cool thing is, is that she journaled the entire time, so she can actually look back at her thought process. And she she was actually really conscious, like she Yes, as a young person, very self aware, like she was that to mean itself again, was was pretty extraordinary that she was very aware of what was happening. Although she didn’t advocate for herself very well. She didn’t ask for things. She just wanted to be. I honestly think she just wanted to be loved. Like she just wanted to be accepted. She just wanted. Yeah, good enough and lovable like every other person on the planet, right? Like, isn’t that what we all want? She’s wanting to feel like she belongs somewhere? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I

Tanya Dalton
mean, we’re, that’s what we’re wired for is we want to belong, that he or she is chasing after love. And what is the media do they vilify her for having all these boyfriends meanwhile, one of her boyfriends that she had on a regular basis, Kelly Slater, the professional surfer, people just love the fact that he that he was like, thank you to all my girlfriends, right, and all the women, and it was okay for him to do that. And yet they judge her. And she talks about this idea, like, I was tired of being asked about my boobs. And my boyfriend’s like, how inappropriate is that? That’s what they talked about. And they made it out like she was this terrible person for dating lots of people. We still do this today. Don’t we talk about Taylor Swift and how she just goes through boyfriends. What’s wrong with that? Right? Yeah, you try it out. Didn’t work. Try try a different relationship. Again, me sit in judgment. It’s a total double standard, right.

Steph Tuss
It’s a double standard that’s been there for a very, very long time. And it’s through lots of different areas. I mean, I always get I always have this this conversation with my husband, he watches sports, right? And you’re watching like football or soccer or something. And you’ve got these like overweight, like very unattractive male announcers. And then you have this gorgeous, like, drop dead, like, anchor on the sideline. And I’m like, What’s wrong with this picture?

Tanya Dalton
But isn’t that the cast of every every sitcom comedy, though, where the guy the husband is like, this overweight, unattractive guy, and yet somehow he has this like, hot, amazing wife who’s funny, smart, then all the things. Yeah, it’s interesting. Yeah,

Steph Tuss
it’s a total double standard. And it’s still I mean, it’s still rampant. You know, even, you know, my daughters are, are 19 and 22. And even in, you know, high school and college, it’s, if a girl sleeps with multiple voice, she’s, she’s a slaughter a whore. If a guy does, it’s like, you know, go man go, yeah, it, it’s really kind of infuriating, but it’s still that way. You know, I watched this documentary and I kept thinking to myself, would this happen to like, would this happen today? Like, would the courts have treated her that way today? Like, what? How would it have been different today? And, you know, I don’t know that we’re as evolved as I would really like to think that

Tanya Dalton
now that we’re evil, I don’t think we are honestly and I think about too, it’s not just the men who sit in judgment. Oh, no, the women are just as bad. We finished the documentary and Sean was like she was like the Hester Prynne. of you know, the 1990s. So here we are in 1990s. And the scarlet letter, she’s she’s wearing a scarlet letter for mind you having sex with her husband, right? And she was this person that people looked at as this. Oh, she’s terrible. Even. I was amazed because you see, even these female journalists going up to her saying, Do you want to be a serious actress? And she says, Well, I am and this woman literally laughs in her face, and she laughed in her face and I thought, I’m amazed at how strong she is to overcome the fact that everybody in the entire world thought she was a bimbo thought she was just a bunch of boobs and boyfriends. Yeah, right that she really didn’t. They didn’t value her as A person and everything I’ve seen and read and heard about her. In the meantime, since watching this documentary talks about what a gracious, incredible giving generous woman she is that she is consistently putting good into the world. And yet she’s she was judged like this, what I think is interesting is how she really reclaimed herself, in a lot of ways. Yeah, because it’s really easy to get lost and how everybody else sees you. And a lot of times we think we can’t do things because, well, nobody thinks I can do it. But she took that victimhood, and she totally flipped it on its head. She talked about in the documentary, how she went on to, she went and got roasted on Comedy Central, where she knew they were going to bring up things that were hurtful, she knew they’re gonna bring up things that she didn’t really want to talk about. Do you know why she did it? She did it so she could get $250,000 to donate to PETA. Yeah, she did it because she knew she could take that money and do good. Do good with it. So she takes this and she totally flips it on its head and was like, I see you, I understand that you perceive me. I’m now going to take ownership over this. I know you’re going to talk about these things. But I’m going to take that money, and I’m going to do things that matter. I’m going to use who I am to change how people interact with animals with PETA. You know, I mean, she was very instrumental in PETA kind of coming onto the scene. And, you know, the way that people look at even things like fur coats and how we how we utilize animals,

Steph Tuss
she shut down Canadian exports to Russia.

Tanya Dalton
Yes, like, I mean, she went and met with the heads of state to make change. And here we are still thinking of her as a bimbo. But she not a stupid woman, she is not a stupid woman, and she knows it. And she doesn’t care. I really don’t think that she cares anymore. What people think, what would that be like? If we all stopped caring so much?

Steph Tuss
Look, here’s the thing you’re worried about people think because you think something terrible is gonna happen, you’re gonna get struck by lightning, you’re gonna die, you’re gonna lose everything. Right? She had the ultimate, the entire world thinking one way about her. And she survived. So I have to think that that experience, though, was incredibly terribly traumatic. Actually, the good that came out of it was that she learned that didn’t really matter what people thought of her, she could do things anyway. Right? Like, most people are terrified of what people like it controls their IT controls who they are and what they do. She experienced that to the, you know, a million degree and was like, Alright, I’m still here. I can, I can control this, I can do something with this. I’m not a victim. She takes ownership of the fact that she put herself in some pretty risky situations. And she’s,

Tanya Dalton
I think you’re absolutely right, because that could have just flattened anybody to go through because I you think about the things that we go through on this smaller scale. Not only was it it wasn’t a national scale, it was International. Like, this was the sex tape between with her and Tommy was honestly the thing that made the Internet the Internet, it was the internet was brand new. And that is what really got people to start using the internet was that sex tape? So it was global. And here she is thinking, Okay, I survived that instead of being a person who defines herself by that she’s like, No, I’m moving on the fact that she’s never watched the tape, I think is fascinating. She’s never watched the tape that came out, because it’s a bunch of tapes that are actually spliced together to make it into this. The actual tapes themselves have a lot of a lot of innocence to them, where it’s just her interacting with Tommy as a husband, and, and wife, you know, hanging out on the boat doing things. It was spliced together all these kind of, you know, sex scenes, graphic sex scenes. Yeah, I think it’s fascinating about how she used that to make her stronger. She used that to forge herself into who she really wants to be. And she started taking more ownership over herself, she started really owning who she was. And I think every single one of us, every single one of us has things in our past that cause shame, that cause guilt. And we can choose to let those things just tear us down to make us feel small and to let others label us in whatever way they choose to label us. The one thing we can control is that we can own that, and we can say this happened to me. Here’s where it got me. I know for me, one of the most important things I have done for myself in the past two years is I have looked at my own trauma, my own sexual assault, my rape that I experienced that I talked about, in The Joy of Missing Out in that conclusion. I took that and I now see how that has gotten me to where I am now. And I don’t want to say I’m grateful for it, but I can appreciate that that’s in my timeline. I can say that was in my time. I’m blind, and that the good that came out of that situation is this not that I want to repeat it. Not that I would want to ever wish that upon anyone, but it did make me into who I am today. And that’s, that’s powerful. That’s when you take back the power, because so many of us have had the power taken away,

Steph Tuss
or we’ve or we’ve given it up, right? I mean, or we’ve given up, like, taken or given up. I mean, it’s what, however, however you look at it, right? Like, there are so many women that give up their power, and they don’t even realize they’re giving it up, because that’s what their upbringing was, yeah, right. That’s what they took on from someone else. That’s what they learned from someone else that they needed to do that to be loved and accepted. I’m 100%. With you, I look at my past traumas. And I can see how I can see the gifts in those situations. And let me tell you, it feels so much better seeing the gifts and being mired in anger and victimhood because it’s just not productive. But it is

Tanya Dalton
easy to smiled. I like that word. It is easy to be mired in victimhood. It’s so easy. And I’m not saying that as a cop out, because I spent a lot of time in there. Right? And there it is. That’s where we want to go. And you have to choose to see, okay, let me extract what has helped me from that situation, let me choose to extract what was good in this, whether it’s a past relationship, or it was an assault, or it was, there’s all these different things that happened to us in our lifetime, that we have to pull the good otherwise, it’s an anchor, and it weighs us down. And I think there’s something I know that you in a lot of the conversations that we have had we talked about this idea of what are you tolerating? So often we’re tolerating things because we think we have to, because these things define us because they weigh us down. Talk about this idea of what you’re tolerating, because I think that for me, in those conversations you and I have had, it’s been really helpful in me getting to where I am with how I feel about those traumas,

Steph Tuss
right? So tolerations are a sign of the level of basically your self worth, right? You’re You’re tolerating things that you don’t want in your life. And your subconscious mind has all kinds of excuses as to why you you need to tolerate them. And most of those excuses are not based in any kind of truth. So with our clients, what we’ll do is we’ll have them make a list of things that they’re tolerating in their life, even small things, like I’m tolerating my couch, right? I’m tolerating my car tolerating could be could be a toxic relationship that they’re tolerating it could be an underperforming employee that they’re tolerating. Right? So then we go into, okay, what is it that you desire? And usually the desire is the flip side of the toleration. But if you were to come out and to ask someone, what is it that you really want? That’s a hard question to answer. So the tolerations are like the breadcrumbs to what it is that you really want in your life. So we go to desire, okay, this is a toleration, what do you desire, then then come in the excuses, okay, let’s pull out all the things that you say to yourself, all the things that you say in your head, that continue to allow you to tolerate these things. And it’s incredible what comes out, like a page of excuses? Yep. pages of excuses. And usually, it’s like, well, and it’s all based in playing to not lose rather than playing to win. Right, like, excuses are, there’s no time

Tanya Dalton
playing not to lose rather than playing to win? Yeah. Okay. I just needed to, like, call that out. Good. I like that.

Steph Tuss
Yes. And then once they see their excuses in front of them, we help them uncover what the big lie is, because there’s usually a big lie or two lies that create those excuses. And generally, one or both of those lies is either I’m not worthy. So I’m not good enough, or I’m not lovable. I’m afraid people are gonna leave. And once people see that, it’s like, Oh, my God, this is what’s causing this in my life, like, this is what’s running behind the scenes. And it just helps them become really aware of like how their programming is keeping them in a loop that they could consciously choose to step out of, if they have the right tools, if they can be awareness of actually what’s going on. Because the truth is, you were born worthy. You were born lovable. Right? You don’t have to do anything to be worthy. You don’t have to be anything or do anything to be lovable. You are inherently those things. But as children were taught that that’s not the case, you have to act a certain way to be loved, you have to be a certain way to feel secure. You have to do certain things to feel like you belong in this in this family group. Because the people that raised you didn’t know any different. They’re doing the best that they could, right

Tanya Dalton
because our parents are humans. Can we just say that? It’s so easy to blame our parents. And as a parent myself, I have plenty of blame to take. Oh, you’re right. Oh, I’m fully ascribed to the I parent as a human, which means I’m totally fallible. I’m totally full of flaws. I have totally screwed up and said some of the the wrong things to my kids that I now I’m like Oxshott really shouldn’t have said that, dammit. And I said it on repeat.

Steph Tuss
So that’s the idea behind tolerations. And what I what I really noticed in the Pamela Anderson documentary was that there were certain things that she just would not tolerate. She was fine tolerating a husband who started drinking at 9am in the morning, that wasn’t a deal breaker for her. Like she was cool with tolerating that. She would make passive aggressive comments about it, like, oh, it’s, we’re having a beer, and it’s 10am. I picked up on that. I’m like, Ooh, that was passed. Daddy’s

Tanya Dalton
drinking. It’s nine. Okay, that was drinking.

Steph Tuss
Yeah. But what she wouldn’t tolerate is any kind of physical, emotional, emotional, and who she was with, like, that was the line in the sand. That was the deal. There was no coming back from that. As soon as he crossed that boundary, she was like, Absolutely not, that’s not going to be a part of my life. So she did have, like, she did have a clearer sense of what she would and she wouldn’t tolerate. But why would she tolerate you know, husband drinking at at 9am. Like our her father was a an alcoholic. So it’s really fascinating to see how people justify certain things over other things and still keep them in their life, even though they know that it’s not healthy for them, or healthy for their kids to be quite honest.

Tanya Dalton
Yeah. I love that. And I, I have to say, when we’ve had these conversations, because we will call each other out, and we’ll be like, What are you tolerating? Or what’s, you know, what’s the story here? Why are you feeling this way? This is what I love about good female friendships is that we can, we can call each other out. And I don’t like to use the word should. But here we go. We should be calling each other out. When we see each other tolerating things. Why are you putting up with that? And sometimes that’s a frightening thing to do. But that’s what I love about our relationship is we’re not afraid to call each other out and then support when we come in and support each other. And I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful for you. I’m grateful that you walk through that hole, kind of walking through what are you tolerating? Because to me, when you start asking that question about what are you tolerating in your life, whether it’s, as you said, something like your husband drinking at 9am, or I’m tolerating my couch, what are the things that really drive you crazy, but you’re still putting up with them. And then diving into why you’re doing that? It’s really powerful. It is flipping this on its head, it’s taking agency over yourself and owning those choices. It’s owning what you want, and it’s stepping into it. I love. I love that about our conversations. Unfortunately, we’re out of time for for this conversation today. We could keep going without question. A good week. Good. This was so good. So Steph, thanks so much. I really appreciate you coming on and letting us record the conversation that we this is what our conversations are like or dive in deep. And sometimes it’s things like Pamela Anderson’s documentary other times, it’s our businesses. Other times, it’s our personal lives. I’m so grateful for

Steph Tuss
you. Right back at you. I’m grateful for you as well. Thanks for having me.

Tanya Dalton
Okay, so a couple questions for you. First of all, isn’t Steph amazing? Answer. Yes, absolutely. And by the way, if you want more Steph, she’s got a fabulous pap podcast called The successful mind podcast that she does with David Nagel, you can find it at successful mind podcast.com. My second question is, did you change the way that you thought about Pamela Anderson? Because I can tell you, I did. I was playing into what society wanted me to believe about her. And I’m a little bit sad to admit that I just took that as truth. And how often do we just accept what society gives us as truth? After we watch that show, John actually said to me, we had been in New York over the summer. And we saw that she was going to be headlining Chicago playing the musical you know, playing Roxie Hart, a musical that my kids and I, we love Chicago. And we chose not to go you know why we thought, probably not going to be that great, because Pamela Anderson in it. And yet, apparently, she was phenomenal. I missed out on that I missed out because I chose to look at the persona that society had presented to me, instead of really diving into who she really is. So we’re all guilty of doing that from time to time. So I want you to think about how you’re playing up to how everybody expects you to be or what your life is supposed to look like, based off of what society or other people tell you. It’s supposed to, they may not verbally tell you. It may be in their actions. It may be in some of your upbringing, but it’s there. I think one of the most powerful things we can do is stop and check in and ask ourselves those questions. I love that exercise that Steph talked about, where you ask yourself, What am I tolerating? And again It might be big things. It might be little things, but just listing them out what am I tolerating? And then if this is what I’m tolerating, what do I really desire? Then What excuses Am I making? What are the lies? I’m telling myself? What’s the truth? I can tell Steph went through that in today’s episode, I will list all of that out as well in the show notes. So you can go to TanyaDalton.com, go to Episode 284. And I’ll have that all listed out for you. Because I think that’s a really powerful exercise, it’s so important to check in from time to time. And speaking of checking in, did you know that I started doing a free goal check in where you can check in each and every month, I just started doing this, this last month, in January, I sent out an email to the people who are on my newsletter list. And I asked them, Do you want me to create this? And I was flooded with email saying yes, yes, please do it. So I created it was a huge success in January, I’m going to continue offering this it’s just a freebie. It’s five minutes for you to check in, I have a video that’s going to be brand new for you each month, you do this quick check in and you get a copy of your answers. So you can start seeing those breadcrumbs. So you can start seeing how you’re moving forward on your goals. So if you are ready, and here we are at the end of the month, end of the shortest month of the year of February, you can go to Tanya dalton.com/check in and you can take this free check in this is just my way of helping you make sure that you are regularly asking yourself, do I like where I am? Where do I want to move next? How do I want to move forward? I really want you to accomplish whatever it is you desire this year? And yeah, I want you to stop tolerating, like Steph talked about. So go to Tanya dalton.com/check in and you can take that quick little check in. It’s just my way of supporting you and encouraging you this year. All right, our big takeaway from today. If you embrace your agency, if you understand that you get to control the narrative and you get to choose what will you be capable of. I mean, think about the things that you feel like are out of your control. I hear all the time things like oh, I have no control over my calendar. Other people are in charge, or I have no control over my life because of what my spouse or my family or I can’t do my dreams because other people who is in charge. The truth is you are I want you to have more agency. Because when you step into who you fully are when you step into your power, when you start playing to win, instead of playing not to lose. That’s when 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 1000s 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.

**This transcript for The Intentional Advantage, one of the best podcast for women, is created by AI, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

 

Tanya Dalton is a motivating keynote speaker, productivity expert and one of the top female podcast hosts. She is available to speak at your corporate event, summit or retreat. Just go to TanyaDalton.com/speaking to learn more.