Epic Real Estate Investing - Nancy Dana on Staying Motivated and Producing Results | 807

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

This Way Back Wednesday, the Do Over Guy (aka Matt Theriault) interviews life and success coach Nancy Dana on human behavior, the science of the brain, staying motivated and producing results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster, visit R-E-I-Aase.com.

Here's Matt. Hey, Matt here. Welcome to another episode of the Epic Real Estate Investing Show. It is way back Wednesday. This is the day where we reach back into the archives and pull out old classic episodes. And we've been reaching back into the archives of the Do-Over podcast, the podcast that started it all. And I got another great one for you today. Enjoy.

During an era where countless people, businesses, and organizations are feeling the pinch, running out of time, running out of money, losing confidence, feeling as if life is unfair, praying for another chance, and unless something is done, life is going to pass them by. Fortunately, in the nick of time, there is now a place where the ignored, underestimated, and unknown steps to producing results, and making life work are revealed. Save your career. Save your business. Save your health. Save your relationships. Save your life. Get from where you are to where you want to be, faster and with greater ease than you ever thought possible. Say hello to your do-over.

Welcome to Your Do-Over, coming to you live once again from downtown Los Angeles, and this is the place where I show people who want more out of life, people dissatisfied with their current situation, how to start over and begin a new life setting goals and objectives so they can create wealth and live life to the fullest. You can jumpstart your do-over and lay a solid foundation for a better life by downloading the three pillars of creating the ultimate do-over for free at free do-over.com. It's a 55-minute MP3 audio program that I made just for you with three specific steps

on how to get success as you start over. The three pillars of creating the ultimate do-over will put the legs under your table. They will lay the foundation for you to achieve. They will act as your traveling success coach. and they are yours for free at free doover.com. I am very excited for today's show as I have a guest waiting on the line, a guest of which I have so much respect for and one that I'm very grateful for as she created a life-changing distinction from me years ago

that I'm not even sure if she knows that she did. I mean, I met her a few years ago as she was one of my real estate investing teachers, and what I learned from sitting in her class was that real estate investing is actually very easy. I mean, she laid out the steps and the basics to investing relatively quickly, but she spent a great deal of time on motivating the class to take those steps. Meaning, it's no big deal with respect to real estate investing that all you have to do is go out and find a deal, go submit an offer, go open escrow, close escrow, and collect your profit. I mean, that's very simple and easy.

However, what makes real estate investing such a challenge is the six inches of real estate between your ears. You know, one can learn just about everything they need to do on a daily basis to be a success in real estate investing. They can learn all of that in a day. But it can take weeks, months, or even years to conquer the fears and to conquer the negative thinking that stops most people from performing those daily tasks day in and day out and doing them long enough to experience the results. And I got that distinction around real estate investing. However, it applies to just about anything that you can think of. I mean, for example, it's really easy to make a cold call sales call. I mean, you just dial the phone as you've done thousands of times.

Nothing difficult there, right? Now, when someone answers the phone, you just say hello. Nothing difficult there, right? I mean, you've done that thousands of times, said hello to somebody that picked up the phone. Now, all you have to do is tell the person why you're calling and then ask for the appointment or the sale. I mean, you certainly speak the same language as your prospect, right? You likely speak that language all day long.

So there's no problem in putting a sentence together and formulating a question to ask for the sale, right? Simple. In fact, it's downright, easy. But it's one's mindset and one's thinking that makes it so difficult to do it six to eight hours a day, four to five days a week. Okay, here's another. You're in a nightclub, or you're in a bar or a restaurant, or even in church. And you see that attractive someone across the room, the type of person you'd like to spend more time with, and all you have to do is walk across the room, one foot after another.

I mean, that's very easy, right? I mean, you likely walked from your car to the building with no problem, so the walking part, that's easy. And you surely speak the same language as this person. So I know you can put a sentence together to ask that person to dinner or for a cup of coffee. I mean, that's simple and easy enough, right? I mean, you likely ask your friends and family members to do that on a weekly basis. But it's one's mindset and thinking that won't even let them take that first step

in the direction of that person. This is why motivation is so important. This is why mindset training is so important. I mean, this is why inspiration is so important. This is why reading and listening to self-help material is so important. It's all of this that's wrapped up under the tag personal development. And there's so many out there that shun self-help, self-development, life coaching, personal development.

I mean, whatever name you have for, many people, they ridicule it. They make fun of those that partake in it. And many just flat out ignore it. You know, there's some out there that even acknowledge it and understand its value, but they don't feel that they need it. But most, they just don't understand. They don't understand that if there's something that you want that you don't have, it's very, very easy to get.

But it's your personal development, or lack thereof, that keeps it beyond their grasp. Now, our guest on the phone, through her teaching, I mean, she inadvertently gave me this distinction. And it's not that losing 20 pounds is difficult. Simply eat less and work out more, creating a daily caloric deficit. I mean, that's very simple and easy advice, very easy to do. But it's one's personal development that will determine whether they eat less and work out more every day until they lose the 20 pounds.

And it's precisely why I've committed so much time to my own personal development and I continue to do so. And it's why within my own coaching program that so much time is dedicated to mindset, to context, to thoughts, because that's everything. It is everything. And my guest, she understands this. and it's probably why we get along so well. And you're going to love her. You're going to love her perspective.

So on the phone today, I've got my very good friend, Nancy Dana. Nancy, thank you for joining us. I'm happy to be here, Matt, can't wait. Awesome, awesome. You know, to get started, can you just kind of give the listeners a little bit of your background and describe some of your past accomplishments and what you're up to today? I'd be happy to do that. And first of all, I wanted to tell you, thank you so much for the very cool opportunity

to be on your podcast with you. I'm just so excited. I really love what I do, and I love sharing it. So one more opportunity to do that is always great. And I particularly just, I love the work you're doing and have great respect. The things that I've heard on the episodes of your podcast are fantastic. So you've got a lucky group of listeners, and I'm sure quite grateful for what you've been sharing with them. And I'm just thrilled to have a chance to be a part of that.

So thank you very much for that, my friend. Awesome. Thank you. You're very welcome. Yeah. And I have been in the world of personal development for a long, long time. I have been actually coaching people, a personal coach for 18 years. And, you know, back when I started coaching, usually the reaction when I told people I was a coach way back in the day was, oh, really?

You don't look like you play basketball. It's a volleyball. Nobody even really knew what coaching was, but I trained and studied and worked hard at developing a coaching practice. And I have loved being in the world of personal development all these years. And then some things along the way, I realized that I really needed to do more and really create some greater wealth in my life. So in addition of my coaching, I started learning about real estate investing and became a real estate investor. I know a topic also near and dear to your heart. And I really have had a good run with it, and I've had some big and spectacular crashes

that we might have a chance to talk about a little bit later today. But I really started combining the two, and that's what really has me excited right now, because personal development is fantastic and can be applied in so many areas of your life. And real estate investing is something of appeal to so many people. So I'm really combining the two right now. I spend most of my days today either studying and learning and developing new content and ideas for my coaching practice. And I coach people completely on personal development. That's sort of one stream of what I do and my favorite and what I love.

And then I also have another little stream where I combine the personal development with the real estate investing. but the love of my life is absolutely just plain old good foundational personal development. When we get better at who we are, everything else in life just gets listed up with that. And I read in Jack Canfield years ago in the success principles, he said, you're not what you like doing every day and find a way to make money doing that. And so that's what I do. what I love doing every day is learning about and teaching about personal development, and that's what I have an opportunity to do. So I don't know. You asked about accomplishments. It always feels funny to talk about that, but I think it's a pretty great accomplishment that I've been in the

coaching business for 18 years long before a lot of people had any clue what coaching is. I've got, I've had some accomplishments in the world of real estate investing. But I think that You know, if I had to really rank it as an accomplishment, I would say my greatest accomplishment to me really feels like the fact that I did figure out what I love to do and figure out a way to make money doing it. I mean, that is, that's good living if you ask me. So that's kind of who I am. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I have two grown sons, and I have a sailboat in the Bahamas that most people that know me end up hearing more about them than they want to know. I'm a sailor at heart.

So that's who I am. Is that any other questions about me? Yeah, we'll certainly get to them. But thank you for sharing all of that. And you touched on something that I get frequently asked on the show and through emails is how do you find something or how do you identify what you love doing and how do you particularly how do you do fine or how do you find a way to make money from that? I mean, that was a big place where people get stuck is like what to do. Okay. How do I do this?

and hopefully we'll have some time and we can touch on that a little bit later. But I've asked you to join me today because of your expertise in the science of the brain and human behavior. And I thought you would have a new and refreshing perspective for the people that listen to this show with regard to what's ailing them most in their do-overs. I recently sent out a survey to the your do-over community. And I asked them, what are their three biggest challenges that they're facing in starting over in life? and the number one answer I mean, it was a far away, runaway leader was staying motivated and focused.

And I've dedicated the last three episodes to that exact subject, and I've attacked it from multiple angles and perspectives, at least all the angles and perspectives that I know of and tried to arm the community with different tools and different strategies to maintain their motivation, to maintain their focus. What type of advice or comments would you share with someone

who's struggling with staying motivated and focused. Wow, that is really a big question, and I have to say it's absolutely one that I find with my coaching clients as well. And the answer is kind of a long one. So can I kind of roll into a lesson that I've learned about how the brain works and give sort of a wandering answer to that question. Will that work for you, Matt? Absolutely, Nancy.

The show today is yours. So take off it and do what you do. All right, great. That sounds wonderful. And I'll tell you, as we approach this lesson, the question that I would ask you all to sort of let roll around in your mind, ask yourself this question, how is it that everybody feels like we're going to feel better once we change something in our life? Once I get rich, I'll be happy. Once I find love, I'll be happy. Once I, you know, improve my health or lose weight, I'll be happy.

Whatever it is we want to change in our life, we all live with this idea that once we make that change, we'll be happy. Well, what I want to do is present a bit of a lesson here that will tell you why that thinking is flawed and help you find a new way to think about that issue that absolutely will really impact your motivation and your focus. So I want to talk about a little bit about how the brain works. You know, Matt, the exciting thing to me is that there is so much study about the brain. right now. We've actually learned more in about the last 10 to 15 years about how the brain works than we ever knew ever before that. We've learned more in the last 10 to 15 years than we ever knew about how the brain works. Now, you ascribe expertise to me, and I'm flattered, thank you. It's a bit of an overstatement. I love this topic and I read everything I can on this topic.

I'm not a scientist, which maybe is good news because it allows me to be. to convey this information back to other people in lay language. But it goes like this. The way that information moves in our brain, it happens like this. There are these little things called neurons, and I mean little like itty-bitty tiny, called neurons, and they're shaped kind of like the head of broccoli. And they hold and carry the nerve impulses that transmit information through our brain. but the neurons don't touch one another.

So think of two heads of broccoli kind of close to each other. And when information is fired through the brain, it's as if one of those little tiny heads of broccoli squirts a chemical and aims it at the other head of broccoli. Now, the scientific description of this is really that those heads of broccoli, which are actually called neurons, they file a chemical called a neurotransmitter from one neuron, to the other, and that's this little sport of this chemical, the neurotransmitter, that goes to the

other head of broccoli. And the more often that same impulse is fired from one neuron to the other, the more it develops what science has called neural pathways. Neuro pathways. Now, if you don't like the scientific language and it's hard to keep up with, you just think of the two heads of broccoli, squirting the little chemical juice from one to the other, and it eventually forms a neural pathway that's really actually going to. just like a rut, than a muddy road.

So what happens is when cars go down a muddy road over and over and over again, they form a rut, just like when this impulsive information in your brain happens repeatedly, it forms a neural pathway. Now, the same thing is true on that muddy road as is true in your brain, and that means once that pathway is formed, two things are true. Number one, it's hard not to drive in the rut. It's hard to stay, it's hard to get out of the rut. And the second thing is true is it's really hard to form new reps. So once those ruts are formed, pretty much all of the information is going to stay in those ruts.

And that's, it's the same on muddy road as it is in your brain. Now, a couple of interesting points about how this works. Number one is that the neural pathways are formed more deeply and more robustly when the information carried on those ruts is information that comes to you when you're in a highly charged emotional state. So what does that mean? That means when we're feeling emotional about something, we remember it and we remember it better. and the way that we remember it better is that actually the neural pathways that are formed are deeper. So what's an example of that, all right? What does that really mean in our daily life?

One example of that is that I remember clearly at about 7 or 8 p.m. on October 28 in 1967, that exactly what I was wearing and I was slow dancing with Dan Moore through the song, nice and white satin. Okay? And the reason I remember that is that was my 13th birthday. It was Dan Moore's 13th birthday and it was the first kiss.

And let me tell you what, that is an emotionally charged state. I remember the song. I remember the dance. I remember the date. I remember. I mean, I can smell it today. And so when I was in that highly charged emotional state,

that information is firmly printed in my brain and it's really tough rate. So that's how the brain works and stores information. Now, if it's not in a highly charged state like that, what happens is the more it's repeated, the deeper that neural pathway is formed and the more firmly entrenched we are in that habit of thought. And that serves us well. The brain is a pretty powerful, cool, fascinating thing. That really serves as well. I mean, every time I tie my shoes, I don't have to stop them think. I wonder, which of these laces goes over the other one, right?

That's how habits of thought are formed. That's how we can do things after some repetition without even thinking about them. So it serves us very well in most of life. The way that it doesn't serve us very well is when we want a do-over. Because the first part about a do-over is letting go of what you're doing over. You've got to let go of the old one. to get out of the old rats before you do enough of the new behavior to get into the new rest.

So the lesson about that and how to use that well is that there's a couple of points to remember about this brain pattern of this brain behavior. The first is, number one, what we do always gets easier to do it. Anything we do, it gets easier the more that we do it. Now, for most of us, that's a good thing. The more you work out, the more it just becomes a part of who you are, and it gets easier to work out more. The more whatever it is, the more you make sales calls if you're afraid to do them, the more is the easier it gets. Whatever you do gets easier to do.

The caveat, the warning, the downside of that is, if you tell a little white lie, it gets easier to lie. if you do some other behavior that you're not so proud of, the more that you do it, the easier it gets to do it. Now, behaviorally, I find that that's pretty fascinating, and I think it's a wonderful warning for anybody under stress who's tempted to go down the wrong road, and we see that all the time. So-and-so used to be an upstanding person,

and once you take a step or two down the wrong road, it's easier to go down that wrong road. So that lesson is whatever you do, it gets easier to do it. Keep everything that you do when you keep it on the right side of the chart, on the top side of the chart, behavior that you want to reinforce, it will always make new behaviors easier. Number two, emotions impact our learning. I think that's very, very powerful.

Emotions impact our learning. and we can greatly enhance our learning when we learn to harness the power of emotions doing that. And the third lesson out of this, how these neurotransmitters work for you, the third lesson is that consistency is the key to making behavioral change. Consistency always is the most important consideration when you're making a behavioral change. So, Matt, you've probably heard having to you that it takes 21 days to start a new habit. Have you heard that? Yes, indeed.

I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah, most people have. I don't know where this came from, but I'm here to tell you it's a myth. It's not actually true, okay? But there's something kind of like that that is true. And the 21 days, I don't know where it came from. I think it had to have come in some way or resulted from the fact that when you do something

repeatedly, you are laying down new neural pathways and you are eventually making that new behavior easier. So it must have come somewhere from that thinking. But I want to tell a story about how we actually really did begin to learn about this and the value and the power of neural pathways. They were studying astronauts way back at the very beginning of the space program. And what they wanted to do was find some ways to help astronauts. prepare for the disorientation that they would deal in space.

And one of the things that they did is they took an astronaut and they designed these special goggles for the astronauts to wear and they put these special goggles on. And what happened with these goggles is it turned everything that the astronauts saw. It turned everything upside down. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's disorientation 101. That would be crazy. Absolutely. Yeah.

So these astronauts lived day and night with these goggles and everything they saw was upside down, and they were studying them and measuring what happened in this crazy case of disorientation. But an amazing thing happened. Around the one month mark, one of the astronauts reported that there's something crazy it happened, but he was seeing everything right side up again. The goggles didn't change, but his brain changed. What happened was his brain figured out that this was now permanent and had been working diligently to lay down new neural pathways, and the brain did the work to flip everything

right side up again, and he began seeing the world regularly, even when he was wearing the bottle. So one of the things we learned from that is it's not this magic 21 days. As they continued to study the astronauts, they found that it was always a little bit different amount of time, but it takes about for maybe up to six weeks for new well-entrenched neural pathways to be formed. So about a month, maybe six weeks is a much better rule of thumb than this magical 21 days that we know about.

And then the other thing that they discovered, and this is the important part of the lesson I think from the astronauts, was that if the astronauts took off these glasses, even for just a little while when they put them back on, just what happened. everything's upside down. Yeah, the clock started over again. Wow. So it had to be, it had to be the month consistently. When you take the goggles off, you start the clock all over again.

So that's why my number three lesson is that consistency is key. What we know is that consistency is what will change those neural pathways. And again, if you go back to my silly analogy of the ruts in the road, you can imagine it. If sometimes you're out of the ruts and sometimes you're in them, you're not going to be as effective at continually driving outside of the ruts on that country road. So consistency is the key. So as I bring this back now to the idea of motivation and focus and how do we use this information

in terms of motivation and focus, here's the lesson that I see work over and over and over again with my clients, consistency trumps magnitude. And those words don't mean much until you break them down. But we've all seen on Facebook and all kinds of other places where people are doing a 30-day challenge. I'm going to blog every day for 30 days or a 90-day challenge. I'm going to work out every day for an hour for 90 days or some big, hard challenge. And you know why they call them a challenge?

How many people do you think finish them? Almost not, right? Right. They set themselves up for failure right at the beginning. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Nobody can do that. And I'll talk about the reason you can't do it. But instead, if people set, instead of saying I'm going to work out every day for an hour for 30 days and take that on as their 30-day challenge, the important part of that is the 30 days. Yes, that will create new behavioral change. And why not set up for a win? Why not set up for a win? Why not set up for a win instead of making something impossible out of it? Okay?

Let's talk about the impossible part of it now and how this works with the brain. Let's say you do, say you need you, maybe not you, in a generic, I'll say me. Okay, let's say I need to lose 30 pounds. And I decide that I'm going to eat 1,200 calories a day and work out 60 minutes a day until I lose my 30 pounds. Matt, you know me just a little bit. How do you think I'd feel about that? Danted, to say the least, I guess. Yeah, don't know.

Yeah, you're being generous. You're being kind. I think I'm like grumpy. Grumpy, right? Exactly. Are you kidding me? I have to do that. And I would be resistant, right?

And it sounds too much, especially if you're in that place where you're already overweight. And so whether it's about health or money or love or whatever's going on in your life, whatever your do-over is, if the approach that you take is to immediately make a dramatic shift, absolutely there will be resistance. And again, this comes a little bit from human nature, but this comes actually from the science of how the brain works. What we know is that making a big change is, you know, change is difficult, and that triggers in us an emotion that is like fear. and fear is rooted in the part of the brain that in the development of the brain is the oldest part of the brain

and it is that, you know, it comes from that fighter flight mechanism. Believe me, I'd be fighting and fleeing from the idea of 1,200 calories a day and working out 16 minutes of today. Fighting and sleep. Yeah, exactly. Running backwards swinging your arms, right? Exactly. whatever it took to get me out of that one, okay? And so when we're in that mode, when I would be in that mode,

and resisting and in fear of this change coming up, I'm using an older part of the brain. So the newer, in terms of the development of humans, the newer part of the brain that manages thinking and reason and ration and those kinds of things, it gets pretty much shut down. The older part of the brain takes over and says, heck no, I'm going to protect this poor girl. And our brain then is quite literally fueling that resistance that I would be feeling to the change.

Well, no wonder people can't handle those 30-day challenges them. They've got chemical reactions in their brain going on saying, no, danger, danger, run away. This is hard. This is scary. This is bad for you. And expecting a big behavioral change in the most. of that, it's just not going to happen. So what do you do instead?

We all are looking for some kind of magic bullet for change. Well, we don't have a magic bullet, but I do have something that will all of a sudden shift your head and your heart into that place where you can feel motivation and focus. And it sounds like kind of a crazy answer, but instead of taking this giant gulp of change, what I talk about instead is make the tiniest change you can in the right direction. And when I say tiny, I mean incredibly super tiny. So for me, if I'm 30 pounds overweight and I'm really resisting it and I don't want to change my behavior, I need a serious do-over about my health habits.

What I might suggest to me is put on your workout clothes, Nancy, and good, good workout shoes and watch television and stand up and march in place every single day for one minute. Now, people in the health field will say, are you crazy? One minute, that's not going to do anything. That's not going to create any kind of change. But the change it will create is the change in your brain. Because the first step of that change means you get out of that fight or flight mode.

and now I can stay in my rational brain that says this is a good thing, this is a, this is a behavior that I support, and so I stay in control of my brain, it completely dissipates the resistance. That's the most important part. It completely dissipates that fight or flight style of resistance. And in fact, the opposite happens. You know, but I see this all the time with the people I'm coaching. By about the fourth or fifth day, they're going, well, I feel kind of silly marching in place for two minutes. I thought I at least thought to do it before. And it draws you forward.

It creates that vacuum in front of you that you want to do a little bit more. And then, so now you're moving forward, you're going to stay in that place of eagerness, motivation, probably even focus. You're drawn forward to that. And you actually can do that for 30 days. when you now do that new behavior for 30 days, guess what happens? You're laying down new neural pathways. You're probably laying down even deeper neural pathways because as you're doing it each day,

you're saying, wow, this is kind of nice. This is kind of fun. I feel good about myself when I'm doing this. So you're layering in some emotions. You're consistently engaging in a new behavior. You've dissipated the resistance. and after 30 days, now that's when the magic happens. You have a new neural pathway.

You have a new habit of thought that exists in that new neural pathway. And then is the point where, you know, if you're driving in those new reps, now you can get as crazy as you want to get. You can start working out 30 minutes, 40 minutes a day. You can add the magnitude in once you have a neural pathway done. Because at that point, it will feel easy and interesting. thing. Oh, yeah, I'm an exerciser. Yeah, I'm an exerciser. I'm going to go to the gym and, you know, I'll bench pass something today and I'm going to do these other things. With that new neural

pathway, now any, any vehicle down that neural pathway will problem more easily. So that's the point when you can up the magnitude. So, phew, I told you was kind of a long way to get there, Matt. It was, but, you know, it's really clear the way that you laid it out. I mean, what, it sounds like that well first of all we've talked a lot about on this show is the words that you use

your vocabulary and just by calling something a 30-day challenge like we mentioned or you mentioned is I mean that sets you up for a failure right there I mean you're making it sound

like it's something hard so right right and then the other aspect of you know I experienced this even myself and just by the nature of you being a human being

as well Nancy you probably have experienced it also is that we all want immediate change. We want it now. And I think the more that society evolves, the more that we, our impatience dwindles. And our impatience grows, I should say, our patience dwindles.

And, you know, it's just like you've got to accept it that there isn't a silver bullet. And, you know, if you want something, it's those small little baby steps, those small little changes. And it kind of reminds me of the success cycle, you know, you take on these small, little activities and you get these small little moments of success and success begets success and you start growing that and rolling it just kind of like a snowball and the word that you use magnitude it starts to increase and then where change actually becomes lasting I mean that that

21 day cycle I mean I've exercised multiple times for 21 straight days and that 22nd day was just as difficult as the first day to get up out of bed so I guess I got to do I got to do six weeks so I'm going to march in front of the TV today. Yes. The resistant brainman from it. Might take you a little longer. Right. Right.

Well, good. Thank you. I mean, it was a long answer, but it was a really good answer. And it's something that I might want to listen to over again. So thank you for sharing that. That is exactly why I invited you to the show, because I knew you'd be just a wealth of information. You're welcome.

You know, can I give the copper? Because I opened this with a question that said, we all seem to say, that if, you know, once I'm happy, I'll be rich. Once I find, or sorry, once I'm rich, I'll be happy. Once I find love, I'll be happy. Once I have better health, I'll be happy. And what I believe is true now instead, and what I work on with everybody I work with and where we see great results is when you flip that statement.

Once I'm happy, I'll be rich. Once I'm happy, I'll meet the love of my life. Once I'm happy, I'll have better health. And it's a simplified expression, but what it means, is that we think that these outward things that we can have or produce are the things that will bring us the emotional states that we want. And the reality is when you stay in that grumpy, I have to, I'm Nancy, I have to work out hard every day.

When you stay in that mode, there's no way that I'm either going to be happy or get the health results that I want. But when I find a way to stay in that more empowered, positive emotional state, this, then I can produce results in every area of my life. So if you're listening in today and you think that, you know, once I get X out feel better, I'm here to tell you that without a doubt, I absolutely know that once you find a way to shift your emotional state

and live in that more empowered, resourceful emotional state, you can produce any results that you want. So once you're happy, that's when you'll get rich. Right. Just kind of reverse the order of things. Yeah. Awesome.

Thanks for that. And thanks for your insight. I mean, I'm so glad that I asked you to be part of this show. And now I remember why, what inspired the initial thought to even call you and reconnect with you. So I'm so glad that I did. Let's change gears a bit. As this is the do-over show, the theme being taking people's hindsight and transforming it into one's foresight, learning from others' mistakes, in other words, can you give it at least one more if you wish,

I know that you mentioned at the top of the show. You've had great successes, but you've had some real challenges, and I forget the exact word you use, but disappointments I'll use. Can you give at least one invaluable lesson you have learned from a past failure or a past failed attempt, specifically the type of lesson or mistake you swear you'll never make again? I'm happy to do that one, and that is easy for me. And, you know, I'm a world-up in years. years, well beyond you in years, that's for sure.

And you don't get this far in life without having at least a few really spectacular crashes. Lisa, I feel my philosophy is if you've been living all out, you're going to have some spectacular crashes along the way. And I've certainly had my share. Right. We all have. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, one of them that I would really love to share, and people who've seen me speak or been in my classes or something. My signature speech revolves around the time when I have. had a golf lesson and some things I learned from a golf lesson. And so if there's anybody listening in that's seen me speak, that's what this topic is. But it goes a little bit like this and I don't have time to do the entire story. But about 20 years ago or more, I guess, I don't remember when it started. I found it a business and I was doing conference management and my business was going along

and pretty successful. What happened is for 10 years' time, in that business, I was so entirely completely absorbed in that business, whether it was doing well or whether it was doing badly, or whether we had a lot of business, or whether I was selling like crazy to get business, no matter the state of the business, no matter the state of the economy, my employees, my customers, anything, I was like 120% absorbed in that business. And I knew that if I just worked a little harder and did a little more, then there was some magic payoff at the end of the rainbow. At the end of the day, I could sell the business or something good would happen.

People would say, take more time off, and I said, no, no, I can't do that right now. And 10 years time, Matt, 10 years, I worked probably 60 or 70 hours a week, some as many as 80 hours a week. I mean, I worked my bail off. and in 10 years I did not take one single vacation and my thought in that time was it was all, it was okay because there was going to be some payoff later

and hopefully I'd be really rich and I'd sell the business and make a ton of money. Well, guess what? At the end of 10 years, the business kind of dissolved and went away. The industry changed and I was born. turned out and a lot of bad things happened and basically the business became nothing. So I had worked 10 years for nothing to become unemployed.

And as I look back on it, the lesson in that for me, the crash in that for me is that for me is that for 10 years, I gave away my soul. Now, at the end of that 10-year time, you know, I lost the business, so it became a so-what. It became 10 years wasted that I could never, never get back. But even if I'd made a lot of money, let's see, the business was great, and I told that and I made a whole lot of money at the end of the 10 years. So what? I still lost my soul for 10 years' time.

No vacations, only work. and, you know, I missed out on 10 years with my kids growing up, something I know you can identify with with your spectacular brand-new baby son, Mateo. You know, I missed 10 years of time with my father, missed one of my dad's birthday parties. Life was going on around me, and I kept saying, no, I can't do that now. I'll do it later. Well, there's no later. When 10 years has gone, it's just gone.

So the lesson out of that for me is, if you're going to be completely absorbed in something, I think that's great. I think that's wonderful. Let it be something that you're absorbed in that you're not missing life along the way. Get more life. Had that been a business that was coaching or training

and I've been connected and loving it along the way, that's great. had it been, you know, a lot of other, you know, had it gone any other way where there was more of me and at my heart, my soul, my passion, my value, then it wouldn't have been 10 years lost. So whatever you're doing, if you're listening on this call, make sure that you're living right now. Live today. and you might work a lot of hours or few hours, but make sure that it's really living, that at the end of each day you can go, man, yeah, that was a good one.

If you're living all out, don't get 10 years down the road and find out that you kind of blew it. You flush 10 years because you cannot get them back. Right, right. Yeah. I got me out. Your answer, I didn't know what it was going to be, but it got me out of the phone call.

I'm thinking about the times that I've wasted, you know. When you are an entrepreneur, I mean, it's so easily to completely dedicate and commit and immerse yourself in your pursuits. And, you know, and you look back in the times, the events that you've missed and the gatherings that you've passed up on, you look back and you're like, why did I miss that again? What was the reason that that didn't happen? I just talked to a friend about his 40th birthday party and it was just a couple weeks ago

and I hadn't talked to him in a couple years and I knew he'd be happy to see me and it would be a great surprise at this 40th birthday party. I RSVPed yes and for one reason or the other I can't even remember what it was. That's how tragic this is. I can't even remember why I didn't go

but I do remember that I missed his 40th birthday party. Yeah. And, I mean, that was just a conversation I had a couple days ago. And we're actually getting together tomorrow and I'll make that up to him. But you know what? It won't even compare to what it would have been to actually show up at his birthday. So I get it. So thanks for knocking me off my feet, Nancy.

Yeah. Well, let's turn this around a little bit. Up to this point in your life, what are you, Nancy Dana, most proud of? Well, that's a really cool follow-on to what I was just saying because that's such an easy one for me to answer. I have two grown sons, and like any mother would say, they're the coolest men around. You know, they're as good as it gets, and I have a mother's pride for them. But when you ask what I'm proud of, happily, what I'm proud of is that both of my sons now do for a living work that is completely related to who they are and what's in their soul and what's in their soul. are their values.

So it's exactly the thing that I'm talking about. One of my sons, he's born to fish, okay? I don't get it. The kid likes to fish. When he was 12 years old, he would be friends with other grownups. So I had people that take him fishing because I'm not a fishing girl, okay? And it didn't come from me, but that kid was born to fish. And as a grown-up, he's a spectacular fishing guide in Colorado.

He manages and runs a fishing store. He takes fishing vacations. He's designed flies and has flies named after him. So he really lives his passion. And he's just engaged in that completely. And my other son, the same story, he's out in Portland, Oregon, and just completely lives who he is. So having come off my story about 10 years when I kind of lost who I was and flushed some time, I'm absolutely most proud of the fact that somehow this lesson did get into my amazing cool sons

and they really do live all of their lives exactly who they are. And it doesn't get better than that. Awesome. Awesome. So what's in your future right now that you're really excited about? Well, this is a pretty funny one. As I thought about what's in my future and started thinking, hmm, what can I share? There's kind of an interesting little twist because I love the coaching that I do.

I don't want to not be connected with my coaching clients, but the Internet sort of makes all things possible these days. And you know that I love sailing. I have a sailboat that normally lives in the Bahamas. And I own that with my cousin. And he just bought a fantastic piece of land on a private island in the Bahamas where there's only one other couple of couple of couple of island. And I'm thinking about checking out for a couple years to go down and live with him on this. private island and help him build his house on the private island. Wow.

Yeah. So the beauty of that is it's something I couldn't even have considered a while ago, but the other guy on the private island has great, he's been there for 20 years and has great internet access. So I can do some coaching and writing in the morning, and I can go sailing and sparkling in the afternoon and help build an electrical, solar electrical system and a rain collection water system and a house with the evenings and just

absolutely live in paradise. So it's not permanent and it's not for sure, but I'm just thinking it sounds like a pretty good way to go. Great. I'm sorry. I was distracted. I've got the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circuses across the street today and there's marching down the street blowing horns. And I was like, oh, I hope this doesn't come on the recording. That's great. I'm not hearing the circus. I'm just thinking that living on a private island building a house sounds a little bit like a circus to me, but I think it sounds pretty fun. No, that's true.

I'm already excited for you, and I'm not even going. That's awesome. I mean, it's just kind of cool. And that kind of brings me to two other things. And if people want to learn more about you or they want to get in contact you, how would you recommend that they do that? Well, it's really easy. and I love to be in touch with people on all things personal development. And the best way is through my website, which is my name with a hyphen in the middle.

So it's Nancy hyphen dana.com. It's N-A-N-C-Y-Hifon-D-A-N-A dot com. And I'm going to post on their a fight paper. So all of your listeners will be able to go and take a look at the science of the brain information that we just talked about today. So if your notes and you're listening, you weren't keeping up with that, you can happily just go check in at nancy-dana.com, and you'll have my cliff notes on my white paper about neural pathways there. So everybody's welcome to do that. Awesome. Thank you very much. I think we're, yeah, we're definitely, not definitely, but we're approaching that time where we've got to wrap it up. But we've touched on a couple things that I would love for you to come back and speak to us about. One is we didn't get to it, but.

a common ailment of this community is the phrase paralysis by analysis. And I know that you have a lot to say about that. So I'd love you to come back and talk about that. And the other thing that I'd love you to come and talk about, because I think you're a shining example of this, and that's defining your passion and figuring out a way to make a living from that. And so would you be open to coming back in the future, the very near future, and help us with those two questions?

I would be more than happy to do that. And the analysis paralysis is definitely something I've spent a lot of time on and how it relates directly to procrastination and how you can use, again, the understanding of the brain and the emotions to kind of break out of that. That would be a really fun call to spend a little bit of time on. And passion, man, that's my thing. So I'd be more than happy to talk to you about that. And I love the opportunity to be here.

I love being connected with you again, Matt, and having friends like you and other folks all across the country. So I'm in. And you name the time and the place and I'll be there for you, my friend. Great. Well, you said it and I'm going to hold you to it. And I want to do that in the very new future. I don't want to blow that off because it actually fits in with what we're going to be covering over the next few months on this show. So awesome.

Glad you're open to it. And I'm so grateful and so appreciative that you're here today and spend this time with us. I know you're really busy. and I just feel so honored and blessed. Thank you, Nancy, and we'll talk to you in the very, very near future. Thank you, Matt. Bet, take care. Bye-bye.

Okay, so that's it for today. We'll certainly have Nancy back in the near future to share her perspective on paralysis analysis and how to earn a living doing what you love. And if you want to get in contact with Nancy before then, you can do so by visiting nancy-dash-dana.com. Nancy-hyphen dana.com. hyphen dash, whatever you want to call it, Nancy dash Dana.com. Okay, so next episode, I've got another really great interview for you.

I'm really excited about this because, you know, I went out on a limb and I just took a shot, and I requested an interview from this author, and he quickly responded with the yes. I mean, I was really surprised on how quickly he responded. And this author, it's not your regular author. And what I mean by that is, you know how every once in a while you read a book that literally alters the way that you think, or changes the way that you do things, changes the way that you look at life. You know, for example, Anthony Robbins' book,

Awaken the Giant Within, that literally altered my way of thinking in a way that I was a different person after I read that book. And Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I mean, that did something very similar. I mean, so much so that I know if I had read that book my senior year in high school,

my life would have been entirely different. And Timothy Ferris' book, Four Hour Workweek. I mean, that opened up a whole new world for me in the realm of business. It taught me about business systems. It taught me about delegating and outsourcing, things I had heard of, but I really just didn't know how to do. In Jeff Olson's book, The Slight Edge,

it cleared out so much of the gunk in my thinking, the type of gunk and junk that you accumulate over the years, and it simplified what it takes to be successful. I mean, it really put it in the simplest form. Those are four books that have changed my life, and I've read them all multiple times, and I continue to read them again and again and again. well, this year, actually just a couple of weeks ago,

I stumbled upon a book of which I'm adding to this collection. You know, and in some respects, well, in many respects, actually, it's debatably my number one or number two favorite book of all time now. And maybe you'll think so also or maybe not, but I think why this book struck me so powerfully is that I discovered it at precisely the right time in my life. And I'm going to reveal that book to you on the next episode as well as introduce you to the author.

I can't wait, and I should have it up by the weekend for you. So that's it for today. God loves you, and so do I. I am Matt, the do-over guy, and I will see you on the next episode of your do-over. Thank you for tuning in to your do-over, where the ignored, underestimated, and unknown steps to producing results and making life work are revealed. And remember, knowledge is potential power. Take action on what you learned today.

This is not your learn-over. It's your do-over. To view the resources referenced in today's show and to retrieve a complete show transcript, visit www. www. Thedover guy.com. Stay connected with Matt the doover guy, Terrio, on Twitter at the doover guy and on Facebook at www. facebook.com slash doover guru.

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