Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dara Kurtz How to Create a Crazy Perfect Life EP 50

Starting point is 00:00:00 For everyone listening, not making a choice is actually making a choice, right? Like not changing or making a choice, you're making the choice to not change and not make a choice. And people sometimes forget that. But I think that, yeah, you've got to push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit. And you've got to be willing to sort of live with intention, spend your time with intention, be around the people that you want to be with with intention, be intentional about what you want to pass on from one generation to the next. I mean, if I had to sum up one thing, I would say it's just living with intention is how you're going to get what you want to get out of this life.

Starting point is 00:00:42 Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast. Hi, I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion Go viral for millions worldwide. In each week, I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message in

Starting point is 00:01:05 interviewing high achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to become an action-struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener. By giving you tips, tasks, and activities you can use to achieve peak performance and for two, a passion-driven life you have always wanted to have. Now, let's become PassionStrike. Welcome to this very special 50th episode of the PassionStrike podcast. I can't believe we're here already, having just launched this podcast in February of 2021. I wanted to start out today's show by thanking all of you who are fans and listeners of the show for your tremendous support.

Starting point is 00:01:50 You are already helping us make passion go viral for so many around the world. Podcast has had well over 60,000 downloads and is now ranked in the top. 0.5% of all podcasts globally. Put this in perspective, podcast is one of the 1300 most popular podcasts out of over 2.7 million.

Starting point is 00:02:13 And we couldn't have done any of it without all of you. And I would just ask you to continue to share this with growth-minded friends of yours. Keep liking it. Keep giving us five star ratings, spreading the word, and helping action go viral for millions everywhere. A few months ago, I had the honor of interviewing Cindy Hoover.

Starting point is 00:02:35 And if you haven't listened to that podcast, it is a must-do. Her background, Cindy is a pancreatic cancer survivor and had just undergone Whipple surgery, was still on chemotherapy when she became the first person to ever finish an Iron Man Pratalan. Such an inspiring story and I wanted to use it today to set up our guest, Eric Hertz, who is also a cancer survivor and shares a similar message of hope

Starting point is 00:03:08 and how to lead the perfect life you have always wanted to. In our episode, Cindy Hooper gave this quote, My biggest recommendation for people fighting cancer is to not look too far in the future as it gets too overwhelming. Don't think about two months away or the fear that comes with it. I had to stay very much in the present.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Just think about what I need to do to get through today and not think about the whole. Break down whatever your challenge is into smaller pieces and only try to accomplish one piece at a time. It's not so great, Leiden, to my discussion with with Darup where we talk about her journey from becoming a financial advisor to coming to terms with her own mother's death from cancer and how that impacted her when she got her own diagnosis. Why this diagnosis became such a turning

Starting point is 00:04:00 point in her life and how it eventually led to her writing the book, Crush Cancer, and changing her complete career outlook. Why it often takes big events like this for us to question our own self-narrative, but also why it doesn't have to and why we can make that choice at any time. We discuss her current book, I am my mother's daughter, and the lessons that she learned from her mother and grandmother's. Lastly, we talk about the power of choice, intentionality, finding your inner peace, and living a crazy, perfect life. Now let me tell you a bit more about our guest. There are curts after being diagnosed with breast cancer at age of 42,

Starting point is 00:04:40 left for 20-year career as a personal banker and financial advisor. I focus on writing, speaking, and podcasting. Today, per personal blog, Crazy Perfect Life is followed by over 200,000 people. Their goal is to use her life experiences to help others strengthen their relationships and create happiness and joy in their everyday lives.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Such an amazing episode today. Build with so much hope, joy, and love. I can't wait for you to listen to it. Now let's become PassionStrike. I am so excited to have Darah Kurtz on the Passion Passion Strike podcast. Dara, welcome to the show today. Hi, I'm so happy to get to spend time with you. I am ecstatic to spend time with you as well, and for the listeners and watchers to hear all about this amazing journey that your life has taken you on. And I thought maybe a good place for us to start, because I think it's always good for the listener

Starting point is 00:05:47 to get kind of a backdrop of how your life has progressed is you spent a good chunk of the beginning of your career. And I would say medium of your career as well in the financial services industry. And maybe a starting point would be what led you to even go into the financial services industry to begin with. So I was always the child who wanted to be the banker when you played monopoly. I always loved playing with money and I was a bank teller in high school and majored in finance and always knew that I was going to go down that path. And I ended up being a financial advisor for a very large bank for over 20 years and really loved it. Loved my clients. It was very relationship-driven.

Starting point is 00:06:34 Really liked someone giving me a monthly goal and I was pretty competitive. And so, you know, I thrived in that situation. Tell me a monthly goal that you want me to hit. And, you know, I'm going to go after it with both hands. And so it was a lot of fun until it wasn't. One of my best friends is actually a financial advisor. I think he's with LPL. And over the past year, his book of business is quadruple. Well, he's also bought out two of his partners and I can just see on him the stress because it's one thing. Having to deal with the relationships of your current clientele,

Starting point is 00:07:11 but then having to pick up the new ones. For someone who doesn't understand that industry, what would a normal day look like for you when you were doing that? Well, that's one of the things I really liked about it because my day was never the same. I had, at one point, like, eight different offices and I would meet clients literally almost like every hour.

Starting point is 00:07:34 I had a different client that I was meeting at a different location and I would get in my car and zoom over and meet with that client or go to someone's house and it was just a lot of fun. And then, of course course I had a lot of paperwork to do but I had an assistant who helped me do that. And just over the years it became really relationship driven. So I got to know my clients and their families and that was really fun. I'm such a people person and I really loved that aspect of every day not being the same and

Starting point is 00:08:08 aspect of every day not being the same and sort of the challenges and even the market goes up and down as we all know. And so there were some challenges with regards to that. So it was fun. It was a fun sort of place to be. And I did that for really over 20 years. I started at this large bank when I was out of college and then sort of navigated my way to being a financial advisor and then stayed in that space for a really long time and loved it.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Yeah, and then I was doing the research on you. It sounded like you were living the great life, you know, never sick, healthy, active, And then one day, you went to the doctor and life changed for you. What ended up happening? Yeah, so I was the kind of person that really didn't get sick very often. I checked all the boxes on paper and then I had a cold

Starting point is 00:08:58 and I couldn't seem to shake the cold. And so finally, I went to the doctor and while I happened to be there, I happened to even mention that I had this just weird nodule on my breast. And, you know, we know how the story is going to end. The doctor ended up just being super concerned and saying, you know, I think we really need to get that looked at like immediately and fast forward and ended up being breast cancer. I found it relatively early. I was very lucky, but at the same time,

Starting point is 00:09:29 I knew that I needed to be as aggressive as possible. My kids were 11 and 14 at the time, and that was just a devastating diagnosis to have when you have kids that are that age. And so I went through a lot. I did surgery and chemo and reconstruction and more surgery and radiation and genetic testing, but nothing ever showed up regarding genetic testing. And it was a really, really hard time for me, for my family. My kids saw me without hair

Starting point is 00:09:58 and that was devastating. And at the end of that whole experience, I just really changed a lot and realized that, you know, I don't want to be thinking about money all the time. I don't want to be focused on watching the market and thinking about investing. And it just, that really wasn't where my head was and where my heart was. And so I quit my job, which was really hard because I had done it for a long time and it's hard to kind of walk away from something that's working really well, but at the same time, I just felt like I needed to trust my heart and I walked away from it wanting to start writing and wanting to sort of figure out, I've always wanted to write books and I had no idea what I was doing and I just literally one day quit my job and then started down that path.

Starting point is 00:10:50 Okay and I'm going to back up a little bit and then we're going to get into this next chapter because I think that's what a lot of the listeners are going to want to hear about. But I discovered you because as we talked about before the show and when I reached out, I think everyone has unfortunately touched cancer in one way or another. And for me, my fiance died of cancer when both were very young. And similar to your experience when your mom died, I went through a period of probably 15, 18 years where I didn't forgive myself because looking back, you know, and it was a tough time for me because I was young. I was at the Naval Academy. It's not like I could just go and see her,

Starting point is 00:11:37 but there's so many regrets that I had and how, you know, I looked at that situation over time, you know, and then my grandmother died of all of cancer. And then the most recent, my aunt had breast cancer, similar to you. But then most recently, my sister was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so I went on this mad, yes, I went on this mad research looking for books and an inspiration that might help her and I found another recent guest on the podcast and as I was doing her episode,

Starting point is 00:12:13 right across your book, and that's how I came up with a quote that I used to introduce her this is that cancer diagnosis comes. And I know from my sister, it came very similar to you. All of a sudden she went from this active person to all of a sudden feeling something wasn't right. And then she went in thinking it was one thing. And when she came out, I was one of the first people she called. I can't even imagine what's going through your head when you hear that they have, you have the big C. But looking back, what advice would you have to others if they're in that same situation on what you would do in those first days and weeks once you get the diagnosis? So I feel like I want to mention that I lost my mom to cancer.

Starting point is 00:13:05 She passed away a few weeks after I had my first daughter. And so really the same weekend I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I found out my mom had stage 4 melanoma, which is a form of skin cancer. And the bigger my belly got, the thicker my mom got. And she passed away, like I said, a few weeks after I had my daughter. So that experience was in my mind the whole time that I, from the second I heard the words you have cancer, my mind immediately like flashed back to that whole experience that I had that journey that I had been on with my mom. And it really impacted my whole experience because I had just a lot of guilt about the way I handled certain things with my mom. I had

Starting point is 00:13:54 regrets. I was remembering a lot of things. And it just made the experience so much harder. And I didn't see it at the time. I had absolutely no idea that that was happening. I remember being on the table and sobbing as this amazing doctor was doing my initial biopsy and he said, Dara, you've got to prepare yourself. I really think this is breast cancer. You know, it's showing all the signs and they know what they know what they're looking at. And I was sobbing and I said, no, you don't understand. It can't be cancer because I know what it feels like to be a daughter in the world and not have your mom. And this cannot happen to my daughters and their 11 and 14.

Starting point is 00:14:40 And so that was just such a devastating loss when I lost my mom. And then to have that fear that something could happen to me and my daughters could possibly have to grow up without me, I just did not even know how to navigate that. I didn't even know how to like necessarily voice it. I remember a doctor, a nurse turned to me one day and she said, Dara, your mom's story is not your story. And that was like the best thing that she could have said to me because I really did have to remind myself, my mom passed away, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to pass away.

Starting point is 00:15:16 And I had a lot of guilt around that as well. There's a lot of luck in cancer, if you will. And I didn't really fully understand that until I went through it, but there really is in terms of the kind that you have and when you find it and the research that's been done in that space and blah, blah, blah. But I would say for anyone who is going through it today to one understand that getting a cancer diagnosis

Starting point is 00:15:40 does not mean that you're getting a death sentence. And there's been an unbelievable amount of research that's been done in that space, and continues to be done. Write this very second as we speak. There are new drugs coming out, and there's research going on. And so there is so much hope today,

Starting point is 00:15:58 versus it's been seven years for me, versus 20 years for my mom, and every day it gets better and better. So getting a cancer diagnosis is not a death sentence. I think that your attitude really will dictate so much of how you navigate through it and I didn't fully understand that until I got to the other side of it and was able to look back and say and realize like I wasn't a very positive person when I was going through it and I made it the experience that much harder. And then my last thing for me and I always tell people this is do your research have faith in your doctors and be as aggressive as possible

Starting point is 00:16:37 because you really only have one shot to start your treatment from the beginning. And I knew that being as aggressive as possible was going to provide me with peace down the road. And I look back now and I'm so grateful that I was as aggressive as I was. And I never, as hard as it was, I don't regret it at all. Yeah, well, I think you brought up some really good things there because having been involved over this past year

Starting point is 00:17:03 with my sister's treatment, I can tell you that one of the best things we did was to go to many different doctors to get different thoughts on how you should approach it. But also it's interesting how different hospital systems use different tests. For instance, at MD Anderson, they're a big believer in the CT exam, but

Starting point is 00:17:26 they don't really look at an MRI. And sometimes the test show different things or can give you different options. So that's one of the biggest things I found in my sister's success at beating pancreatic cancer, thus far, has been for willingness to go and talk to many different experts, not only in the medical field, but only a pathic pharmacologist and natural doctors as well, because I think, your point, it's mindset, it's diet, it's reducing that anxiety level, and it's kind of all of these things. And one, plus the Western treatment that you get that I found at least for her Relemeda profound difference. I agree with everything you said.

Starting point is 00:18:09 It's really the whole person, the whole body, mind and soul and trying to figure out the physical and mental aspect of it. And it's great if you can put a team together that will look at the big picture, not just a little part of it. Exactly. Well, I'm going to switch gears now from that. And thank you so much for sharing, because I know it's deeply personal, and I'm very sorry about your mom, and that

Starting point is 00:18:32 this happened to you. But as you were coming out of this, you decide to change your career. And that's even under the best situations, not an easy thing to do. In fact, in fact, it's one of the things that I talk about on the show the most is because as I have looked at recent studies, depending on if it's Gardner, the Gates Foundation, other studies or a recent Gallup poll that I found it is showing that between 70% and 85% not only in the US, but globally of people who are in their career are doing something that doesn't engage them. And yet so many people stay in those careers. And I sometimes call it a portfolio career because I think sometimes as I did, you just start going up the ladder and your mind is set on, I'm climbing the stairs, can I get

Starting point is 00:19:24 to the top. So it's difficult to get out of it because all of a sudden you've got this house that you're supporting, this lifestyle, you're supporting this social, I guess, image that you want to see. No, I agree with you. 100% and that's the way you see yourself.

Starting point is 00:19:39 That's a lot of people's identity is in what they do. So you're absolutely right. You get put on a track and it's really hard to jump off the track and pivot, if you will. And for me, I can say with 100% certainty that if I had not heard the words you have cancer seven years ago, I would not have made a change. And I'm so grateful that I went through what I went through

Starting point is 00:20:08 because it gave me the courage to say, you know, hey, wait a second, this is actually not really what I want to be doing with my time. And I view time as, you know, our most precious commodity. And so it gave me the courage to kind of walk away from something that didn't feel as fulfilling as something that I really felt like I wanted to try. And I would not have done that if I had not been through what I went through. I'm 100% sure of that. Yeah, and you know, one of the first

Starting point is 00:20:40 episodes I ever did at the podcast, I did the origin episode and I think it was episode one or it would have been three in series was on facing the brutal reality of whatever is going on in your life. And I actually used the story of Admiral Stockdale, the Medal of Honor winner. I'm not sure if you remember him. He was the Vice President candidate a number of years ago, but he was in the Hanoi Gilton in Vietnam for six or seven years, but looking back, he credits that as being the single most instrumental experience that he ever went through and confronting the life he wanted to live and his takeaways from it. But why do you think it takes

Starting point is 00:21:20 people in order to make that choice? Because that's really where this all starts. I mean, for me, that's the whole genesis of passion stroke is, you have to ignite that willingness that you're going to make a choice. Because if you don't make the choice, you're never going to do the work like you've done to build this great brand.

Starting point is 00:21:37 But why for so many does it take something so drastic to make the choice? There's so many reasons, I think. One is just, it's easy to stay the course, not tip over the apple cart. It's easy to sort of, like you said, you're living this life and your image and all of the things that go along with that.

Starting point is 00:21:58 And it's not easy to wake up one day and say, you know, hey, this isn't actually what I want to be doing. And not everyone's gonna like be doing. Not everyone's going to like that. Not everyone's going to like the new version of you. Or maybe you making a change is going to trigger things for other people that they don't want to think about for themselves. So it's safer to stay the course and easier. For me, it really just all came down to redefining success for myself and really kind of deciding like, what does success mean to me

Starting point is 00:22:28 and what does success mean for my life and what is a successful life. And after going through cancer, it really changed completely. And I didn't care if my name was at the top of a list anymore. I didn't care just what I said I did or the way I was perceived or blah, blah, blah. It just, it kind of went back to, how do I want to spend my time? And am I spending my time doing things that are worthwhile and that feed my

Starting point is 00:22:58 soul? And then I'm passionate about. And the answer was just such a hard, this is not what is answering those questions. And so I am so grateful that I was able to pivot and walk away from it. I am so much happier today than I could have even imagined. And if you had told me 10 years ago that I would be doing what I'm doing today, I'd never would have believed you. But you know, that's the thing about life.

Starting point is 00:23:24 It doesn't always work out the way we think it's going to work out or the pictures that we have in our mind of the way things should be. And I put that in quotation marks because I strongly dislike the word should because I think we can get used to living our lives doing what we should do instead of really what we want to be doing. But often life can be so much better than we could have ever imagined if we give ourselves the freedom to figure out what success looks like for us. I would agree with your points. I think what ends up happening is at least for me

Starting point is 00:23:56 what happened. And I've seen it in other people like coaches, you get so busy in the life that you are in. That oftentimes the last thing we're doing is actually doing the most important thing we should be doing, which is in perspective looks at what we are. Exactly. I think so many people just you just keep pushing it off, pushing it off, and you're looking

Starting point is 00:24:19 at all these external beliefs that are encompassing you on telling you what you can and can't do. And for me, it's a big shift from going from self-belief to the values that really drive you. And I think it's those values that will lead you in the right direction, eventually, to finding your path. I agree. And also, you know, having the courage to make choices that possibly the people around you aren't necessarily in favor of. And it's hard to make changes,

Starting point is 00:24:53 especially if you're a people pleaser, that other people aren't gonna necessarily support right away, but they'll come around eventually, or you know what, they weren't your people. Well, I mean, I'll tell you and you've probably found the same thing. When I started this brand even before I knew what the brand was, you start asking people questions and most of them don't give you the answer you want. And so the way I went about it is I started searching

Starting point is 00:25:19 for what in my past has made me qualified to do what I really want to do with the rest of my life. And I think no one else can tell you that story because you are your own storyteller and you're the actor and your story. That is actually such an important thing for listeners to be paying attention to with what you just said right there. Because the way that we view our lives, what we tell ourselves from our experiences, the way we perceive them, I mean, that's our truth, that's our reality, even if it's not necessarily accurate, but what we tell ourselves from the story of our life is just so important in terms of

Starting point is 00:26:01 helping us live the life of our dreams. Did you know that Forbes Magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruct, are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and mentorship. That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life

Starting point is 00:26:36 are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way. And we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach both minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. As you were then coming up with this new company, I love the name you picked for it because Crazy Perfect Life is what we would all aspire to have. But I thought there had to be a deeper meaning for it. So, full disclosure, we were at the beach. I had narrated

Starting point is 00:27:19 down to like five names and I literally took a family vote and my family all voted on the name Crazy Perfect Life, which is the name of my website and everything that I do is all under that. But for me, at the end of the day, it's because life is crazy, as you know, and hectic and busy. But it's also the very fact that we are alive and the fact that we're breathing air and that we're so blessed to be on planet earth makes it perfect. And so, you know, I'll take a crazy perfect life any day because life is messy and it's the farthest thing from perfect, but the fact that we're alive makes it so worthwhile. And so that's really kind of how it came about. And when you graded it, what did you have and then goal in mind at that time?

Starting point is 00:28:11 You were trying to achieve or to develop over time? I had nothing. I had the desire to find my voice and write. And so I set up my blog, CrazyPerfectLifelife.com, and started writing, and I wrote and sent out a blog post every day, which literally just seems ridiculous to me when I think about it. But I started writing, and I knew that I was going to write completely openly and honestly, and I wasn't going to hold back, and I I was gonna try to find my voice. And so that's what I did. And started with a Facebook page and had people start subscribing to my blog

Starting point is 00:28:51 and getting my daily emails. And at the time, like I didn't even know how to get a picture. And my daughter was doing my pictures and we would argue about, you know, the fact that I needed two pictures for the blog posts that I have to send out tomorrow and, you know, just all of these things. But I didn't have a big team around me. I wasn't really making any money, you know.

Starting point is 00:29:12 I just sort of started the website and then just sent out a blog post every day and knew how to post to my social media pages. But people really seemed to resonate with what I was writing. And that led to me writing my first book, Crush Cancer. And then I did a workbook along with that, the Crush Cancer workbook. And that's really what sort of started my speaking, that book.

Starting point is 00:29:37 And I would start doing a lot of speaking and nonprofit and within the breast cancer community and just all the things. And that just sort of led to, you know, doing this and this and this. And I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. And some were really mistakes that I think, you know, gosh, why did I do that? Other mistakes were maybe wasn't the best financial decision. At one point, I decided that I'm obsessed with paper.

Starting point is 00:30:05 I love everything paper. I like note cards and note pads and inspirational quotes. And so this was just maybe several years ago. I decided that I wanted to have my quotes on all of these things. And so we did that, but guess what I learned? I don't think it's fun to go to the post office every day and mail packages. That's not what I want to be doing with my time.

Starting point is 00:30:33 And so, I learned that, or if you're going to sell your things in stores, well, guess what? They want the next batch of things to come out. But I didn't want to keep creating the next batch and the next batch. So, you know, those are mistakes that I made. But now I've just learned that it's fun to have my note cards and take them when I do live speaking events. And that seems to work and everyone's happy

Starting point is 00:30:58 and I don't have to go to the post office every day. So, it's just things like that. But at the end of the day, for me, I just really want to write more books. And my second book just came out, and I know we'll talk about that. But it's easy to compare yourself to what other people are doing. And I did this a lot, especially when I first started.

Starting point is 00:31:16 And I would see someone and I would think like, gosh, she's doing this. Maybe I need to be doing that. Why am I not doing that? And then I would shift from what I was doing to kind of wasting time, trying to chase what someone else is doing. And I finally realized, you know what, you have to stay treated yourself and you have to go back to your why and what you want to be doing with your time.

Starting point is 00:31:40 And you know, that's something that I have to remind myself of. I would say I have a conversation with myself about that frequently because it's easy to sort of get sidetracked and I love coming up with ideas I love creating, but you can't do everything at once. And so like I said, I've made plenty of mistakes and that's okay.

Starting point is 00:32:01 Well, thank you for all that background. And one of the things that really interested me about talking to you is I also found a passion for writing out of complete nowhere. And I realized that when I was in my professional career, I was writing all the time. I was writing research papers. I was writing proposals to get projects funded.

Starting point is 00:32:23 I'd write four documents when I was CEO, et cetera. So I was writing proposals to get projects funded. I'd write four documents, you know, when I was CEO, et cetera. So I was always writing, but I didn't realize I had it in me to be creative writer until I took an assignment as the associate publisher for a client I was working with, and I started for a period of time serving as their editor. And so I would, I was in charge of almost all the topics that we were covering, but then I started to do a do in writing. I'm interested though, I have a blog, it's nowhere near as successful as yours. I read, you're up to now, 200,000 followers,

Starting point is 00:33:15 but as I've gone down this path, I have tried the blog, you all have articles that I write in multiple publications on medium, as well as, you know, the articles we do on passion start. But for me, and maybe others who are out there who are writers, I haven't had that inflection point.

Starting point is 00:33:33 So I was curious for you what caused, because I'm cured and happened overnight, but what happened and what were the steps that caused the inflection point for you? So a lot of daily hard work for one. And at the time that I, when I first started, I think social media was a little bit easier to navigate through.

Starting point is 00:33:57 They didn't want you to advertise. That hadn't started. And so I think they were more generous. Social media platforms were more generous in terms of who saw what you posted. So for example, like if I posted something on Facebook five or six years ago, the likelihood of people that were following me seeing my post was pretty high versus today, when I post something on Facebook now, I don't boost my posts, I don't advertise.

Starting point is 00:34:25 I haven't done any of that for a really long time, but a very small percentage of people actually see what you post if you're not advertising unless people start to sort of share it. And then if they share it on their platforms, blah, blah, blah. But the analytics were a lot easier. I think when I really first started to grow in my social media presence and also there was a point in time where I had at least 25 shared

Starting point is 00:34:56 relationships with other large Facebook pages from around the world. And what I did is I had a schedule. I literally had a schedule. And I would post like, I don't know, eight to 12 times a day on my Facebook page. And, but I was sharing other people's things and they were sharing my things. And because of that, it really helped my reach a lot. And new people would find out about me because they were sharing me on their platforms, just like I was sharing them on my platform. And I think that's really how I was able to grow my following with those shared relationships.

Starting point is 00:35:40 And when I say like I had a schedule, and it took a lot of time to schedule things and to do that, but it was so worth it because and I learned a lot from these people also. They were all bloggers, they were starting out, they were from all over the world and that was really fun and we would have guide meetings. We would meet each other and we would share and we would say, you know, this is working for me, what's working for you and all of that. So that was really fun, but that's really, I think, what helped me.

Starting point is 00:36:08 And then, with my book that just came out recently, that's when I really started writing for, or pitching out to a lot of other places. Like I had written for Huffington Post and some other big places, but it really wasn't until my recent book I I am my mother's daughter, came out in September and with the pandemic, I found myself with a lot more time at home because I wasn't traveling. My whole book tour basically went virtual. And so we just started

Starting point is 00:36:38 pitching out. My team just started pitching out. And I probably wrote for like 15 different publications during that time. I think I've been on over 40 podcasts over the past year, just, team just started pitching out. And I probably wrote for like 15 different publications. During that time, I think I've been on over 40 podcasts over the past year, just, you know, really trying to kind of connect with people. But I think I was so used to hearing the word no as a financial advisor that it really just doesn't phase me. Like if someone says no, okay, they say no, keep moving forward, truck on. And so I think that's part of it. Not being afraid to, what's the worst that could happen, right? You hear no, big deal.

Starting point is 00:37:11 Yeah, so when those saw how long before you kind of pitched to some of those major platforms, because as we talked beforehand, I've pitched to the Atlantic, Coffington Post, Forbes, I mean, you name it. And it's rejection after rejection. And you often don't know why. You, I mean, when my book first came out,

Starting point is 00:37:31 and I would say the summer, the last summer, right now, last year, because my book came out in September, I mean, we were pitching out like five to eight things a day, five to 10 things a day. I mean, it really becomes a numbers game. And then you say like, okay, this email, we're not, things aren't working, you know, what's wrong with the email or just kind of make it

Starting point is 00:37:55 as short as possible. But say everything that they need to hear. But the people that read the email, they're only looking at it for such a short amount of time. So that's really, I feel like once you get kind of a few things, then it helps you get the next few things, right? And then it just kind of spirals. And so that's sort of, I think, what happened for me. But I haven't personally written a blog post on my blog. I was thinking about this today. I haven't posted a blog post on my crazy, perfect life's website probably in like a year because I've been so busy

Starting point is 00:38:29 writing for all these other publications and doing all this other stuff and so you know But I think at the end of the day you have to ask yourself like what's the best use of my time? What's my goal? Where do I want to be and for me? I had to make that choice That's what makes more sense for me today with what I'm doing. And so I'm so glad that I started out the way I did. And I was sending emails out to my email list every day. But you sort of have to ask yourself, where do you want to go? And for me, writing for other places has just

Starting point is 00:39:02 sort of been what I've been doing the last year. I don't know if that answered your question. Well, I know I can completely understand where you're coming from because I drop logs on the PassionStruct site. I'm writing blogs for five or six medium publications and you gotta keep each of those up. So I was a personal website. I probably haven't dropped an article

Starting point is 00:39:22 in close to that time either. Exactly. I was having a time. And another thing that I realized though, also is if I write one post for one magazine, I don't really, I probably am not going to even try to write more than one thing for each publication, if that makes sense. So maybe I've written something for this platform and even though it's a big platform and even though I could probably write something else for that platform, how is that really going to help me? I can already link that platform from my blog to that platform. Maybe it's a better

Starting point is 00:39:59 use of time to go out and pitch to other platforms or to larger podcasts. But you sort of have to kind of put your time in and write for the smaller publications and be willing to be a guest on smaller podcasts. And that also helps you grow and fine-tune your skills as well and give you confidence. So I don't think anything's ever wasted. It's just, again, what's your ultimate goal and how do you want to use your time?

Starting point is 00:40:26 Well, in the sake of time, I'm going to shift directions a little bit on you. So I heard about your book because I had done research on a guest named Sasuke Lightstar who's in the United Kingdom and similar to you, she had breast cancer, came out of nowhere, very similar to you, I think most people. And her book is not about her time going through cancer. It's actually called the cancer misfit. And what he found the biggest gap for her was that after she had beaten cancer, she reached this point of... No, what?

Starting point is 00:41:03 That's... Yeah. And she was saying, you know, there, there was all this attention, all these people caring for you. And to me, it's kind of like when you're at a service academy, you're getting done in a plebe year, and you get into your sophomore year, it's like no one cares about you. And it was kind of the same way she was describing this. And so she wrote it because she thought that there was a gap.

Starting point is 00:41:23 How did you approach your book? Well, she's right. There is a gap. And the first part of Crush Cancer is all about how to crush cancer. And it's really the book that I felt like I needed that wasn't out there. But the second part is really all about how to thrive after you survive. And how to move forward knowing that you did at one point have cancer in your body and how to make peace with that and,

Starting point is 00:41:46 you know, how to move on to make the most out of your life. And so that's what that book is about. I am my mother's daughter is a book that I was never planning on writing. And let me, that's really an interesting story that I think your listeners would enjoy. Around the 20th anniversary of my mom's death, I randomly discovered

Starting point is 00:42:07 that I had and remembered that I had a bag of letters in my house. And the letters were in a Ziploc bag. They were written to me the first time I went to sleep away camp at age nine until I graduated from college. And they were mostly written by my mom and my two grandmothers. And those are the three strong women who loved and raised me and they have all passed away. So I remember that I had this bag, and finally one day had the courage to open it, and I was blown away by what happened next. I felt like I was having a conversation with my mom.

Starting point is 00:42:44 I felt like I could hear her voice, I could feel her personality, and the letters contained so much relevant wisdom and really helped me sort of make peace with my mom's death. And I realized that for so long I've been sort of stuck in grief and sort of have been traveling through life, but the grief and the pain and the sadness was always there. And so really, one night, I sat on my couch, opened that bag of letters, started reading, sobbing, what Oprah calls the ugly cry. And after that experience, I felt like there was a book there. And so I put, there were over a hundred letters. I had them on the table behind me. I sorted them in different

Starting point is 00:43:31 piles. And I was working on another project at the time. And I literally just said, you know, I feel like there's a book here. I'm just going to start writing. And I literally sat right here at this computer, writing, sobbing. And the result is, I am my mother's daughter, wisdom on life, loss in love. And I'm so grateful for the experience. I'm so grateful for the book. People say that they can hear their relative's voices in the book. And it's just, it's something that I never even planned on doing. And after I wrote the book, I remember thinking like,

Starting point is 00:44:04 I don't want this to be hard. It could be exhausting trying to find a publisher. You know, I was like, I just, I wanted to be a joyful experience. So I remember I sent out 10 emails and I got four offers. I had a small publisher and it was just nothing but a joyful experience.

Starting point is 00:44:21 And I'm just so grateful for it. It's such a lesson in, you know, trusting your gut and listening to your intuition. And if I hadn't trusted it, I never would have written this book. Well, that's great. And out of all those lessons in that bag, what were a couple of the most important ones that you found? I appreciate you asking me that. So my mom, she was unbelievably positive. And I had forgotten like, she was my person, but I had forgotten like how much her pep talks

Starting point is 00:44:55 and how much her wisdom and her positivity really impacted my daily life. And the biggest thing that I realized was just the power of my attitude every single day. And having a positive attitude, regardless of what I was experiencing, sure, you can't be positive all the time and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, being positive as a choice that we all can make or not make every single day. And so that was probably one of the biggest takeaways. It's just really just

Starting point is 00:45:26 the power of my daily choice and how I get to make it every day when I wake up and I've forgotten that actually. And just so many lessons. I, my mom wrote these a lot of these letters when she was raising her kids, when she was raising me and my brother. And so I got to know her better from my adult perspective because she was writing a lot of these letters when I was younger. And I got the letter, stuck it back in the envelope, was probably thrilled to get a stick of gum in the letter and never read it again.

Starting point is 00:45:55 But there was just so much value in there. It taught me a lot about the importance of taking the time to tell people that you love and care about how you feel and the power of the handwritten word and traditions and how we pass on things from one generation to the next and how we are each just here and our family's lineage for such a short time and what we want to pass on to future generations and how we have to be intentional about taking the past and sharing that with our current family so that it will carry forward into the future.

Starting point is 00:46:28 Are there certain things that came out of it that have now changed your parenting in any way with your daughters? Oh yeah, I mean so much really that experience, I cannot even begin to express like how this experience transformed my life in terms of giving myself permission to let go of the pain and the sadness of the grief that I've been carrying around with me. But yes, I feel like I've always been very intentional, but I'm very aware and intentional about how

Starting point is 00:46:58 and what I want my daughters to carry forward. And what I hope they, one day, share with their families and how to establish family traditions. And, you know, the importance of food and holidays and how we preserve our family's past and make sure that we honor the people that came before us by carrying some of that forward. And so, yeah, it was a beautiful experience for me

Starting point is 00:47:28 and I'm so grateful that I could share it with the world. Well, one of the things you talked about is very important to me. And it's probably my favorite podcast that I've personally recorded now. And it's on the topic of the Power of Voice. And I kind of went into it that, you know, every day we all have voices. I mean, that's what separates us from every other species.

Starting point is 00:47:53 Species is the number of choices that we encounter, but I find what most people end up doing because I did it myself is you get in this routine of choices that you make. You know, and it can be as easy as what gas station you're going to go to out of convenience or what grocery store, but oftentimes the choices we're making don't occur us for the most important choices we have to make when those opportunities come. And I think that's why oftentimes people say no to life changing opportunity instead of making the choices along the way so that when that opportunity comes, they say I can. I was basically, yeah, I was basically the basis of it. And I think to your point and that message that they gave you, I think it starts with us being present in our life,

Starting point is 00:48:45 which is becoming more and more difficult because I see especially in my kids and even myself as you've got all these constant disruptions, there's this constant push for what appears to be urgent instead of the choice that you need to make, which is on what's important. And you know, a good way to highlight this is when you were talking about the actions that you were taking, you know, and how you put yourself on a schedule.

Starting point is 00:49:13 If you didn't use that time management, you'd get distracted and you'd start focusing on things that at the time were urgent. And, you know, because you put importance on that, it's caused all these other things. You can think of it that way is to open up in your life. Absolutely. And for everyone listening, not making a choice is actually making a choice, right? Like not changing or making a choice,

Starting point is 00:49:40 you're making the choice to not change and not make a choice. And people sometimes forget that. But I think that, yeah, you've making the choice to not change and not make a choice. And people sometimes forget that. But I think that, yeah, you've got to push yourself out of your comfort zone a little bit. And you've got to be willing to sort of live with intention, spend your time with intention, be around the people that you want to be with with intention, be intentional about what you want to pass on from one generation to the next. I mean, if I had to sum up one thing, I would say it's just living with intention is how you're going to get what you want to get out of this life. So if that was the one thing out of the handful of things that you've talked

Starting point is 00:50:17 about today that really made your career take off, would you agree that it was being intentional? Absolutely. 100%. And what relationship for you have you learned the most from? Was it that one with your mom? Definitely. I would say the relationship with my mom, yes. Just she was my person, but also learning how to live in the world without having my person was devastating, but also something that taught me so much. Then of the relationship that I have with myself, I mean, that's probably been such an important growth place that I've spent the last seven years really learning

Starting point is 00:50:57 a lot about myself and connecting to what I want and trusting my intuition and listening to that little voice that we all have inside ourselves that a lot of times we don't want to pay attention to. And so I feel like I've put and dedicated a lot of time towards getting to know myself better and growing as a person. Yeah, I mean, I think you just hit the head on the nail and that is a problem with the self-narrative that we tell ourselves, which is typically we're not good enough or we don't have the experience or I've never been a writer before or how am I not going to be a financial advisor when I've been making so much money

Starting point is 00:51:33 and I'm going to start this thing and you know it just leads me down the path of then people do make the choice and I think when it gets hard they end up giving up and there are days when you're like, why isn't anyone calling me? Or, you know, that podcast was great. Why isn't it getting, you know, the listeners that it should or that article I wrote was so much better than a lot of this crap I'm reading, you know, and you can't. And I feel like you've got to just get, you've got to just keep going. You have to believe in yourself and it's about perseverance and at the end of the day, it's about crazy perfect life, right? It's not gonna, you're not gonna wake up

Starting point is 00:52:11 and it's all not gonna be perfect every day. And that's okay, it's not supposed to be. But you've got to stay the course and keep on doing what makes you feel good and what you feel passionate about. And I think be willing to make mistakes and take risks. And at the end of the day, I'm happy with that. Well, I'm going to put these in the show notes, but I love to let my guests have an opportunity to tell the listener or watch her where they can learn more about you or connect

Starting point is 00:52:40 with you. So if you could give them some of that, that would be great. So my website is crazyperfectlife.com and there's links to everything there, but you can purchase my book there and get five free gifts that are downloadable. You can also of course get my book on Amazon. You can follow me on Facebook at CrazyPerfectLife and on Instagram at Crazy Perf Life. I would love it if your listeners followed me and felt free to send me an email at dara at CrazyPerfectLife.com if they have any questions as well. And we're going to do one last short segment that turns to be a fan favorite. I just do pen and roll painting around. Okay. What is your favorite thing about Winston Salem where you live? I love the people and it's easy to live here. And what makes it so easy to live there? You can be anywhere you want to be in a, you don't have to drive a lot and I love that.

Starting point is 00:53:35 Okay. You're in the backyard of a loaise. If you had to go search for home improvement goods, would you go to a loaise or a home depot? I would definitely go to lose. Oh, and why? Because they help you when you can't find something. They tell you where they don't just tell you they show you where to go.

Starting point is 00:53:53 I like that. What is the biggest difference that you find between self-publishing and having a publisher? Yeah, well, you know, I self-published Crush Cancer. I don't know if you know that. So I had a literary agent in New York, and I know this is getting off of the lightning round or whatever, but I had a literary agent in New York at the time, and it made it to all like all the houses and second rounds, but at the end of the day, like I wasn't a famous person, and we kept getting shot down. And so at that time, I just made the decision that I was going to self-publish Crush Cancer. And I'm so glad that I did because that's really what

Starting point is 00:54:30 jump started my speaking career. And but also, I knew that I really wanted to have my writings published by publishers. And so I, but I knew that was just my first book. And so I'm so grateful that I was able to get a publisher for my second book, but I had to kind of leave my ego at the door when I had to decide to self publish that book because it didn't look the way that I wanted it to look.

Starting point is 00:54:57 And that was really hard, but I don't have any regrets for that. And it's done really well. And so, you know, with end of the day, it just is what it is. It is what it is. What is something that you have removed from your life that has made you more productive? Toxic people.

Starting point is 00:55:14 I definitely have taken a look at the people that I surround myself with. And I am very intentional about who I let into my inner circles. And I really have no desire to be with someone who's negative or who brings me down or who wants to gossip about stuff that I really just don't even care about. So I've been really intentional about that. Okay, that's great. I actually just did my last podcast on that, that's out right now.

Starting point is 00:55:44 And last thing is you talked about being intentional and how you like to have sayings and other things. What's one saying or quote that you live by that you feel has helped bring success in your life? Hmm. I come up with quotes like every single day. So follow me on Facebook and Instagram. You can always know what's going on in my life because the quote that I put out there is kind of like literally how I'm feeling in that exact

Starting point is 00:56:08 moment. But I don't have one saying that I really live by. I have a mantra, like I'm always living with a current mantra. And so my current mantra is, I trust the universe is on my side, and all that I want is on its way to me. And so the quote, the mantra, if you will, that I'm working with now. But I also changed my mantras based on the season that I'm in. Sorry. My pandemic puppy agrees. But yeah, I trust the universes on my side

Starting point is 00:56:39 and all that I want is on its way to me. OK, that's great. A little bit of lava of a correction there. Yeah. Well, Dora, thank you so much for being on the show. I think this is gonna just be loved by the viewers and watchers. It was so fun to get to spend time with you

Starting point is 00:56:56 and I'm just so grateful for all of your beautiful work. Thank you. I hope you got as much value from that episode with Dora Kurtz as I did. What an amazing woman she is with some acknowledge that comes from such a place of authenticity. And I wanted to use today's closing portion to talk to you about some of the different episodes

Starting point is 00:57:18 that we brought up during today's show. That first being with Cindy Hoover, which was episode 10 of the Passion Start Podcast, and she talks about her journey from going through pancreatic cancer, to actually completing a full Iron Man and of all places Whistler while she was still undergoing chemo and just months after going through the huge Whipple procedure. I also talk about an upcoming episode that I have with Sasuke Lightstar, where she's going to talk about her book, The Cancer Missed It, but more importantly, what her life has turned into since that cancer diagnosis,

Starting point is 00:58:00 why she wrote the book, and how she is now helping clients all over the world with her passion of helping people find happiness in their own life. And I also discussed a few solo episodes that I did today on the show. One of those is applying the power of choice, which was episode 19. And as I described in today's show, I go through why we so often say no to life-changing opportunities and key steps that you can take so that you're making sure you say yes to them and making the choice

Starting point is 00:58:36 take your life and this passengerity for the next level. We also talked at the end of the show about vibrational energy and her personal mantra, letting the universe come in and influence positive things in her life. And so I recently did another episode on that on the power of a law of attraction. You can find out by looking up episode 23, and that's a great one if you want to hear about how you use a law of attraction, to bring positivity, influences, and growth into your life. We also talked about the importance of being present

Starting point is 00:59:12 in life. And I have a great interview on that with Navy SEAL and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, which was episode 26 where Chris really unpacked six concept in much more detail and how, by being president in his life, it has led for him to have on the world and off the world. So much achievement in both his personal life and in how he is influencing millions around the world. And then lastly, we talked about how one of the biggest things that Dora is trying to do is to eliminate toxic people from her life. And I just did an

Starting point is 00:59:52 episode on that just this past week and that episode is on Letting Go of a toxic friend or someone you have just outgrown. And that is episode 33 if you want to find it. And if you really enjoyed this episode today, I would just ask that you subscribe because we're gonna have more of like it and you don't wanna miss it. Subscribe to the podcast or subscribe to the newsletter. And if you could, please share the word about passion struck

Starting point is 01:00:20 in our goal of making passion go viral for millions everywhere. Thank you as always for watching. We're listening to the show. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral.

Starting point is 01:00:38 And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Start podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five star rating on iTunes and you sharing it with three of your most growth-minded friends so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion start community. If you'd like to learn more about the show and our

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Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dara Kurtz How to Create a Crazy Perfect Life EP 50

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