The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Rewrite: Change Your Life One Story at a Time by Deanna Moffitt

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

The Rewrite: Change Your Life One Story at a Time by Deanna Moffitt Deannamoffitt.com Do you find yourself in the trap of making the same mistakes over and over again? Do you feel like there must be another approach to life, but you’re unsure what it is or how to get started? Are you tired of letting your emotions run your life? The Rewrite will help you explore why you’re feeling stuck and give you practical tools to help you break through your patterns. Here’s what you’ll discover in The Rewrite: The importance of your community and how we co-create our beliefs with the people in our lives. The concept of your family handbook, and how it is handed down from generation to generation. The value of looking for different data to support a different story. The idea that it takes a willingness to change and embracing change leads to our personal evolution. You’ll also get great questions to help you act as your own personal coach. Questions that help you: Uncover your core false narrative. Make a different choice in the moment when you’re in the grip of your emotions. Create a compelling vision for your future. Be inspired by people like you who have rewritten their stories and beliefs about who they are and what they can accomplish.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Here's your host, the Chris Voss Show. There you go.

The Iron Lady. She's cutting into my action there for the entrance of the show. Here, let's do this the right way. The Chris Voss Show. All right, honey. Wait your turn. The Iron Lady. She's cutting into my action there for the entrance of the show. Here, let's do this to the right. The grace of the Lord. All right, honey, wait your turn. Wait your turn. Jeez, the Iron Lady makes it official there when she sings the show. But welcome to the Chris Voss Show.

As always, my friend, neighbors, relatives, all you people who tune in for the Chris Voss Show glow, the elite-minded Chris Voss Show audience that just bathes, bathes daily in the podcast of the episode that showers you with the knowledge. I don't know what's going on with bathing and showering. Maybe it's time for me to have my weekly. But it bathes in you and the knowledge and the experience, the stories, as we always say, that are the owner's man, it's life and what people share. We have another wonderful young lady on the show with us today.

Her hottest new book has come out November 15th, 2023. Deanna Moffitt joins us on the show with us today. Her book is entitled The Rewrite. Change your life one story at a time. Isn't that appropriate? Because, like I always say,

the stories are the owner's man's life. So, we're going to talk about stories today, my favorite thing. So she is joining us on the show. As always, though we beg, plead, grovel, all that sort of stuff, refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortes Christophs. YouTube.com, Fortes Christophs. LinkedIn.com, Fortes Christophs.

Subscribe to that big LinkedIn newsletter. That thing's crazy and its growth and 130,000 LinkedIn group over there. Deanna Moffitt is an accomplished speaker, coach, and author of the latest book we aforementioned. The word people use most to describe her is energizing. And that's what we love on the show. She has an eclectic background in project management, leadership development, improv, comedy, and storytelling, along with, what is this, Qui Gong? Do I pronounce that right? It's Chi Gong.

Chi Gong. Chi Gong. Okay, there you go. We'll find out what that is during the show. She isn't just a coach. She's a dynamic podcast guest as well. Welcome to the show, Deanna. How are you?

I'm doing great, Chris. Thank you so much, my friend. I mean, you get an energy bolt just sitting here going through your whole intro. Yeah, it's great. We actually ship shockers out to our guests, and it sits in their chair, and we just give them electronic jolts every now and then, but it makes for a great show sometimes. Yeah, I'm a listener. I have mine in my car, so thank you so much.

We did have one person have a seizure and go into full cardiac arrest,, I mean, they were great guests for the time that they were on. Anyway, that's a joke, people. I'm just kidding. It's dark. Guitier.com is where you can find me on the interwebs. You can find me at my name, DeannaMoffitt.com. Lots of double letters in there, so don't skip them. There you go.

Two F's and two T's. And two N's in the first name. I mean, we just got them all over the place. There you go. There you go. Two F's and two T's. And two N's in the first name. I mean, we just got them all over the place. There you go. There you go. People love to take the two S's on my last name and put on my first name. And that's after they're on the show. Yeah.

And never in my entire history of life have I ever met someone with Chris with two S's. Like, never. Chris Cross? Wasn't it Chris Cross? He didn't have two S's? Christopher Cross? No, Chris Cross the, you know, not Christopher Cross, the yacht rock, but Chris Cross the hip-hop artist.

Remember that? Chris Cross. Oh, but he doesn't have an H in his, though. But you are correct. Oh, okay. Okay, well, he's a qualifier. He is Chris with two S's. You are correct there.

That is the only one I know. And he may have beat me to it. I don't know. I might change my mind. And he may dance better than you. I don't know. And then everybody ought to be like, Chris, how are you? And I'm like, are you okay, man?

You have an episode? Is my shock thing over on your chair? And it's a callback joke for the show. Give us a 30,000 overview of what you do and what's inside the book. So, I'm a coach in lots of different ways. I coach coaches. I train for a coaching school, but I also work with a lot of executives and businesses. When I started coaching, I mean, if I can, can I take you back just a few years? Yes. You know, I grew up in a really dysfunctional home, lots of alcoholism, lots of chaos, lots of, lots of things going on in my home. You might know

something about that. And, and I used to escape it all by reading and I loved just stories and figuring out, they just took me away. When I started working, I worked my way up into a project management position. I was working for all the mergers and acquisitions that the company was working on and went to an improv class. And I loved it so much. I was like, after a couple of years, I asked myself, what would happen if I actually just focused on this. So at the tender age of 36, which was much older than most improvisers starting out, I quit my job, sold my home, and moved to Chicago from Portland, Oregon, and immersed myself in the world of improv,

toured all over the place, worked on cruise ships for 18 months of my life. I can tell you everything that happens below deck. And I loved it. Do I not want to know what that means? You do not want to know what that means. There's a reason. I'm going to go, I'm going to start cruising now, which is different than what I do in

Vegas on a Friday night. So where did you go from there? Well, you know, I spent about 11 years in Chicago and I loved it, but I also, you know, along the way I started and hosted a couple of very popular storytelling shows for performance. People would come in and tell their stories. And I found it really interesting how people told their stories. And then I started teaching storytelling for the famed second city in Chicago. And I, after about 11 years, I realized I don't like the cold. I don't want to live there anymore. I moved to LA. And because of facilitation, I got interested in leadership developments, immersed myself into that, immersed myself in the world of coaching.

And I realized all that time I spent in storytelling and really appreciating people's stories and reading, I recognized that all my clients were coming to me with a story. They were all coming to me with a story of all the things they thought they could and couldn't do, why they couldn't, couldn't do these things. And so I really dove deep into the narrative therapy type of coaching, looking at how do we create these stories in the first place? And then how do we rewrite them? And so that's kind of the genesis of the whole book is me loving stories in the first place, but then also recognize that we're all walking around all the time with usually, dare I say, terrible little stories that we're living out unconsciously.

So do you find that some of the stories we're telling ourselves from what you were saying can limit us sometimes? You know, stories about maybe money limitations or... Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting. I find sometimes the most exceptional people, the people who have been doing the most,

often have a story that doesn't allow them actually to enjoy that success. You know, they're constantly trying to strive, constantly trying to prove themselves. They can't slow down because if they slow down, then who are they, right? They can't, they're constantly having to work. But there's also the flip side. I recognize that I had a story of I'm a burden. And that came from, you know, I was adopted. So I was born out, my birth mother was, you know, wasn't there. And all of a sudden, I'm then even at just a young age that most people don't recognize that we have a consciousness at that age. But for six weeks, I was in a childcare home, I, my eyes were matted

shut, my mom told me that I was picked up. And I just get a sense that this burden, right? And imagine you have a story that you're a burden. You're walking around with that. What are you doing, right? I'm constantly trying to people please. I'm going overboard, trying to ensure that people really like me and certainly not asking for anything that I want. And so that was a really big rewrite for me is understanding that that's not my truth. That's not my story. And what if I were to walk around with a story of i'm a blessing hey there you go i mean that's i mean you really change your whole energy when you walk

into a room with a different story you know you've given me epiphany with with you know i've always thought of stories as you know people's stories we learn from them owner's manual type of stuff but i didn't really have thought of a story being self-limited. And you've waken me to this idea that, you know, like I drank pretty hard for 20 years. I wasn't an alcoholic. You know, I could turn it off and on. But I'd use it for energy. It was a little sugar rush. You know, my body would take the sugar.

And it was like cocaine. I mean, I could work on it. And I was an entrepreneur running three companies and multiple companies. You're like, hey, I got more work to do. I can't go to sleep. I got to get this done by tomorrow or else, you know, millions get lost and crap and people get laid off. And you know, I just use it for juice.

And then of course it was great for fun and partying. And you know, I'm, I'm a funny guy or I try to be, or I think I am, let's put it. That's the story I tell myself. Let me put that one. You're a funny guy, Chris and thank you and so I try and you know so sometimes that was the extra juice to you know you know be funnier or you know I used to think I was funnier when I was drunk I don't know that I was but I don't know the police tell me I wasn't and the judge but the ankle bracelet comes off tomorrow uh but at least for one of one of the one of the ankle bracelet comes off tomorrow. But at least for one of the ankle bracelets comes off tomorrow.

I got to keep that joke. That's a good joke. Keep escalating it. Keep going. One of the stack of the ankle bracelets comes off. I got to write this down because that's a callback joke we've been using for a long time on the show. But a stack of them. So one of the ankle bracelets come off.

Dude, I got to write that. I just improved the callback joke for the show for last year i didn't what i didn't realize is when i was drinking i was telling myself stupid shit stories oh this is you know i don't have an addiction which i didn't but i was abusing it i was abusing my body but i was like hey this is my fuel i need this to operate i need this to go you You know, the bullshit story. And you made me have an epiphany that there are probably a lot of things in life where we do that, where we have these stories where we're, they're like bullshitting stories. Oh, yeah. Where we're just bullshitting ourselves, conning ourselves, you know.

It's, well, you know, the reason I can't lose weight is because I'm big boned. I'm just, I'm a husky person. Yeah. Well, I always say that these stories, and often we don't even know what the stories are. They're so subconscious, but we are acting them out all the time. And so anytime you're getting a result that you don't want, you have to take a look and say, hey, what is this core story that's often created in our childhood, that's often created before we're even aware of it, when we're processing the world with a child's mind versus adult mind, right? You can go back and take a look at that now and think differently about it. But there's probably something in a for a lot of people in their

core childhood time that they created a story that meant something about them that the external world that they were viewing the external world through and that that experience made something mean about them they're creating a limiting story there you go you. You know, I've seen, over the course of my life, I've dated for 35 years, and I've seen it both in men and women. I don't date men, but I've seen it over the course of the impact of people's lives. I mean, where I can sit and meet them, and I can go, I can tell you your childhood. You know, you're like with, I used to own a modeling agency,

and so we saw a lot of men models. And what's interesting is they have the same sort of story of mother abandonment that the girls who are the female models have a father abandonment. And so you realize that both of them are chasing validation and attention from, from, since they didn't have father figures they're 10 they're they're making bad decisions of choice and and chasing that sort of thing and so male models will will will you know they print themselves and over over try and make themselves look the best they can possibly be whether it's cocaine or meth or whatever or testosterone, steroids, but they're still servile emotionally to women and trying to get their attention and validation because mom didn't hug them enough as a child, you know, whatever the case is. You talk about being abandoned as a child. And so a lot of divorce causes child abandonment issues. I see that a lot with divorced children,

with fathers not in the home, which is a big thing in the last two, three generations, it affects both men and women. Men are bringing their masculine and everything else. But the stories that we tell around that, where, you know, my mom didn't love me enough, my dad wasn't around, you know, obviously dad didn't love us enough, whatever the case may be, mom didn't love us enough, you know, they my life you know a lot of a lot of issues sometimes one parent runs off the other and it's not that that parent doesn't want to be with them you know and i'll see these stories well dad abandoned us and didn't want to come around so no i think you only have half the story there buddy and but these are the stories we tell that are self-limiting and sometimes i think the reason I'm citing these early stories is those shape their whole life.

It shapes their relationships, who they're attracted to, the fallout that comes from those poor choices. You know, the great thing about being 50, which is kind of too late, is a lot of people kind of wake up around 50. We kind of master life around 50, I think is what studies show. And we can kind of look back and we can see the destruction behind us, the wake that we've left behind of the wreckage of all that damage that we took in childhood trauma.

And, you know, I think early on recognizing those stories can really help people or, you know, recognize them at any age you're at, you know. And let me address something that you talk about in your book. Is there a importance or something you talk about in your book. Is there a point or something you talk about in the book, or we can talk about it here, that it doesn't matter when you rewrite your story. Right. You do it, right? For sure.

You didn't wake up until you were 50. Yeah. I mean, I honestly think that that's kind of our purpose on this earth is to continue to evolve into the human that you want to be and it is an evolutionary process and almost an unfolding of your life and yeah my gosh to think that there's ever a stopping point I hope I'm rewriting until the day I die that there's always going to be something that comes up to say what I can and can't do or what's possible or not possible. And each one of those things that limit my ability to step into a life that I really want is a BS story. So, let's take a look at that and see if I can create something new with that. I remember we were joking before

the show about how movie rewrites and the so-called great movies, they were being rewritten and probably improv too by a lot of great actors. You can think of, I mean, there's a million examples of it, but you can think of great movies where the improv lines were the lines. And so that was a bit of a rewriting as well. But they were rewritten as they went. And maybe we need to think of our lives as a Hollywood screenplay or a film. I remember there was a gal who attended one of my parties. And as I was dropping off the next morning, the big parties used to throw at my house,

she said to me, thanks for being in my film. And I was like, what? Is there something I don't need to know about? What's going on? She goes, no, my life is a movie. And I'm the lead actress. And you just played a small part in my film and I was like okay do I get you know sag for this

non-union that was the first time anybody said that to me it really struck me like thinking of your life as a movie and people are coming and going people are exiting stage left people are entering stage going. People are exiting stage left. People are entering stage right. Yeah. And people pass to your life and stuff like that. I think Billy Joel had a great line, life is a series of lows and goodbyes. Yeah.

And, you know, Shakespeare, all the world is a stage. And so kind of, you know, thinking about, you know, okay, let's constantly rewrite because you're constantly improving. And basically what you've epiphanied with your book is that if you're constantly improving your life, you're rewriting better stories. Absolutely. I mean, it is the constant, you know, the consistent improvement ideology of like where you are and also just being allowing to be accepting of where you are right now.

Okay, you know, this doesn't mean that life, you know, you can't do better, or it's, you know, where you're good, you can't accept. I feel like sometimes we can get onto this trajectory of feeling like, I'm never good enough. So I have to continue to improve myself, continue my, you know, but I think it's a little bit of continuous improvement ideology of just 1%, 10, you know, little small percentages of how can I improve this little aspect of myself, how I view the world, how I experience the world, as opposed to thinking that, you know, everything has to change in a moment. So no, it's just really taking a look at these small little changes in our world and in our life so that we can experience

the life we really want. There you go. The one axiom I learned in business is true for life as well. If you're not, I mean, if your revenue is not growing, if your company is not growing, your company is dying. Yeah, right. And the same is true of life. Of course they are. If you're not growing, if you're not educating yourself, if you're not reading books,

if you're not listening to the Chris Voss show, damn it, on every episode, giving us five stars on iTunes, you're not going to win. I used to think about when we would see retirement ads and people just kicking back in hammocks, you know, and drinking their drinks. And I was like, no, we can't sell that message. What are we doing to ourselves? We got to keep our brains and bodies active by thinking about retirement can go into a death zone if we're not continuing our thought process are thriving and growing and all that most people and it's data most people pass away if they don't find something to do with themselves after retirement they have to make themselves useful and that's kind of how our biology in the universe

works i mean it wants you to breed it wants you to propagate the species and contribute to all the propagation of species. And once you stop doing that, it's, okay, we don't need you. We're going to check you out and bring in some more people. Let's just welcome to life. I don't know if I buy into that, Chris, but okay. Okay. I think it's data and science, you know It's why people are valued At a higher thing

And live at their strongest at a younger age Because they're at the age to propagate the species Alright As a 56 year old woman With no kids I'm not going to buy into that story Chris I'm a 55 year old man with no kids I know how it is But no i mean our our our biological

imperative is to is to propagate the species no you can override it that's what i did and probably you did too yeah i i did it you know from a logical sense and said i'm not doing this but it did help that i had a it did help that i have a sex me at 22 so otherwise i'd have about 10 fucking kids um be in a trailer home with a gun in my mouth so one of the things you talk about is and we've kind of alluded to it through here but i think this is you know we've alluded to a variety of stories you tell but one of the things you talk about the book is understanding your core false narrative. Is there a core narrative that we're operating off of?

Well, I think those are the stories that are either given to you or you create at a young age before you can really process what your brain can really process and view the experiences. So, these are those womb stories of I'm not enough. I'm not lovable. I'm a burden. I'll never be successful. And these are often given to us by caretakers that have their own terrible little stories, right? They're handing off to us. And, you know, from their experience handed down generationally, these stories can go on and on. And without an interrupter, without someone really taking a look and saying, wait a minute, what if I were to really look at this differently? What do I want my story to be?

And I think that's a really powerful question is, what do I want my story to be? What do I want my story to be? Not have life tell it to me, not have it handed down. That leads me into my next question I have for you. Talk about this concept. This gives me an epiphany as well.

The concept of your family handbook. Tell us what that is and what that means. Yeah, this comes from Margaret Gilmetti. She was one of the people I interviewed from the book. She has a book herself called Bravish, Overcoming overcoming perfectionism. And in it, you know, she recognized that she was the only female child in a family and she was given a different handbook for living than her two brothers, a different set of expectations of how she was supposed to perform versus her brothers were supposed to perform.

She was a really creative kid, really creative child, but creativity was only supported up until a point. That creativity was then transformed into you've got to get a job, you've got to be successful, you've got to climb up the ladder kind of energy. And she had let go of her creative sense for a lot of years. And I actually met her when she came to one of my storytelling classes at Second City. And she was, I think, in her early 60s or late 50s for the first time. And it was one of her first ventures into creativity again. And she was phenomenal. And she's a, I don't know if you're familiar with the moth, but she was a moth Grand Slam winner.

She ended up being just really tremendous and she's she's someone who recognized that the family that she was born into had a whole handbook of expectations of how you were supposed to be in this world what your how you should show up how you should really be engaged with other people and for her it really really limited her around what she wanted to do. Like one of her big things, handbook rules was not to air your dirty laundry. And, you know, as she learned through storytelling, she goes, one of some of the most powerful stories was when she started airing her dirty laundry, because that dirty laundry is what makes us universally connected. We all have dirty laundry, right? And so if we can't talk about that, if we can't share that with each other, then we can't actually connect at the level that we often want to.

There you go. Now I have the Eagles singer's song going through my head. Dirty laundry. And that's what makes us, right? Right. We're handed down. And I think we can't have shame or attach emotional values to those, or maybe we need to identify that we attach emotional alliances to those stories.

Is that maybe part of the problem, that we not only have these stories, but we attach emotionality to them? Of course. Where we feel them and and and sometimes if they're repressive or or limiting self-belief stories they they end up having an impact as soon as way where we get stuck in the feeling of it and maybe maybe some and there's some people that you know with trauma and damage and instability and you know all the all the stuff that comes from that to them that feels normal if you grow up in a trauma-based childhood i don't want to speak to your experience but you know many people that grow up in like an alcoholism sort of

experience they that trauma becomes normal for them and some of the problems they have is they go seek out relationships and scenarios of relationships, and even then they'll create the trauma if they can't find someone to deliver it. But then they'll feel normal, and they'll go through multiple relationships. I mean, this is what I see at 35. You know, you're just like, every relationship, you've been a crisis point and a drama point, and you're the main denominator here

right yeah that's my last 10 boyfriends were narcissists oh that's interesting so i'm number 11 is that how that works but some people love you know there's a comfort to that even though for those of us who you know are have have resolved their traumas we kind of look at it and go that looks like a real fucked up situation to be in i i don't really don't want a relationship where the cops have to be called every night that doesn't sound fun at all but for some people that's that's the normal yeah i think it is normal for them i don't know you know i don't know that we love it i think there is a desire to have something different but they really don't know how because they continue to live out those stories and you know that core story of I'm

not enough or I'm not lovable those can just drive terrible behaviors just like what you're saying like continuing to get into relationship after relationship with people who don't honor you, don't love you in a way, but you're stuck there because you either think, well, this is all I can ever get. This is enough for me, or I've got to continue to prove that relationship between two people and how we're taught that in childhood impacts us. And I heard one psychologist say one time that we try and recreate those scenarios in our future relationships, and we try and resolve them. We're like, I can see how my parents had issues, but let's see if I can't fix that. And so we try and, but the problem is we recreate the scenario with the same problem people, and we figure that we can fix that.

And the problem is the scenario people, you know, and how you're bringing, what you're bringing to the table with your baggage, and they're bringing to the table with their baggage. You're bringing the table with your baggage you know I mean I do you know my mom said to me one time years ago decades ago she was you ever noticed that all the girls you date have some major freakin issues I was like yeah but I have some major issues too and you know we're basically getting together and I'm like hey I have a bag of broken glass what do you got and she's okay I got a bag of razor glass. What do you got? And she's like, Hey, I got a bag of razor blades. Let's play with them. Let's play together. And you're just like,

why are we bloody? And this thing is not, this doesn't work out, but I don't know, whatever. And it's just one of those things, but all this, like you say, I think comes down to the stories we tell and how they trap us and can contain us. And I've really thought about it from that angle. Well, I love how you just shared that, Chris, because I think it's true. You know, our core wounds speak to the core wounds of other people. I mean, that's what relationship is really all about, is this idea of coming together and I can see you and you can see me. And can we help each other?

Can we heal each other? Or are we just going to continue tearing each other down? I love that realization. That's great. Can we help each other? Can we heal each other? Or are we just going to continue tearing each other down? Right. I love that realization. That's great. And it's worse for men because we're providers and protectors. So if I come across someone who's got trauma, my cap and save, save a gal comes out and you're like, oh, save you, honey, from those dastardly evil. It's like it's a, they should call it a syndrome.

They should call it like, uh, who's that? Who's that guy who rode the horse? He had taunt of the mast. The mast. Who was that? Yeah. The lone ranger. I think you're talking.

Yeah. Yeah. The lone ranger sort of attitude. You're like, oh, it's you. And, and I would, I would start noticing that. Yeah. If you, if I met somebody who had traumas, you would get a little extra turned on by it. And you're like, you know what?

This is your trauma attracting other trauma. And you're like magnets, you know, those magnets that come together. Well, I wonder, Chris, if it was. Don't do that. Yeah, I wonder if that part of you, that part of you that wanted to be the Lone Ranger needed to be the Savior. You know, when you couldn't, then you had to look at yourself, well, who am I if I can't do this for this person? This is who I think I am, and you can't do it. And that just goes against your own trauma right there again.

And part of it is, I think you're really trying to save yourself. Yes. And that's what I had to come to a cathartic moment with that. I, I had to admit that I was a victim and that I had, and then it was okay to save me. And then all those years that I was going through all the stuff that I was going through, I wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying to save other people. I was trying to save a 12-year-old boy. And once I realized that I needed to save that boy, that's what all the noise was about. And all me trying to save the world and trying to save everybody

and running around with my head cut off, reacting to things emotionally was trauma-based. And while I didn't see normally what happened to my childhood as trauma, I had to realize that it was and that it had done damage. And so I think some of that, and I can't speak for women because I'm not a woman, but I know part of the great thing about feminine nature is it tries to be maternal. It tries to fix things. That's why women are always like, how's the family doing? How's my husband doing? what is he thinking right now what

are the kids doing you know that attentiveness that's part of femininity is you know women trying to fix us too I think I don't like I said I'm not a woman but I think women do try and fix us they try and approve us they you know that's that's the beauty of femininity and so they kind of have the same sort of relationship we do where we have that captain save a save a gal thing we're like i'll save you honey from those dastardly you know deeds and really you know we all maybe that's what we all need to do is just focus on saving ourselves first and then then go sharing stuff so that we're not sharing those bags of broken glass and razor blades i love that it's a great way to think about it chris yeah well my life has gotten improved from it i'm still not

perfect but i mean let's put it this way i'm probably off a digit right i'm just you're so close just a little digit off but you're close narcissism one of the two you mentioned the moth earlier we had the we had the folks from the moth on the show oh that's awesome they wrote a book called how to tell a story we're going to plug over the book there uh but yeah i love your you give me a lot of great epiphanies on the show what maybe haven't we missed or talked about the book that we can tease out that well i think one of the things so we talked about the core i think you know i also talk about our present day stories the stories that hook us and emotionally and, you know, in the moment where, and we often try and put it off on other people.

So I, this classic example is being in the car and someone cuts you off and you're swearing. I, you know, my head would spin. I'd start going exploded, you know, putting out words, calling that person a jerk, whatever was coming out of my mouth. But the only person who's suffering in that clearly is me. And I would suffer for a good 15 minutes in the car. And I realized that I was telling myself a story. I didn't know what was really happening. And what would happen if I told myself a different story? I didn't know what story was going to be true. Truly, I don't know what story is true. So what if I tell myself a story like,

oh, that person's probably late for the hospital or their wife is about to have a baby or whatever. If I can give them some generosity as opposed to assuming the worst, it may be the worst, but the only person who's suffering in that version of the story is me. So that's those present day stories,

those things that we get hooked around our kids, around our employees, around the work. We get into those states and we can't seem to get out of them because we are telling ourselves a story, whether we know it to be true or not, that creates suffering for ourselves. And then I talk about the future stories, the stories about who we want to be in the future. And a lot of us have no future story. We're kind of adrift. And I think a really strong future story for yourself is something that actually pulls you forward into a different life, a different experience, as opposed to having no story or what I call the Stephen King effect of creating the most horrible stories for your future. You know, people can catastrophize things that they don't know as a safety measure to keep us safe as opposed to

creating a really powerful future story. And I think, you know, like the episode that you mentioned of, you know, being in the car and being cut off in traffic and stuff like that, there were times where I would react very, I just, I would just go nuclear over some things. And what a lot of people don't realize is you're reliving your trauma. And so you're probably part of your story that you're telling yourself. But sometimes it's subconscious, but you're feeling traumatized again by what someone has done to you. A lot of people that experience gaslighting, that grew up with gaslighting and being lied to or manipulated or they have trauma from that in their life, usually from childhood, they don't react well to being gaslit. They don't react well to being manipulated or feel like they're being manipulated.

And sometimes that could be an apparition where you're not really being manipulated. Like the person in the car in traffic that cut you off isn't sitting around going, I'm going to fuck with Joe today. Yeah, right. I know Joe's on the freeway. I'm going to just get in my car and drive down the freeway so I can just piss off Joe this morning. And I know that if I just cut him off, I'm just going to ruin his day

and I'm going to trigger him and he's just going to just, you know, probably go ruin someone else's day too and pass it down. Yeah, being able to understand that that until you resolve that trauma and square it up and do the work especially with a psychiatrist you're you're not going to you're you're reacting to that thing i mean i've had people react to something i'm doing with just the most extreme you're like you're doing this to screw with me and i'm like actually no i'm not right i'm just i'm just sitting here breathing and and and i don't know where this came out of left field

but go seek help but you know i mean technically those people are suffering from trauma so they should get some help but you know you have to do the work and you that's the deal this is your trauma this is your little piece of shit you're carrying around. And it's time for you to flush it. So see a therapist. A lot of people frame doing the work as really difficult or challenging or they don't want to do it. And I just have a different perspective of, man, it is so freeing. Yeah, it can be a little hard to confront what you're what you've been through

or what you've you know how you're in this moment but there's so much more freedom when you can really take a look at yourself and own all of yourself own all of your aspects of yourself man there's something really powerful in that i would love to do that, but I sold my soul to the devil a long time ago. That's why I got this podcast. And I hope you got a good deal on it. You got seven bucks. Is that what you got? Seven bucks. Oh yeah,

that's a good deal. I got a podcast out of it and a book and I don't know, whatever. I should have asked for more, but. You could say you could work on your negotiation skills, but I mean. There you go.

That's possible. Tell us about what you do and how you do it, your coaching services, and all the stuff that you have to offer on your website there. Yeah, I do all kinds of coaching. In the personal level, I focus on helping people look at their stories and change their stories. So that's a big part of what I do. But I have never limited myself in the coaching. So I've done executive coaching. I coach small businesses at this stage. I coach other coaches. I teach for a coaching school. Truly what I love the most is, and what I'm often known for, just asking great questions and those questions I just know

are the lens with which you're going to experience the world so when you can ask better questions you really just have a better experience so I really honed that and so man if you want to really look at your life come talk to me I'll ask you some good questions we'll see what happens from there there There you go. And sometimes you need to be outside of yourself and have someone help you because, you know, like I can see a lot of problems with other people,

but you know, seeing problems with me, aren't that good. Mainly ignore them and don't care. I actually just kind of ride them out because I don't know the crazy. So yeah. So is the drama. Whatever. I think, I think my story was that for a few years where where it was like ah fuck it you know i i think i'm not going to

tell that joke about bill cosby but i can imagine what it is go ahead i think this is important bill cosby used to say for years that he never went and saw a psychiatrist because if he did, he would probably break his comedy and he'd find out what was wrong with him. And in the end, maybe he should have. Maybe he should have. Dealing with prison and stuff. But that's an example of where maybe you should get help first. It's that bad.

Yeah, for sure. Not to promote Bill Cosby in any way, shape, or form. And I was a fan as a kid so i was very disappointed me too me too buddy but you know so these are the stories that we need to you know get better stories damn it maybe that should be the title of your book yes it should be stories damn it that'll be stories suck there's stories like version two will be your story sucks thank you for for that. I really appreciate it. Get better stories or else.

I don't know. Something like that. So people can reach out to you for your coaching. They can talk to you about transforming their stories and rebuilding their life. I love it. The best way they can do is they can book a free consult on your website. Yep. You can go to my website. Yep.

There you go. Awesome. So we can see if they're a fit for you and all that sort of good stuff. I know you've got multiple other sites like LinkedIn and Instagram, and I think you're recommending and talking to stuff about things there. It's all under Deanna Moffitt. If you get all the double letters right, you're going to find me. The double Ns, double Fs, the double Ts.

There you go. Yes, there you go. There you go. I'll round out the show with one final thought. Well, do me a favor. you go. Yes, there you go. There you go. I'll round out the show with one final thought as, well, do me a favor, pitch the show to pitch everyone on why they should buy the book and all that good stuff as we go out. Yeah. So you want to buy the book when you know that you're not getting the result you want. Through the book, I'm going to give you some questions. So it's not just a book. It's a really a chance to see how you, how I might question some of what's going on in your world.

And it's inspiring. I've got tons of stories from other people who have done some rewriting of their own stories. And some of the stories are really fantastic. So come, buy it. There you go. We were talking about resolving your trauma know not being triggered by you know someone sliding you someone cutting off in traffic also the important thing is to recognize why those triggers are happening is because you haven't resolved your trauma but one of the things i love

is marcus aurelius and stoicism and you know now i look at things from a different lens than when i used to be triggered you know someone will gaslight me politicians or whatever sort of tries to selling me the bullshit Religion would try and sell me the bullshit I think it's I think I've talked a lot about growing up in a cult and trying to be brainwashed Marcus Rallis wrote this from meditations when you wake up in the morning Tell yourself the people I deal with today will be meddling and grateful arrogant dishonest jealous and surly They are like this because they can't tell good from evil because they probably have their own traumas. I'll insert that deal with today will be meddling ungrateful arrogant dishonest jealous and surly they are like this because they can't tell good from evil because they probably have their own traumas i'll

insert that but i have seen the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil and recognize that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own not of the same blood and birth but by the same mind possessing a share of divine and so none of them can me. No one can implicate me in ugliness, nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands, or eyes, like the two rows of upper teeth to obstruct each other as a natural, to feel anger at someone and turn your back on them. These are unnatural as well. A great thing. So like when I wake up now and some sort of shit gets flying at me, I just go, okay, well, expected that. You know what?

People have traumas. They've got their unresolved trauma, but their unresolved trauma is not triggering mine today. I love it. I love that we went so deep today. Thank you so much, Chris. Right down the depth of the thing and lots of great epiphanies. Man, if you listen to the show and you don't get the epiphanies that i've started identifying and saying well this is an epiphany because i want people to understand this that listen to the show that if you're not picking up on these epiphanies in the

show and learning something from either you're the smartest fucking person on the planet and we should probably have you on the show to help enlighten us or you you're just not you just got a skull that's 20 yards thick with concrete or something. Maybe you're just living in your own bullshit story. That's probably true. That's really true. It goes all the way around, doesn't it? Thank you very much for coming on the show, Deanna.

We really appreciate it. Thank you, Chris. Absolute pleasure. Thank you. And order up the book, folks. Wherever fine books are sold, it's entitled The Rewrite. Change Your Life, One Story at a Time. Comes out, came out November 15th, 2023. the book folks wherever fine books are sold it's entitled the rewrite change your life one story at a time comes out it came out november 15th 2023 and it's a great time to order it for the

holidays as well we'll get a plug in because great gift giving so buy like 20 of them thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time