How can you be more productive and efficient in life and in business? Scott Carson talks with The Millionaire Woman Show’s host, Debra Kasowski, about the effective ways to set and stick with your goals no matter what the obstacles are. Debra discusses time blocking, short-term productivity bursts, and how to make the most of your time. She also highlights the power of asking questions and how it can help figure out what you can do to alleviate the fear of not doing the right thing. Gather more insights from Debra about valuing time, using the right tools for systemizing tasks, and making plans happen in this episode.
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Sticking To Your Goals & Overcoming Obstacles With Debra Kasowski
In this episode, I am jacked up. We travel quite a bit. We meet some amazing people. In the words of Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, “You’re going to be the same person, except for the books that you read and the people that you meet.” I had a good fortune in 2019 of attending my friend Steve Olsher’s New Media Summit as an Icon of Influence. There are many new icons there. I came face to face with this lady during one of the exercises. We hit it off and she’s an amazing individual. She has such a beautiful light about herself because she has a passion for helping people. The lady I’m talking about is Debra Kasowski. She is a charismatic host to the thought-provoking podcast, The Millionaire Woman Show.
It’s committed to enriching the leadership potential over countless clients, essentially guiding them to go within to capitalize on their true personal power, so they can achieve the measurable success they desire in business and in life. After she graduated with distinction, having earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She’s been a nurse for years too. This award-winning, three-time international bestselling author, speaker, and certified executive coach spent many years as a clinical manager, excelling in leadership development before founding Debra Kasowski International. It is a world-class training and consulting venture focused on helping aspiring business owners and solopreneurs develop the winning success habits that transform human potential substantial profits. She’s announced that she’s going to be a two-time TEDx Talk speaker. We are honored and privileged to have somebody from North of the border, Debra Kasowski. How’s it going?
It is great. It’s hard to believe I’ve done all those things. No wonder I started getting up at 5:00 AM.
You have to do it. The early bird catches the worm and gets some things done. If you get up earlier, often, you are half a day ahead of your competition out there. Roughly, 50% of our readers are women. With what we do with real estate investing and entrepreneurship and stuff like that, so many of our clients and readers are women out there. With a new year, it often brings about big goals. “I’m going to do some big stuff this year. I’m going to get off my keister and take action.” Two weeks after, a lot of new year’s resolutions, people start finding excuses or making excuses for themselves. What’s the advice you would give to our readers in Note Nation? How to overcome that? How to get rock and rolling with it?
When it comes to setting those new year’s goals, I don’t believe in resolutions because we resolve to do something, but we don’t have a plan. When you’re breaking down your goals and you hear about it, the manageable chunks of time, manageable chunks of action that you’re going to be taking, people come up with many excuses at this time of year when they have fallen off the wagon. “Not enough time, not enough resources. This happened.” The truth is there was never a plan to make it happen. What I want to encourage you to do and I’m going to give you some tips. One is to write down a list of all the things that you think you need to do.
Look at some of the priority pieces, even running errands, to geographically map them on what day that you might go do that. You’re going to take that to-do list and you’re going to block off time in your calendar. Some people refer to it as time blocking, time chunking. This is a game-changer. Don’t put everything into a whole four-hour block. I suggest to people working twenty minutes to an hour. I personally use a tool called Marinara Timer. It’s an online timer where you set the time. It works similar to Pomodoro, but what I want to encourage you is to test it.
The Pomodoro method is twenty minutes of work, five-minute break, twenty minutes work and you continue in that fashion. After four segments, you’re going to take a fifteen-minute break or longer. What I encourage people to do is find out your optimal time, then work with that time into a block of an hour. For me, I’ve learned that 45 minutes straight is a great chunk of time. I can keep going without distraction for 45 minutes but then I take a fifteen-minute break, whether it be to eat something, maybe throw a load of laundry if I’m working at home.
I want to encourage you to be careful about tapping into social media during that time because you will take yourself down a rabbit hole and you may not come back. There’s a Law of Parkinson. Time expands to the amount of time given. If I gave you one hour each day to work on something, let’s say it’s making calls. When you do that one hour intensely for that one hour of time, you’re going to get more done than if you blocked it off in a four-hour segment. People will find ways to make that time extend to the four hours, but they don’t necessarily get productive work because there’s no sense of urgency behind them.
When you start blocking chunks of time in your calendar to get things done, get those big priorities. Brian Tracy has to Eat That Frog. Take the most difficult thing that you’re dreading to do. You feel that resistance. Put it at the front of the time of your day. As soon as you knock that out of the park, then you’re like, “I’ve accomplished something huge.” When you’ve accomplished it, that’s going to start creating that momentum. People think that these tasks that they’re doing have to be big things. They’re often researching. They’re often email, phone calls to get things in a line.
It might be designing some social media graphics or handing or delegating something off your plate to your team. You don’t have to do it all, but you do need to block off time to delegate to do the work and allow for some time of creativity. Because you’ve moved the to-do list into the calendar, here is what happens. As entrepreneurs, people think that when we work at home or we’re entrepreneurs, we have such a flexible schedule and we can take people to appointments. We can drop off dry cleaning. We can do so many things. They think that we don’t do any work. We don’t work per se because we’re doing what we love, so we don’t define it as work.
Let me correct that. If someone phones you and you’re like, “What’s happening?” They’re like, “You want to go for lunch?” You look at your calendar and if it doesn’t have anything blocked in it, you’re like, “That’s cool. There’s nothing in the calendar. When am I going to meet you?” They look at their neverending to-do list and getting frustrated why they’re not getting results because we didn’t take the time to make those commitments to ourselves to get things done. When someone calls you and be like, “I have a commitment,” whether it be the gym or whether it be that you’re working on a proposal, you can say, “I have this time blocked off. Would this time work for you?” You’re keeping those commitments to yourself as much as you would keep a commitment to a client.
Sticking With Your Goals: Find out your optimal time, then work with that time into a block of an hour.
It’s funny too that those of us that work from home or working from home for specific hours, people have a whole different mindset. They don’t think of the same clock-in, clock-out eight hours. We often don’t work in more than 40-hour work a week. We’re working off in more, but often more efficient because we do have those quick bursts of effectively and efficiency to get things done. One of the most important things that I did is I cut out lunch appointments because I would often find them dragging on beyond an hour and I have to drive somewhere for fifteen minutes, an hour plus for lunch and then fifteen minutes back.
If that person was late and I’d have two hours blown in the middle of my schedule. It could have been a five-minute conversation on the phone or webinar. You’re traveling, you’re speaking or hosting classes up there. What are you seeing some of the biggest things that are blocking people from taking these first initial steps towards something new or maybe they’re looking at leaving their job to do something entrepreneurial spirited? You’ve seen it on a consistent basis or is it across the board, some of the mind blocks or the glass ceilings that people are seeing them.
I work with men and women. One of the most consistent things that I have seen is people getting in their own way. They have these self-doubts and fears. They start comparing themselves to others, wondering why they shouldn’t be where another person is, not knowing the whole part of the journey. We look at one moment, we see it as a defining moment and we think, “Why isn’t it happening for me?” This is what I believe. There are different people that come into your life. They’re all teachers or messengers of some kind. No one you come across like Scott, you and I, it’s no accident that we met at Steve Olsher’s event.
We got to pay attention to the messengers that show up in our lives. What are they contributing? What is its purpose? What is the gift in why someone shows up? When we start comparing those people that have been gifts or messengers, we devalue ourselves. We start looking for external validation from people for approval, self-acceptance, thinking and wondering, “Are we enough? Do we know enough?” Everyone has exactly what they need. I know people I’ve heard that it’s almost cliche, but you do have what it takes to have what you want. If the idea came to you, it means that you are there to fulfill that idea. It means it was possible for you. Not everyone has the same idea.
Scott, you and I have totally different ideas that come to us on a regular basis based on our experience, based on our goals, our passions, and our dreams. No two people will ever be alike. What I do know is each of us carries talents, skills, and abilities to bring out to the world in this uniqueness and knowing that you’re already enough. One of the books that I’ve published is called Let’s Be Curious: Ask the Right Questions, Get Better Answers, Create the Results You Want. One of the things that I want to impress upon people and the reason I say you have everything you need is that you need to ask the questions to get what you need. Often people say, “I don’t have the time.” If you implement what I shared earlier about the to-do list going into the calendar, you can carve out time. We all have the same amount of time, but where are you putting your priorities?
People will say the same thing about money, “I don’t have money to invest.” For your case, “I don’t have money to invest in real estate.” When they say I can’t afford, they are putting that language out there that there’s a scarcity. Instead, if they look at where they’re spending their money, they can identify what their priorities are. All it needs to be is that’s not a priority or to shift to, “I want to start putting money aside so I can be an investor. I can invest in real estate and I’m making it a priority.” Creating may be a separate bank account and having money going in every month or a dividend fund. However, you want to separate that money for investment. For resources, the other thing that I want to impress upon people is, you were never meant to have all the resources.
You can’t do it all yourself.
We need to learn to leverage those resources asking for help. This is where people hold themselves back because they’re embarrassed. “What does it look like if I asked for help?” It is a strength because you know what you want and you can leverage the resources around you. You might have to rent something, you may need to borrow something, you may need to ask for some tips or advice or strategy, but being willing to ask sets you apart from everyone who’s not willing to ask. Tony Robbins has said and I say this to people all the time. Because you can’t have all the resources and you’re not meant to, and you leverage the person who is most successful, it is not the person with the most resources. It’s the person who’s the most resourceful.
Knowing where to find the answers, knowing where to find the equipment, knowing where to have the event for your venue, knowing where that property is, that’s the resources. When we talk about time, money and resources, we also have relationships. Those relationships are something that you need to continue to nurture those connections from networking events and conversations because you want to create long-lasting relationships. They’re not transactional like one-time and we’re done. We want to be able to create relationships that are long-term. When other opportunities come up, we can reciprocate those resources or offer people that we know who could be a solution to what someone’s needing.
Those that try to do it themselves are control freaks. They’re the bottleneck in their life success. They’re not delegating. They’re not deferring things. They’re not asking for help because they think they can do it all themselves. Everybody struggles with it at some point. Is there been a time that you can recall where you struggle and finally, you’re like, “I need to delegate this to somebody or ask for some resourcefulness from some of my friends?”
One of the things was when I first started having a newsletter, I could sit there and play around and I love being creative, but it’s not where I need to be spending my time. You need to be spending your time where the greatest strengths are. I want to be spending my time writing. I want to be spending my time coaching individuals so that they can get to their next level. If I’m sitting behind the computer hiding, not getting into those conversations, not making the phone calls, not going to the networking events, avoiding writing, I’m not using my strengths to their full capacity. Whereas someone else, that’s their expertise. They love doing that. That’s where they feel their greatest passion. If I’m giving it to someone else, that helps me focus on where my greatest strength is.
Here is something that I want to encourage people. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t understand how to do it like bookkeeping and creating the newsletter. I always like to know how to do it and create a document. If I was in a pinch or something happened to the person I delegated to, I would know-how, but I also know when things go off track. If they need help brainstorming, I can help be the solution, but I don’t have to be directly involved. I don’t think it hurts anyone to initially learn how to do something, but it doesn’t mean that you need to keep it. Let go and release that controls knowing that you know what to look for if something goes wrong. I know people who have delegated, but they don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to what could go off track. That’s where they get themselves into trouble. They didn’t know if that person had the skillset and they’re wondering why it’s not working.
You need to look at it, understand it and then be able to delegate it all. If you know what you’re looking at, you know whether, A, it’s performing as it should or B, it is not performing and then you get a plug and play somebody else into it or another vendor. You’re giving great counsel there.
Years ago, I had a big summit that was coming up and it was around this time of year, but it was a big summit I had been preparing for. The person I was working on it went AWOL for a week. I was in a panic. I had all the interviews done. The design of the page was still in the works. I was texting. I was emailing. I phoned, no reply for one week. Not even to say if they were out of the office, they were out of the country on vacation or anything. Luckily, I was friends with someone whose VA was phenomenal. I called her up immediately. I said, “I don’t know what to do. I’m in a panic. I need your help.”
The gentleman finally phoned me back, he’s like, “Do you want me to work on this?” I was like, “We’re done.” There are no questions. There’s no explanation. There was no contact whatsoever and no reasoning behind it to say what happened. I said, “I’m glad to hear your voice. I’m glad you’re okay, but I’m not okay. We’re launching in two days and nothing was done.” Meanwhile, I had the VA took over and she had everything up and running. Everything stayed on time. I was forever grateful, but the sense of panic was terrifying because I want to be able to deliver my best work. I am grateful that I switched over to someone who cared about what I was doing.
We learn the most about ourselves and our strengths come from times of weakness and times of having to learn to delegate stuff like that. A reminder for a logo on an event popped up that I was putting together. Talk about events being some of the most stressful things that we can do. I’d spent a lot of my $25,000 in marketing and hotel events and no tickets were being sold at all. I had to cancel it. It led to the birth of all of the online summits that I was able to delegate and get easily done versus something in person. One of the most stressful times can become a strength once you work your way through it and find a resolution to it. Bravo to you on that. People don’t realize all that goes into what we do on a regular basis of working with people and supporting things and putting on events. It’s a lot of moving parts.
To keep track of those and to have tools in place, the systems that you need to have in place is to have those checklists and to have those check-ins with your team to make sure things are rolling out. You don’t want to be that person who says, “I don’t know.” You still need to be on top of things, especially when you’re the CEO of your organization and your life. You want to be able to be in the know and know that when something’s going off track.
You have to be in the know, otherwise, it can make you look bad really fast to your audience. We’ve all had ups and downs and trials and tribulations. We all learn more from mistakes. What do you say to the people that are the perfectionists out there? The control freaks that, “Everything’s got to be perfect.” I don’t want to say bridezilla, but we see that in the show where it’s a big emotional time, but entrepreneurzilla, you could say out there.
I’m a recovering perfectionist. It’s taken me some time to learn to let go of that control of the reins. One of the biggest things, even with my coaching program, is being able to trust and enjoy the process without attachment to the outcome. When we talk about that, people are like, “It’s a hard thing and 100%, it is hard.” I use this example to share with people. I had an opportunity to hear The Iron Cowboy, James Lawrence speak in an event. He was talking about his 50 triathlons, 50 days, 50 states. His mom had run 5K for the first time in her life. She’s like, “That was hard, but not as hard as your 50-50-50.” What I loved about how he reframes that is your heart is your heart, my heart is my heart. They have an equal balance because each person is facing their own challenges. When we realize that, we can move forward, not comparing ourselves, not feeling that lack, but being able to say, “I conquered this challenge. I’ve got my mindset in the place where I have defined where I’m going. Look what I’ve done.”
One of the biggest things and this is common that I see entrepreneurs, men, and women, is we’re not taking time to celebrate the wins, the small successes that create that momentum. Often, when people say that they’ve lost their motivation, it’s because they weren’t celebrating. Motivation is great, but motivation comes from seeing progress, whether it be one degree or 1%, but to see that the steps that you have taken in are leading you in the right direction. You’re having glimpses of the future that you’ve envisioned for yourself and you’re getting there. If we don’t stop and celebrate those little wins like the booking of the podcast, the receiving someone’s book in the mail or might be a speaking engagement that you’ve secured. If we’re not celebrating, then we’re moving onto the next thing, not knowing if something’s working. The world is giving us feedback all the time and if we pay attention, we will see whether we’re on track or off track at any given point.
You hit the nail on the head there. We don’t celebrate our victories, whether it’s a new podcast recording or a new book or a chapter written in a book. A lot of us wait until the end to celebrate, like, “You got your first step done. Let’s get some motivation and momentum going.” It becomes easier and you feel better about it versus “I’m going to start something.” You didn’t celebrate along the way. It’s why it was easier to quit.
That’s what the thing with perfectionism is that because we want everything so perfect, we either delay getting something done where we fit into that procrastination because it’s never going to be ready. It’s never going to be perfect. We talk ourselves out of launching, but what that truly is based on fear. We’re fearful that we’re going to fail. We’re fearful of the uncertainty. We’re fearful of success or failure, but the truth is what we’re fearful of is whether we can handle it or not. We have faced uncertainty many amounts of time and we’ve survived because you’re still here. You’re reading this. I know that you’ve been through times of uncertainty. Every morning you wake up and you’re uncertain. You might have a plan, but you’re still uncertain of how things will roll out.
The world gives us feedback and we adjust accordingly. Your stomach’s hungry, you decide to eat. All of these signals tell us whether things are working for us or not. We’re always readjusting. We’re always re-evaluating. We’re looking at our priorities and taking steps forward based on how we think and feel. If you feel unsure about something, that’s when that procrastination checks in. How can I make certain? This is where asking questions is a phenomenal thing to do. If I was certain if I was more confident, what would I need to be in place to make this decision? When we look at our confidence, “Am I ready to make a change? Am I thinking about how ready? What would make me more ready?” The power of asking yourself questions helps you figure out what you need to do next.
What’s one thing that you find yourself procrastinating? Is there anything that sits on the board?
It’s probably I want to dive into an article and write an article for LinkedIn. I have been thinking about different topics. I caught myself on social media, thinking about all the different messages and then coming up with a message that came to my head, so I would post. I know when I get off this, I will be banging out that article quickly.
I had the same thing happen. I wrote an article for Podcast Business Journal. That’s the thing about social media. It can be such a time suck to absorb our productivity and give us a reason to procrastinate things. What are some tips that you would recommend to people out there that are struggling with a time suck of social media?
This is something that I pay attention to. Your phone is able to give you stats on how much time you spend on social media. If you turn that on, you may be alarmed. Some people say they stop watching TV. I rarely watch television, but when I do, it’s for enjoyment. We’re watching a movie or a TV series. I’m hooked on Jack Ryan and Mrs. Maisel. I’ve got to get the old episode, but otherwise, I don’t have time to watch television. I have many goals, many dreams that I want to bang out. If I’m sitting behind the screen, I’m not getting anything done. Pay attention to those stats. I’ve set a goal for myself to let that decrease, especially when you see your daily stat.
It’s like, “Look how much more time I would have if I didn’t go on?” During your productivity time with the Marinara Timer or whatever you’re working on, put your phone on airplane mode. If you’re concerned about missing out on calls, you might have it in your voice message or in even in your email threads that you check your email at certain times of the day. The other thing is with the phone, if you can’t put it on airplane mode, put it on vibrate or on low, but move it to a room outside or onto a bookshelf so it’s out of sight and out of mind.
As soon as we see something flashing on the screen, we want to pick it up and we’re like, “Somebody needs me.” That fear of missing out, want to be needed. One of the greatest lessons that I learned is when it comes to email, for example, we think, “What do people need?” That’s it. It’s other people’s agenda. I call it OPA. First thing in the morning, don’t check your email right away. You want to spend that time priming your day. Zig Ziglar is known for this. Either you want to do The Miracle Morning or The Millionaire Morning with Lewis Howes. I find that getting up at 5:00 AM carves out sacred time for myself. I have time to journal, time to read.
Sticking With Your Goals: Spend your time where your greatest strengths are.
Even on my rest day, it is my rest day from working out. I got up, I prepared for my podcast interviews, did a little bit of social media, have the journal ready to go get and write that article for LinkedIn. I’m going to go take singing lessons doing something new. When you have that anticipation also built-in, you can make your days exciting. That way, you’re not always going to your phone and getting onto social media and getting caught into that rabbit hole. If you do have social media that you want to get into, give yourself an alarm that you have a fifteen-minute timeframe and you’re going to discipline yourself to off. Check it twice a day. You also have a team.
If you’ve delegated your social media that you still go in and do your own personal replies, use HootSuite or Meet Edgar, all these other tools that you don’t need to be on it all the time. You want to be able to leverage that time. This is what I find that people are not doing. They want to do what’s most pleasurable first. We avoid pain and that’s part of the perfectionist part. We want to be where the fun stuff is, but if we’re going to eat that frog, we’re going to dive into the hardest thing that we need to do first. We don’t have the luxury of playing on the phone, playing games or whatever it is. If you want to knock it out of the park and create results in your business, you need to build in a discipline and the mindset. Mindset is everything, then you’re going to be the best in your industry.
Sometimes social media is better to post and walk away from versus sitting there and seeing all the drama and the dirty laundry that people are airing online. This isn’t pretty these days with everything going on, especially here in the States. One of the things that people appreciate is you’re sharing the tools and sharing the focus of aspect of it. Can we talk a little bit about maybe the mindset that it’s okay to fail a little bit? Many people are avoiding failure or avoid taking action because they’re afraid of failure. We need to embrace failure a little bit better. We need a reward for people that do fail and learn more from it. Do you have any words on that, Debra?
When people think about failure, it’s that viewpoint of failure. We think about failure. We think about mistakes. We think about all the wrongdoings. I want you to reframe how you see failure. Failure is feedback. It’s data. It’s information telling you whether you are on track or off track. You’ve probably heard the phrase that the most successful people have failed the most because they’re embracing that failure. They’re looking at it as information that they can do better, be better so that they can have the lifestyle, the business or the organization that they want.
We look at it as an opportunity to learn. When people are fearful of failure, what they’re doing is they’re judging themselves. If we come from a place of curiosity and wanting to learn more about what happened, then we can start expanding our viewpoint of what’s possible. What I often share with people is one of my greatest pet peeves, especially in groups and organizations and associations, is when people say, “We’ve done it before and I didn’t work.” I want to crush that myth because it might not have worked then. I’ll say, “When did this not work?” “Years ago.” There are new people on your board with new experiences, new education. We have new technology in place. The economy is different. The environment has changed. All of these things have changed around us.
Even within us, we’re not the same people as years ago. I go back and say, “We have all these things that have changed. The only thing that has not changed is your viewpoint.” What did we learn? What is it that made that event not work out the way you wanted it to? The reason things don’t continue to work out is that you never stop to learn the lesson. The universe or life or God, whatever your preference is, is reminding you that there’s still a lesson to be learned. You have new people, new resources, even maybe even more money than you ever had, but you still stuck in a belief that’s held years ago. What is it possible if I learned what that lesson was before? Maybe we needed a lot of different amounts of money. Maybe there’s a new technology or a new service or a new form of marketing that’s come out that wasn’t there years ago.
You have someone on your team with an expertise that you are not using. Let’s turn that pet peeve and to being open to possibility. What is the opportunity that I can learn from what didn’t work before? We need to pay attention to those failures, those wrongs because you’ve taken action and that’s one of the greatest rewards. Look at the feedback as a reward, not something to stay away from and avoid. That resistance, that fear is what’s truly holding you back because you think it’s going to happen again. If you continue to think in past thoughts, thinking that, “It happened before, it’s going to happen again.” What you focus on becomes your reality. Pay attention to where your focus is. If I have my focus on possibility and opportunity, I’m going to see them everywhere. It’s like when you buy a car and you look around you, all of a sudden everybody has the same car.
The beautiful thing is we get embarrassed by it when we shouldn’t be embarrassed. We need to embrace it, “What did I learn? What was the silver lining to every cloud that we run through so that we can prepare better for the next time we tackle it?”
Instead, Scott, we can say, “I went first. I did it for you.”
That’s the thing. You think back to high school and college that the professors always gave more leniency than the person that went first because they got out there. They did it. It may not have been the best one, but they at least tackled it by going first and making things happen. The same thing goes into business. We could be the first one, get it out there and then launch it. People are going to be a little more lenient with it for the most part.
They see you as the leader because you went first. There’s going to see you as an expert because you have the most knowledge. You’ve made mistakes so now you can teach others how not to do it and also how to do it.
That’s a big important thing. What’s a couple of things you’ve got planned for the rest of this new decade? What’s going on that you’re excited about?
In March 2020, I’m going to be doing a TEDx Talk. I’m not able to release the details yet because they’re confirming a few things. I’m excited about that. I will be launching my Unshakable Mindset Program. It’ll be a five-week program where you can learn to develop that unshakable mindset to get where you’re at. If you go over to my website and put in your email, you’ll get on our newsletter list. You get access immediately to our mini-course. It’s comprised of three videos and lessons about how to make habits stick. To take some of those goals that you’ve maybe put aside or fallen off the wagon, goals can be set at any time of the year. It’s not only at the beginning of the year. What you need to do is starting to put in those habits, creating that discipline for yourself to make those things stick and become a part of your lifestyle. That’s where we need the boost. That’s where we need to get focused on. If you go over to my website at www.DebraKasowski.com, you can get back and you’ll see more of the events that will be coming up.
Making habits stick is important, but that’s the thing with the entrepreneurship or anything. The Think and Grow Rich came out with a book called Stickability and they interviewed a lot of people. My buddy Greg S. Reid wrote that book. He spoke with a lot of people about what made them successful and that’s the thing, stickability. They didn’t say no. They didn’t give in. They failed, but they kept plodding forward to make things happen.
You got to stick with it.
That’s the biggest thing is all of our experts, the heroes that we see, whether it’s in sports or speakers or entrepreneurs, we see them at the top of the mountain. We often think it is a difficult climb. We don’t see a struggle along the way.
It’s the daily grind.
Showing up even on days they don’t want to show up. Waking up at 5:00 when you don’t want to wake up. Putting in the workout or sitting there and getting better each day and showing up each day. One percent better is a better way than anything. When we started our podcast and videos and stuff like that, people always seem to know how do I get a million views? Forget a million views. If you get one view, it’s worthwhile. One person responds, one person reaches out, one person listens to whatever it is and go from there. You’ve got a successful podcast as well. Do you want to talk a little about your podcast, Debra?
I have a podcast. It’s called The Millionaire Woman Show. It’s about using principles of life, leadership, and business to help you live rich from the inside out. I have people from all over the world, sharing their expertise in their area. They are giving tips on strategies of how they have moved through life, not just to survive, but to thrive and step into their purpose, their passion, and contribute fully to living all in. I’ve interviewed fitness. I’ve interviewed people who are motivational speakers and published authors. I’ve also interviewed people who I see as exceptional human beings who have lessons to learn to help people live rich from the inside out and hearing people’s definitions. I put a post up that, “If you don’t define your success, you’ll be living by the definition other people have for you.” You’ll start looking up and people-pleasing and wanting to know what other people think of you and get caught up in comparing yourself to other people. It’s a total trap. It’s not a game-changing place to be, but if you have a definition and take time to know what it is you want and accept that what you want is good for you, that is all that matters. When we start worrying about what other people think, we lose a part of ourselves.
Sticking With Your Goals: Quit worrying what others think about you and realize they are not walking in your shoes.
We have to quit worrying about what others think about us and realize they are not walking in our shoes. That’s what we talked about before. If I can give you advice, it is like an A-hole, everybody’s got one. They walked in your shoes. They’re not showing up on a daily basis. That’s why you need to seek counsel from others that have walked before. You are in that process of walking versus somebody that’s not. That’s the hardest thing, not listening to our friends and family who will love us. They want to protect us, but they’re not the ones being the motivated ones to go out and take action and kick butt.
They don’t know what’s possible for you because you have the vision and no matter how you articulate a vision, sometimes people won’t have the capacity at that time to understand it or move through change. In my work, the Prochaska model of change, the stages of change. There’s a part that’s pre-contemplation, that people don’t see it as a problem, no reason to change. When they get into a contemplation stage where they’re like, “Maybe I don’t like this. Maybe I could change something.” They start getting into the preparation and start making those plans and moving through. They move into action, where’s the exciting part is to watch people move into action and make the behavioral changes that they knew.
Those habits, put them in place because it is about lifestyle. It’s not a random act. It’s something that you’re building in that you do regularly to make it stick. Those people who’ve created that stickability are the ones who are going to succeed because they do it when nobody else feels like it. They also continue to focus on the vision. They have it so much in place that it becomes part of who they are that they don’t have to think about it. They go for dinner. They don’t have a taste for sugar or they don’t need a 1,000-calorie dish or whatever it is that you’re working on. They realize it becomes a part of who you are and it becomes something you don’t even think about anymore. You can start working on other habits and things to work on.
What’s the best way for people to reach out to find more?
You can go to my website. I’m on many of the social media channels, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I have my business page as well, Debra Kasowski International. I’m on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me. You can send me an email at Debra@DebraKasowski.com. I would love to hear from you, especially hear about what nugget of information was most valuable to you. Scott’s doing a phenomenal job of integrating fear. I was listening to Fearless Living show and bringing some of the personal development tools to the real estate market because you don’t separate personal from a professional. It is all part of who you are. The more you develop yourself, the more you develop yourself professionally as well.
We’re trying to help all our people out there with the head game because we may have the business game down, but the head game is what runs everything.
Mindset is everything.
Thank you for coming on. Once again, everybody out there, you can check it out at DebraKasowski.com. Listen to her podcast. She does an amazing job. This woman has a huge heart and fire for working with entrepreneurs out there, men and women, both. Check out her podcast as well. Once again, go take some action and take some of the counsel that Debra gave us. You put some of those things in place. She’s dropped many great nuggets on tools and actions to help you be more productive and profitable. Go out there. If you’ve got a big goal and you’re struggling with and flounder with it, don’t be hard on yourself. Take some action and we’ll see you all at the top.
Important Links:
- Debra Kasowski
- The Millionaire Woman Show
- Debra Kasowski International
- Eat That Frog
- Let’s Be Curious: Ask the Right Questions, Get Better Answers, Create the Results You Want
- The Miracle Morning
- The Millionaire Morning
- Stickability
- New Media Summit
- Marinara Timer
- HootSuite
- Meet Edgar
- Instagram – Debra Kasowski
- Twitter – Debra Kasowski
- Facebook – Debra Kasowski
- LinkedIn – Debra Kasowski
- Debra@DebraKasowski.com
- www.DebraKasowski.com
About Debra Kasowski
Debra Kasowski, the charismatic host of the thought-provoking podcast, The Millionaire Woman Show, is committed to enriching the leadership potential of her countless clients, essentially guiding them to go within to capitalize on their true personal power, so they can achieve the measurable success they desire in business, and in life. After graduating with distinction, having earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, this award-winning, three-time international bestselling author, speaker, and Certified Executive Coach spent many years as a clinical manager excelling in leadership development, before founding Debra Kasowski International, a world-class training and consulting venture focused on helping aspiring business owners and solopreneurs develop the winning “success habits” that transform human potential into sustainable profits.
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