Blossom Your Awesome

Blossom Your Awesome Episode #20 - Going North With Dom Brightmon

November 04, 2021 Sue Dhillon Season 1 Episode 20
Blossom Your Awesome
Blossom Your Awesome Episode #20 - Going North With Dom Brightmon
Show Notes Transcript

Going North podcast host Dom Brightmon joins us on the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast episode #20.

He is a certified self-leadership expert. He is the author of  Going North: Tips And Techniques To Advance Yourself. He also authored the follow-up bestseller Stay The Course: The Elite Performers 7 Secret Keys To Sustainable Success.

He is the host of the Going North Podcast where he interviews authors.  His theory with his work is "advance others to advance yourself."

He encourages people to share their stories and get their own books published.

Dom is a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

We had a light-hearted exchange and he shared some powerful insights into staying motivated and inspired and the power of service to others and living in gratitude.

For more inspiration check me out at Blossom Your Awesome.

Or for some of my other work check out Sues Blues.

 

00:00:00
Hello and welcome to the blossom, your awesome podcast episode number 20 Today on the show we have got self leadership expert author and the host of the going north podcast Dom Brightman tom I am so excited and honored to have you here. Thank you so much. Welcome to the show. Thank you sir, appreciate you get the blossom. The awesome we get to be a whole giant flower bed. I love it, I love that. That is awesome. So dumb. I am going to say we start with a little bit of your background, you're a self leadership expert, a best selling author. You have, you're going North podcast, How did this all start for you? Ah sure thing. So of course folks may think like man, I started at the green screen stoplight.

00:01:04
Huh? You press the green and the green means go well. No not exactly. Well actually kinda exactly because funny enough in the year of 2012 where people thought the world was gonna end in, in the US of a we lost twenties for a month. That wonderful year had a nice little three pronged attack that really set me into the wonderful world of self development where july 30th 2012 my father went out for a drive and then 32 hours later he was discovered in a small city Silver spring about a good 45 minutes outside of Baltimore and he had Alzheimer's and he was found driving on the opposite side of the road. So I took his license fast forward a month and a half later I turned 21 on my way to I. T. Security class talk about green lights and red lights making a nice little left turn and even though it wasn't reading my car, skidded the brake jammed and crashed my car and to make even matters worse where I thought my personal life wasn't showing up in my professional life, got called into the office with my boss and she was going down the list of things where I was screwing up with some miscommunication issues and things like that and realize oh darn something has to change here.

00:02:14
So went to the business section of the library and my own little acres of diamonds. I didn't tap into where they were gems and gold beneath my feet the whole time picked up a book by john Maxwell and transformed my life for the better. Where I got into in this little self development journey where I tried to read at least 50 plus books a year and grow myself and keep advancing and helping others to advance to where now get to interview other fabulous salts across the globe. Be on super special awesome shows like this one and help others realize that success is tangible. And that you too can create your own piece of immortality. Mm wow. I love that. That was like that wasn't rehearsed or anything right? Not really trying to spice it up every time I deliver it. Well that was pretty phenomenal. I mean that is amazing. So now tell me the self self leadership work you are doing, what has this done for you? I mean you did your own work inner work and now you're you know bringing others up going north.

00:03:23
What is this doing for you? On a personal level I was doing a lot because from the cradle to the grave we lead ourselves the longest and hence self leadership. Like you're gonna have to lead yourself first before you lead other people because people have to buy into you before they buy into a vision or even just follow simple directions because well we're humans and we can be like ship where it's like you know what I like the fluff that I got in my body, it came my hair on my head so much that I'm not going to do what you're doing because I don't believe you sir or Madam. So I figured you know what let me go to self leadership track and that helped me to realize that you know what success is tangible when you happened to five different areas and I like to call this the mitch methods. So for those who have pen and paper and you're not listening this while you're driving or whatnot feel free to use this as a pen moment. So the m is for mental awareness you hear mindset all day for this reason got to be aware of your mind the i is for influence awareness and this even can dovetail with mental awareness because it's being aware of the stuff that influences you on the daily and the t is time awareness being aware of your time because time management is a fallacy, you have to manage your attention and the sea which is connection awareness.

00:04:37
Being aware of who you're connecting to and who you are trying to connect others with. And of course the thumb to put it all together is habit awareness. Where you are having habits that you do on the daily, help you to be the best version of yourself possible as opposed to the worst version of yourself possible with no end in sight. Okay. And now for somebody who is kind of stuck and struggling, how do they tap into the mitch I mean where do we start with that? Good question. So if your name is mitch you're already doing it. Congratulations, that's right, you're tapping it, that's right. You signed up for the corn cobs today. So so yeah, I love it now. I feel like I got to come up with a really cool acronym for my own name, you know what I mean? But we'll get there later. But yes, so you were saying? Yeah, so where you started just focusing on trying to become at least 1% better and there's a reason why Mets awareness is first because usually when you get your mind right, everything else will follow and that's what happened to my own life, I had to get my mind right.

00:05:49
So I basically sought to change my world, I basically, in a way I had to change my own zip code because we test a lot of people, especially in the US of a they stay in their own zip codes and not just the ones physically, but the ones mentally where they may think they follow a certain path to go to college, get an education and all that of the good stuff, but sometimes it's not always that direct path, especially now in this gig economy that we're in. So asking yourself powerful questions is a great way to start, like one what good will I do today, focusing on doing good in the world and following up if with what can I share? I like sharing something great with other people. That's a smile, a kind word, calling somebody up you haven't talked to in a while encouraging them learning about them, heck even if you're a fellow entrepreneur, helping idea, fellow entrepreneurs with referrals, if it's applicable if they can help somebody out that's really, really freaking amazing because entrepreneurs appreciate that, especially when both parties followed through and of course, like what did I learn today, when you're done in a way with that day, giving out good to the world, sharing something, go with the world, sharing your time talent and treasure with the world and of course like answering the first question, what good did you do?

00:07:02
So if you follow through and you did something good for somebody else, you can write that down and then of course doubling up with that is what did I learn today and just always being in a mindset of learning, like learning something new. If it's small, like hey, this route to work will take me there quicker. I know a way to dodge all this, don traffic in this era of post original covid where people are more impatient and you folks are blowing their horn even though one second the light turned green and all the other stuff which I deal with, I wouldn't say on the daily, but it happens a lot where a lot more people are impatient the road all the way up to hey, this new part of the book stay the course we realized there's another part in there that I could have added where it was spiritual awareness where a lot of folks who are elite performance, they have a spiritual aspect to their lives. Like even what I've noticed that some people who do psychedelic drugs, they may have been an atheist before, they didn't have a belief in God before it takes like adultery rise.

00:08:02
Oh crap. Now grant I'm not advocating for this, but I'm just saying that they have a different belief in something else bigger than them out there and that really keeps you grounded and realizing that hey, I'm a small star in this giant sea of stars in this metaphorical Milky Way Galaxy that can make a positive difference in the world by just asking what good I can do today, what can I share with somebody today and just taking stock and inventory of what I learned throughout the day. That is beautiful now, you know, something speaking to this. So you know, as well as I do that people can be self absorbed, right? So if someone's in a stuck place and they want to figure out how to uplift themselves or have their own transformation or whatever, um, how, you know, it's so powerful to be doing stuff for others and I think they miss that. That's feeding yourself when you do stuff for others, right? So how do you help people kind of see that the power of doing for others and looking outside of yourself?

00:09:10
Oh sure thing. That's a powerful question. Like one thing you can do is become a mentor to somebody who is looking to be a mentor and advanced in her life because when you have a mentee or protege in your life, you get to learn twice because you're taking your experience in life and you're giving it to somebody else that they have great questions that forces you to think and become better even on a more deeper level. Just looking outside of yourself, what's going on nowadays on planet earth, where a lot of people got devastated by 2020 and even 2021 they're still recovering to the fact that hey, some folks lost their jobs, their businesses, businesses, some loved ones and realizing that hey, like if you're still alive today, that's something to be grateful for Because even though there is conflicting data and research out there about everything going on with the big CV 19 where for some people, the covid 19 was actually the pounds they gain and not the actual virus.

00:10:10
You have to realize, hey, there's something else going on and to realize, hey, someone maybe still working extremely hard and they have some limbs loss or may have lost a loved one. Like what lessons did they leave for me to learn as a result of their loss. Like heck even with me, I've gone through grief myself with my father when I was a caregiver for him in his last six years on earth and I learned more about my father in those six years being one of his caregivers that time then being alive for those other 19 at the time that I was allowed to be with them. So really taking the focus off yourself and focusing on other people and what they're going through and realizing, hey, like I could be one paycheck away from being alongside with them in the food line. Like, Hey, I could really lose it all in a second. Like you could go out one day and I think you're a okay, fully moving at 100% hp and you can get in a car wreck being a country for a few days and wake up with like a missing limb and you're like crap.

00:11:13
I got to learn things altogether. So always keeping things at the forefront that I'm still human even though I can blossom my awesome and be super special, awesome right now. If I have full capability is like, there's still a time where I may not feel fully awesome to take full advantage of what I have and I could lose it all any moment and still be grateful for what I have today because we're still human. We're still vulnerable. We're not invincible. Mm hmm That is beautiful. Now tell me this belief that you carry with you dom is this, does that come from the spiritual part of you tapping into God? You know, this kind of deeper awareness to be able to step outside of yourself and think of others and you know, bring in the gratitude. Where does that come from for you? Definitely spirit. And it's evolved over the years because I was raised a baptist christian black baptist church for basically my whole life And grew up as a church boy. But as I, I grew up and after the car accident I started exploring other faiths and beliefs and realized that a, it's not really as bad as some may say because, and when you're in certain religions it can be a little dogmatic.

00:12:30
But if you take the leap and study other favors should realize wait a second. It's not as bad as you may think or as bad as they may market it to be. It's actually pretty advantageous because like meditation breath work heck even Ricky. Some folks may be like oh that's of the devil, you gotta avoid it but it's actually not. It's actually good stuff because hey like deep breathing and meditation like just sitting down and being quiet for five minutes and giving yourself solitude to massively serve the multitude is a great thing. Like even christ himself, he went to the forest and prayed and he went through temptation in this land of plenty of the U. S. Of a. It's a spiritual development workshop 24 7 because it's it could be really hard to develop yourself if you have access to everything because things are so easy to attain nowadays. Like even if you're broke like if you start a go fund me and you know some people and they can help fund you to get through your next month or whatever if you have like a like like if you're a dog needed like dental surgery and you're working three jobs, you can barely keep the lights on and you've got friends that can have your back then like we're in the land of plenty abundance is out there and it's a great time and a great place to be to really develop yourself spiritually.

00:13:50
So a long answer to your question, Yes, that's really where it comes from. Just keeping in mind that hey, there's something bigger out there, that's bigger than me God, there's, there's a wonderful guy that created this wonderful earth that I'm on and as my duty as a many creator, creating my little slice of heaven metaphorically here while I'm on this planet in this form in this lifetime, I can still do something positive to help my fellow human being because if I can do something to brighten someone's day and make their day better than a, I'd say it's a win win, wow, that is awesome, man, I think that is so cool that you're, you're really leaning into serving and that's powerful. So I love that. Now I want to ask you crappy, too Happy. So do you have a, like your own sacred story of transformation that you're open to sharing or what kind of brought this to life? Oh sure thing.

00:14:55
So yeah, I'm always open to sharing. You know, you got to check things out like a library book, you got to be an open book to a fault for people, right? That's right indeed, so crappy to happy. This is actually a fun multi author project where Robin Ariel Patricia and Kathleen O'keefe cannabis, they spearheaded this project and the wonderful James Redfield who wrote the Celestine prophecy. He even I wrote the foreword to the book. And those three and about a good 25 others, including myself contributed stories and my story in particular was that group that adversity is actually a gift and it can sometimes be wrapped up in spikes, right? Yeah. Walking barefoot. Yeah. And it takes somebody who's, you know, pretty dialed in to recognize that.

00:16:00
So you know, kudos to you man. So yes please. You were saying Oh yeah. So yeah, just saying, you know, just uh those times where he had to be careful walking around in diversity cause it's like going in a barefoot desert of legos. But yeah, my story in the book was actually part of the story where the 2012 moment where I discovered personal development and it led me to discover that growth is happiness. So if you want to become more happy in life try to become 1% better every day. So yourself grow, document your progress. Like if you want to do you like some people do do a social media thing going facebook live the live or something documented your day if you really want to put yourself out there like that or just go to the classic journal round keep it personal and then one day it may become a book to share with others because I know you to sue. You are a fellow author. Put some of our wisdom out into the world and I'm sure that came from some hard fought lessons from your time on the lovely planet Earth. Mm hmm. Absolutely.

00:17:02
And that's I've got more to come. That was that was the kind of the soft uh motivational one that the hard lesson, hard knock life ones are coming. But um let me ask you dom now what about um you know self worth? Where do where do people find out who are lacking that sure thing. So self worth comes from within. That's probably easy answer because you know self worth. You are worth a lot. You're worth your weight in gold and 100 X. Because gold that's a precious metal. That means you two are precious but we're worth more than precious metals because we can create and live a life that's worth more than gold. And that happens when you realize that you truly matter, you truly matter. And one more time to get through the subconscious mind you matter. You have to really tell yourself that because there are gonna be days where even myself like even remember yesterday when I was driving, I'm like dang like the dom of 2011 would be disappointed to see the the picture of Dom and today where it's like it's back then I was like 100 £60 as opposed to today where I'm over a good 200 granted out all of its muscles still working on getting all that good toned up at the moment where we realized man like crap, you got the way back but at the same time you actually published three books and you talked with 400 plus authors with a podcast is 500 plus episodes deep and you're helping people like even though all your ducks aren't in a row the way you want it, you're still further ahead than you ever thought possible because the dome of 10 years ago, a decade ago, I would have never pictured himself as an author and a public speaker helping people.

00:18:50
Like I wouldn't even see myself on the blossom. You're awesome podcast with you today because that wasn't where my mind was at the time and you have to really take inventory. That's another reason why I say document your progress, document your journey, like document your life on the daily. Like ask yourself questions on the daily so you can respond to them in your own way and get them out on paper because and up your mental state. Like there's so many benefits of journaling back even as but in mind Sam Liebowitz likes to mention for his coaching clients to have a victory log. Like hey, there's gratitude journals. But if you want to level it up, call a victory log where you log your victories every day, you wake up, that's a victory getting on this podcast, that's victory listening to this podcast. That's a victory because there's people that are deaf out there and they can't listen to this podcast like counting small things that will build up and have a compound effect on your life. And then you can look back on them. You'll have a book of proof of the stuff that you've done that you can look back on.

00:19:53
So I had to do that for myself and remind myself like, hey, even though things aren't the way I would, I want them to be just yet. I'm still making progress where I am today and 10 years in the future. I'm gonna be happy that I made that progress today. So see yourself as the person who's gonna be happy that they made a positive change. Even if it's a small one to go north in their life and help others to go north to mm hmm. I love that. Now. Next question for you tell me why it's important just in general and why it's important for you to encourage people to share their stories. Like that's so beautiful to me and talk to us about that. Oh, of course of course. Some of this wonderful era. The information age, the age of well everything. It for lack of a better word. It's like so easy.

00:21:01
It's like so easy. Like put yourself out there. It's good when both the guest and the host can laugh because that means something's work its way. You know what I'm always looking for. A good laugh. So yeah, it's all about, we gotta laugh. You know, we gotta laugh. Oh yeah, exactly. It's like, hey, I call myself the corny joke colonel every now and then for a reason, you know, it's like you go outside and when you're about to turn the door knob, it's a corncob, it's amazing. It's, it's just stuff happens. So that was hilarious. I love it. You've just got so much life and you know, joy and it's just emanating you're lighting up the world man. So you want to answer that question for me or of course I do, I'm glad you asked to remember the question because I plumb forgot when I started talking about corn egon, Oh, you did forget you were being honest.

00:22:20
I thought that was a joke. Oh, why why it's so important for you to fire people to share their stories. There we go, share the stories. There we go. Cool. So yeah, it's, I'll try to stay sometime who, that's a bad idea. Who cares about trying to stay serious. But yeah, it's important to share the stories because a lot of folks need to hear people's stories like we really can become encouraged by hearing other people's stories. Like heck even that's like probably one of the reasons why I started your podcast and why the folks are starting interview based shows because we learned from each other. We are better together as opposed to butter together. So if you can learn from here and be inspired by other people's stories, you can really change someone's life for the better because I've heard hundreds of stories in life and in my podcast where it's like wow, like you know what, Life ain't so bad because one guy Antonio t smith who was on my show, he actually shared the story how he grew up with a hard life because he grew up where he was an orphan and he went to school and he had to memorize his textbooks and because he couldn't afford to get regular text books, he had to memorize them and he was eating out of trash cans and living in them.

00:23:42
And when he grew up and even joined the military and became a veteran and then became an entrepreneur that paid off for him later memorizing those textbooks because that memory showed him that he can also learn other languages across the globe. So that way when he goes to do business in Bangladesh in other parts of India as well, he can at least have the punjab under his belt. And he's also teaching his sons punjab as well. So your setbacks, no matter how long ago they were, can set you up for a story forward to encourage somebody to amp up their life to amplify their life and to use those past skills you learned from survival to get to your new, the rival stage. So that's why it's important and why I encourage people to share their stories because you never know who will be encouraged by, I mean, especially if it's a story like that one in particular where it's like, wow, like if he's doing that then what the heck am I not doing right right now?

00:24:47
Tell me what it's like being, you are obviously an elite performer and you teach this stuff. So what is that like for you? Why is that important? What are you getting out of that? Oh sure thing. So what I have to say when you teach people, it's kind, you're kind of being greedy because in a way you're teaching other people, that means you get to learn twice and then if you have a new concept and you're teaching it, you get to polish that idea and see if it works for yourself. Because like one of the major things about this air of content creation, when you're creating content, you're putting it out there, it's great and you get to test it out and in this era where folks need to live their truth because folks, they want the genuine article, they don't wanna pleather jacket here, metaphorically speaking, is the fact that when you teach elite performance, that means I have to hold myself up to that same higher standard for the better. So like habit awareness, One of the major things that I focus on the daily is that getting myself in enough sleep as much as possible every day, at least a good seven hours of sleep that granted folks, some folks, me biologically different.

00:26:00
Like I talked to one guy last summer where he was like, yeah, this thing like in the caveman days we didn't have a D. T like four hours of sleep. I do the whole one cycle thing. I'm like, okay, if that works for you buddy and you got eight kids to boot, I can understand why you get four hours of sleep and you focus on getting that for. And that's the other thing too, is the fact that as you go along and teaching to other people, you get to learn in the process like all right, so how efficient is this? Heck? Even one thing in particular, my first book going north, I mentioned that the most efficient way to advance yourself is by reading three books in a singular subject and then taking actions from those books. But the thing is, it's, it's a great processes worked for me, but that's not gonna work with everything, especially with Youtube out there and great podcasts like this where you can absorb content a lot faster and a lot quicker than books and you can implement them right away. So that's really why I kinda encourage and teach early performance because it's a way for me to being ready for the lack of a better words to not only help other people to help myself too because as you teach and drop stuff, you realize, oh, this could be better here or hey maybe this isn't working, hey, it's time to change.

00:27:15
I got a leader shift for the better now Dom what is uh spiritual? Do you have a spiritual practice to be doing all that you're doing? Um I know you mentioned you know you are spiritual, do you have kind of a regular practice? Do you meditate? How are you tapping in? Oh yes ma'am. So I tap in so don't worry, it's not just tapping on the cellphone when it goes off for the alarm clock actually like and hitting the snooze, right? Yeah, because my snooze button is actually what I call my sensation a moment of silence button. So basically when I wake up every day I usually let my snooze button be my timer for when I meditate and be within myself. Because one of the things I like to recommend focuses to give yourself to get to solitude because then you'll masterfully serve the multitudes. So at least five minutes a day.

00:28:18
I check in with myself before checking in with the world and giving myself that time because the thing is like the greatest performers on earth, They have to really check in with themselves and really get themselves out of bed before they try to motivate anybody else to get out of bed and run through a brick wall or at least I have enough sense to duck the brick wall and then maybe you know what dig under it so they can get to the other side of that adversity they're going through. So silence meditation is definitely one of the things I do on the daily again, the questions of what good will I do today? I keep on asking myself that question the night before is even better to from what I've noticed because a good day always starts the night before and when I asked myself, what good am I going to do today and I may write down, it's like, hey, all right, share an encouraging word on the blossom. You're awesome podcasts or any other podcast I guess doing so that way, hey, if it happens hooray someone gets encouraged and most likely it did here. But if it doesn't, then hey, there may be another way to impact somebody like hey checking in on mom and seeing how she's doing since she's 81 right now and she's, I'm still blessed to have her on this earth and just checking up on her and seeing how she's doing, especially in the times that we're in like just checking in with people and checking in with myself.

00:29:35
That's what I do on the daily is give myself silence in the morning and using my snooze button as the sensational moment of silence button. Ah that was awesome. I love that. Now tell me if you had a, what is your message to the world? Like if there was just one message that you wanted to get out there, what is that message? Sure thing. So my messages, advance others to advance yourself, Advance others to advance yourself because to be honest, I wouldn't be here if my parents didn't do that for me or my mentors, my teachers, my friends in life didn't do that for me, they helped me advance because they took interest in me, they took care of me, they took stock in me and I'm just paying it forward because when you pay it forward, it gets paid back to you in multiple ways that you may not see. Like karma is real like sure, they may think of, hey, karma is a beautiful, intelligent, talented, confident human and for those who catch that acronym, that's what folks usually think what karma is, but it's also a queen to Karma is a queen.

00:30:43
So doing good out into the world will definitely come back to you eventually. It may not be when you wanted to, we'll definitely come back here. So that's my message for really living right now and probably forever is to advance others to advance yourself, wow, I love that. And now in closing Dom, I'm gonna, even though you just did, I'm kind of, it's the same question, but I'm warning it differently is uh you know, just leave us with something powerful that you want to leave us with. Right here is something that we can take and hold and use powerfully. Sure thing. Here's another one. So never hesitate to show gratitude. So thank you Soo superstars, Sue for inviting me on your super special awesome podcast blossom, You're awesome. It was great to be in the flower bed with you and that's probably my other messages to never hesitate to show gratitude. Like those who really helped you in life, like, like heck even I'll drop this quick story for you.

00:31:46
It was about a good, wow four years ago. Now, about a week before this happened, we had to basically meet with the folks in my dad's nursing home too, decide whether or not to get put a feeding tube in him since he was having trouble eating. We decided not to. Well, good thing we didn't because a few days later I was in the Toastmasters meeting. I was the president of my club that year and we were in this portion of the meeting called table topics. And one of the questions that my friend gave to me as the topics master was What three people are most responsible for your success in life today. And the first two names are easy. My mother and my father and after bragging on them for about a good 90 seconds since that's all we get, we can't talk for 50 minutes on each topic. He also told me to thank those people. So ran to the nursing home that morning, thank my father for all the stuff that he gave to me the wonderful spirit of discipline and working hard and also having a spiritual foundation and just being the best version of yourself and no matter how old you are, always work hard at what you do.

00:32:56
Three days later he passed away. And if I didn't have in that moment to really get into that moment to think about those who helped me to have the success I have now and in the future in life and thank them for it then I probably never had that opportunity. So think of three people in your life that are responsible for your success today. And if they're still alive find them and thank them that even write a hand written note to them for an even stronger effect. And just give them thanks for the work that they've done to help you get to where you are today. Mm hmm. Uh that is beautiful. Dom And you know on that note I want to thank you, I think I'm just so honored and blessed to have had this time with you and you are so inspiring and just such a light and it's so amazing what you're doing in the world. And I can't wait to just keep following your journey and I know you're gonna just keep going north.

00:33:57
So thank you so much for this time today. Thank yourself. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yes. Mm hmm, mm hmm. Mhm. And