Enter the nervous system regulation, finding wellness for entrepreneurs with Dana Doswell

Meet Dana

I have been in the world of personal development for 9+ years, was that person that tried talk-therapy multiple times only to never actually feel like I made any real lasting change.

After reconditioning my nervous system through de-conditioning and somatic therapies, I rarely ever feel anxiety anymore (it used to be crippling for me), my hormone levels have improved across the board, I sleep better, I learn faster, I experience stress on a weekly basis instead of daily (or hourly) ... the list goes on.

I knew I needed to educate more people about how to harness the power of nervous system regulation.

I'm so excited to bring this process to all the people embarking on their healing journey

Credentials

•  Somatic Parts Coaching Certification
   
•  Applied Polyvagal Theory through movement.
   
•  600+ hours of 1:1 practical coaching
   
•  200 hours of practical group coaching
   
•  3 years of independent research
   
•  Outside of that, her own personal healing journey!

www.danadozzyy.com 

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Transcript

S4E34_DanaD

Olivier B: [00:00:00] Welcome to Business Not 1 0 1, a podcast that explores the uncommon side of business, goes beyond the conventional teachings, delves into the practical real world strategies and insights from successful founders, entrepreneurs, industry experts that understand what drives growth and how to achieve success in an ever-changing business landscape.

So join us and let's go beyond the basics.

Hi, Dana. How are you?

Dana D: I am good. Super excited to be.

Olivier B: Thank you for joining us. Let's get right into it. Please introduce yourself and give us your 60 Second business pitch.

Dana D: My name is Dana Doswell. I'm a nervous system coach and practitioner, and I work with entrepreneurs to help 'em take consistent and aligned action in their business through emotional regulation focused on, as you probably guessed it, nervous system regulation that is completely backed up by science. And I add in a little sprinkle of spirituality, which is what worked.

Olivier B: That's really interesting. It sort of leads right into my next question. What was the haha moment for you to [00:01:00] launch this?

Dana D: So I'm currently on my third, fourth ish attempt, or I would say, of entrepreneurship or my fourth. My fourth entrepreneurial venture. And this is the first time that it is successful. And the other three times that I tried, many different types of business models, many different types of things. I could never consistently execute.

And in the moment of trying to run these companies, I was so focused on mindset work. I was so focused on biohacking and productivity and you know, what is, what is the edge that I can get? How efficiently can I run my business? And about three ish years ago, so right before the pandemic, I had moved to Mexico.

I was living there by myself. I had started a company to help Latin American entrepreneurs enter the North American market, and was just unbeknownst to me, completely burnt out at the nervous system level. Completely physically tired, but externally was looking like I was doing all these amazing things.

I was learning a second language, running this business, and then the [00:02:00] pandemic. , and I was so isolated. I saw one person, in person about one time per week, and that was the only human contact that I had for a couple of months. And so this just pushed me even further into burnout and just kind of, you know, like you sit there sometimes and you're like, really is, is, is this it?

Like, is building a business supposed to be like this is living your life, supposed to be like this? So I had found this platform called Better Help and it was like online therapy. This is, you know, like the new virtual therapy, this is gonna help you, blah, blah blah. So I went in, I'd done talk therapy before and I tried and it was kind of the same experience as always, which, okay, I'm just telling you about my problems and I'm not feeling like I'm getting any real solutions or I'm understanding.

Why this is happening, and it just kind of pushed me further into this dysregulation. And so I'd had this session, I was sitting in this place, I was renting in Mexico, just feeling so alone. I'd gotten off this call and I was like, something needs to change. Like I need to do something different [00:03:00] because none of the things that I've done have made me feel better.

They've actually made me feel worse. And. . So I was sitting there and just, you know, went on Instagram, started scrolling, and I saw this term spiritual psychology, and I just kind of like something inside of me just like responded to that and said, okay, that feels so much deeper, like a different level than anything I've gone to before.

So I was like, well, I'm gonna Google this. I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole. I Googled spiritual psychology. I Googled what is a spiritual psychologist, who is this as a practitioner, and all of these things really started to click with. . And then I'd say the real aha moment that I had was I'd booked a session with someone who I found through doing this research and in my first session, I was able to, To the energy of the Amazon rainforest as a healing energy.

And I felt, felt different, not thought different, felt different. And that for me was the aha moment, because I had realized every single thing I'd done up until that point was completely focused on [00:04:00] mindset, thoughts, the brain, and had completely ignored every part of my body that was from the neck down.

And so to actually feel different, which is what all of us really look for when you're an entrepreneur and. Extremely stressed. You're facing uncertainty. You're trying to take consistent action. You want to feel capable, present, and like you can do that. And so this experience that I had at actually being present in my body and feeling connected to the energy of the rainforest and actually feeling this heal something within me was really my aha moment.

Olivier B: That's super fascinating and what an adventure really to go from where you were as an entrepreneur, building your businesses to where you are today. It's such a journey. Sort of looking at this specific project, but as well the other projects you had started, what were some of the roadblocks that you've encountered and how did you manage to get over?

Dana D: Okay, so the first one was not having the right business partner. And I think probably a lot of people, whether [00:05:00] you're working with a business partner or you're even just trying to collaborate or you're hiring freelancers, cuz when you're, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, , there's a lot of different types of people that you can work with, and so this was, again, unbeknownst to me at the time, but now looking back, I can really say that was such a big blocker because I was working with somebody that made me feel very incompetent and didn't believe in me, and that was.

Yeah, working in that type of environment, I'm sure a lot of people listening, like you'll have people that question you kind of talk down to. You can be condescending. And in that, that company I'd started with a friend actually, and he's very technical, like very, very technical, and I came on to really handle more the client side of things in sales, and it was this experience.

Of my skillset not being respected in that environment, and then me constantly trying to have to prove myself to him and then not actually being able to be focused on what really mattered, which was okay, are we, you know, properly delivering what we're say [00:06:00] we're gonna deliver to our clients? Do I actually enjoy doing this work and.

you know, it, do we have plans for how we're gonna grow this? You know, like, are we doing product market research, like all these kind of things. So that to me was when I look back, was the biggest roadblock, even though in the moment I thought it was that I didn't have the right skills, but I did. So, That's something that I have now learned and what I've really taken from that, and I'm now applying to my business today, is I really like the word solopreneur.

I know that that's come up a lot. I see it on LinkedIn all the time, and I really, that's at least for right now, the way that I'm focusing on growing my business and have been able to kind of create my own process for identifying if someone is gonna be good for me to work with or not, as well as also taking account.

For, you know, my emotional regulation, my level of being able to consciously communicate, my ability to set boundaries, my ability to be honest, all of those things. So that was a huge, huge roadblock for me in, in my first [00:07:00] entrepreneurial venture. And in the second one, which was the company where I was trying to help Latin America and entrepreneurs come into the North American market.

This is so interesting because it was, deep cultural differences that I was unprepared for working in an international environment. So I'm Canadian. I, you know, grew up in Toronto at, at nor in North America. We just, we love to get shit done. You know, like we're just, if we're gonna book a call, it's 30 minutes an introduction call, we're gonna go over if it makes sense to work together.

We're very, Respectful of each other's time, and we are a very hyper independent culture. This is not the case in Latin America. You know, not only is the economic reality very, very different. So the level of trust that inherently exists in the market is so low. Like, just to give a real example In this first company, I, you know, was cold calling one day and I sold within 15 minutes, like a $500 strategy session [00:08:00] to this real estate guy out of Montreal, and this is in Canada.

You know, he paid great, there's a trust that I'm gonna deliver on that, or he's gonna receive something in Latin America. , absolutely not. That will take months and months and months to be able to get to the point where someone would even pay you a hundred dollars for something. I was so not prepared for this.

I went in thinking, I'm gonna sell. I'm gonna run my business the same way that we would in North America, and then just, I would hear yeses all the time, but then nothing would happen. Like a contract wouldn't be signed, the payment wouldn't be made, and nothing would ever really move forward. So this really forced me to take a step back and say, okay, like what am I missing here?

And it was so many different nuances and layers of the way that relationships are developed is opposite In Latin America, you have to develop a personal relationship before you can go into business with someone, and it takes a lot longer. , you need to probably meet in person multiple times because there's actually a lot of like way more scamming that goes on there versus, you know, here in Canada I can call you.

We can never even meet face to face [00:09:00] and you know, you can pay me thousands of dollars and there's trust that you're gonna get something in return. So, That was a huge blocker for me, and I really actually had to study like deeply cultural differences. I learned how to speak Spanish, which was a huge advantage for me because it just gave me, you know, like I could talk to people in their language, but even that is really difficult to make money because a, what we charge here in North America is you, you cannot charge that or you can't charge in the same.

So it's also analyzing what type of business model. Oh, well, the businesses that are successful in Latin America tend to have volume based products and service offerings because people can maybe afford to pay like one or $2 for something, and they might pay that on a monthly basis, but they cannot afford to pay you, you know, a hundred dollars even one time.

So that was a really massive roadblock that ended up turning into a really unique skillset that I had. Led me into a job that I ended up working for about the last year or so. [00:10:00] I'll pause there and just, and see what the next question is before I go into that.

Olivier B: Yeah, no, that, that's great. And actually I was going to interject, but that is such a great comment about the technical co-founder. That is something that I've experienced, so I'm technical, but I'm also on the sales side. And I've noticed that in one of the first startups I was involved with, where the technical people had this vision, That didn't include anybody else but themselves.

Oftentimes not maliciously, it was just they really are focused on the tech thinking it's gonna do everything, whereas they don't realize it's actually all the support, the sales, the marketing, and everything else around the business that actually launches that project. And it's, it is something very common.

A lot of people have mentioned that when they first start off a project with a partner co. Finding co-founders is really difficult and you found one was even lucky, but it's true. You really, it's like a marriage, I say. So that's really an interesting and a great point to bring up. Cause I think a lot of people don't realize how much goes into co-founding a business with [00:11:00] somebody.

And for Mexico, yes, a hundred percent. Doing business internationally is complicated sometimes.

Yeah. That's really interesting.

Dana D: something to add on about the, the technical co-founder piece is, . And, and it's funny because the last year I spent working in software engineering you know, and, and so I really, really felt what you're talking about where, you know, the commercial and the technical side of the business, and then even applying this to entrepreneurship, even as a solopreneur, you know, like I, I use technology to essentially make up for.

The operations that I quote unquote lack, you know, like I don't have an operations person, so how can I use technology to be my leverage so that I can be a solopreneur? And so something that happened recently, which was interesting, I wanted to hire a freelancer to help me with a little bit of content stuff.

I just have so much content I've created and I'm not, my skillset is not meticulously going through editing and figuring out, you know, like how to make this look nice. , that's just not my thing. And so I was like, I really want to hire somebody to be able to come in and support me with this. [00:12:00] And so the, there's this, this girl, and we started, you know, slowly working together and then it was like a Saturday, a couple weeks ago, and she messaged me like, Hey, can we have a chat on Monday to just talk about some things, stomach drops.

And I'm just like, . You know, this sometimes is why I love working by myself because a messaging me this on a Saturday afternoon, no clear agenda, and just almost like, I feel like it's the, it's what someone would say to you when you're in a relationship. Like, oh, we need to talk. And I'm like, okay. Now I'm a little bit stressed about having to have this call with this person on Monday that I thought that I was gonna be able to rely.

And in entrepreneurship and business, one thing that I think we don't talk enough about is you're also emotionally relying on this person. It's not just so sanitized as to be great, you're gonna deliver me this thing, and I have no emotional attachment to it. It is the relief that you get from being able to outsource something that you do not wanna do and do not have the time to do.

So all of this gets packed into, okay, well now I receive this message. And so like we go into the [00:13:00] call, she's telling me that she's overwhelmed and she just wanted to make sure she was doing a good job. And I was like, . We're gonna try this one more time, but we're gonna set some ground rules. Number one, always a clear agenda.

If you are feeling uncertain and anxious, tell me that so that I know how to come into that call prepared. I will be there to support you. I'm a hundred percent down to do that. That is what a leader does. But this was really stressful for me because I hired you. To make my life easier as I'm growing a business, and I cannot be responsible for your emotional wellbeing.

Obviously, if you're a crazy leader or you're abusive leader, that's a whole other story, but that is not the case. So this is a really interesting and frustrating experience for me. . But from that experience that I had with my first business partner where it, looking back now, I'm like, every time I tried to do something, it was made very difficult by him and it was that ca same kind of feeling.

And so now I'm like, no hard boundary. If you feel that this is too much for you, you've taken on too many things. I would rather us just stop now, be able to have, you know, a good [00:14:00] relationship where we were honest with each. You know, maybe part friends and that's it. And so that was a really interesting experience to have.

And I also said, don't message me on the weekends like that e ever again.

Olivier B: So that's a great point to bring up, to say, yeah, have an open conversation with each other and set boundaries right away. I think that's something that people don't talk about and they, that's something that people should be aware of.

Certainly when working with freelancers are remote workers. So great point. And this is all leads into my next question, which is, do you have a business mentor or business coach?

Dana D: So this is, I love that. This is one of the questions because me from three years ago would've been like, oh my God, I need a business coach. I could never be successful without somebody telling me what to do. . And through this super epic healing journey and nervous system regulation process that I've gone through over the last couple years, I realized that I do always know what to do, which sounds like a crazy statement.

And this is not to say I always know what to do perfectly and to get the exact result that I want, but what I have realized [00:15:00] is that it is 99%. The underlying level of regulation and connection to yourself that you have, and then 1% strategy and execution. Most people flip it around and they will suppress their emotions.

They will seek out business coaches, and it's all about the strategies and the frameworks and blah, blah, blah, and all of these kind of things. And this is like really the. Big thing for me, why I'm actually being successful in entrepreneurship this round is because I will wait. I will come back over and over and over again to myself and say, what am I creating?

What offer am I putting out? How am I running this? How am I delivering this? And I come back to myself over and over and over again. using the nervous system regulation techniques and somatics, which is a set of the really therapies or like healing modalities that allow you to, to more deeply connect with your body.

And I literally listen to my body and I say, what feels safe for you to consistently execute on right now? Oh, it's a monthly [00:16:00] newsletter instead of what this coach told me to do, which was a weekly. Okay, so that's something you can actually commit to long term that feels good for you? Yes. Great. Now, when it comes to executing on writing the newsletter, you know the branding for it, an email platform, it is so easy.

Like I and I used to think that execution was so hard, and it's just actually a very beautiful experience to say, wow, it took me one hour operationally and strategically to set. . It used to take me weeks or months because I didn't actually wanna do it, or I was not actually ready to do it. So I just wanted to preface, preface what I'm gonna say with that.

So, . Now what I do is I have one trauma informed business coach that I work with very sporadically, where I will have all of these ideas, all of these things, and I kind of know that I'm ready to execute on something. We do a two hour power hour session or whatever, and she helps me. Get clarity on the operational side of, okay, [00:17:00] what are the exact kind of like to-dos?

Because operationally like the operation side of things is like not my strong suit and it is hers, and then she, you know, kind of gives this to me and I am emotionally regulated enough to be able to consistently go through and execute on those things. The support that I get on a weekly basis. I work with a somatic therapist and I also work with a recently, which was really cool, was a coach that helped me sync my business to my cycle as a woman.

So instead of working like a man on a 24 hour hormonal cycle, I'm working on a 28 day hormonal cycle. These have been things. Radically shifted my ability to consistently show up in my business, not feel burnt out, like not feel overwhelmed. And then occasionally on an as needed basis, I'll bring in some more of that strategic support.

But it is not somebody ever teaching me a framework. It is somebody supporting me with, here's what I'm gonna put out into the world, what's the best way to execute on this? And you know, they [00:18:00] might know platforms or things like that that I'm not aware of that can.

Olivier B: I love that. So a very targeted mentorship in a way or I mean you can call it business coaching, but really sort of a power hour. I love that, that I think that's, some people just need that. They just need the. Little bit of guidance or a little bit of venting and a little bit of space and a little bit of help and other people it's different obviously.

That's great. I love that. And also, and something I never thought of, the you know, running your, on your cycle, it's, you know, it's, for me, it's completely foreign, right? But it's true. It's something that, you're the first person to bring it up. So that's a really interesting point.

Dana D: Yeah. To any woman or any person that is like menstruating, that's listening to this on a very real level. Like men have a 24 hour hormonal cycle. Your testosterone rises in the morning. The nine to five workday is completely built around your physiology and your biology. for, like I've talked to so many women before that are like, I am in so much pain right now and I have to go in and deliver a presentation because it's like the week before they're gonna go on their period and.

it's just the, you know, like the, the, even entrepreneurship [00:19:00] is not built around a woman's physiology, but you can build it around your physiology and this will increase your trust in yourself so much because you will be able to start to see, there will be specific times of the month where you have. So much energy for execution and kind of that like drive things forward thing, which is when your testosterone rises and then when it lowers.

There are other types of tasks and things that you can do in your business that then help to prepare you to be in that phase again in a couple of weeks. And this is just so radically different than trying to force yourself to operate as if you have high testosterone all day every single day, which you don't.

Olivier B: Yeah, and it's, it's a great point. It's something that we never talked about, and I'm not, I'm not an expert, so I won't try and go further into it. So true. When you think of. How everything's sort of built around men because I mean, obviously from history's point of view, but even entrepreneurship, it's built around a certain cer.

I, I feel like a certain group, a certain age a certain sex. It's not built as we think it is sort of open platform and I think it is time to look at [00:20:00] that and sort of really run the bins, like you said, do it the way you need to do it. So I think that's brilliant. Now switching gears a little bit, and let's talk about your community.

So how did you build your customers or your community around your business? Because it is a unique business. It's not something that everybody thinks of, it's something that sort of needs to be presented. So could you walk us through how you did that?

Dana D: Yeah, so I think one of the advantages that I had was coming from the last year specifically spent working in software engineering and product development. I was able to come into. Really developing a, like a coaching and research practice, which is why I call myself a nervous assistant practitioner and coach because the one-on-one coaching is a small part of my business and I just, I love research and learning and then teaching people about what I find.

So with this being said, I was, I was really able to come into this business and say, okay, I just need to talk to real people as much as possible and find out. , what are the, like, what are their [00:21:00] problems, not only in their day-to-day life, but also, you know, like they, so many people come and work with me because they've gone to therapy for 15 years.

And like, if that says that it hasn't worked, I don't know what did or what, you know, like what would say that it's worked. So you know, this, I really came into it and I was like, okay, I need to be able to just talk to as many real human beings as possible in a place where they feel safe and we can just have a real conversation.

I guess in middle of last year, I just, I started posting on my personal Instagram the things that I was learning, like, Hey, did you know that your top water in big cities is full of fluoride and other endocrine disrupting chemicals, which directly impacts the level of regulation that your nervous system has?

Did you know that if you're in this nervous system state or this nervous system state, you're literally perceiving reality through a fear filter and that your biology responds to stress the same way that Hunter gathers of 65,000 years? Did. So we are on a very real level, like not equipped for the world that we live in, and this causes a [00:22:00] huge array of issues.

So I just started sharing this and people were like, wow, I have, you know, been working with a psychologist, I've been doing cognitive behavioral theory cognitive behavioral therapy, and no one's ever talked to me about my body. Like it's, everything has been focused on my mind. And so I just started asking questions to people in my.

Oh, like can, you know, like they, they would respond to something and say like, oh my gosh, yes. And I'm like, oh, you know, like, what was your experience? Cuz this is, you know, like I've left talk therapy behind at this point and like, this is why I'm getting into this stuff. This is how you actually foster a community.

It is not getting reports from like data analyst companies that are looking at like consumer trends, in my opinion, is talking to real human beings. So I just started doing this over and over and over again. And then a little bit later last year, I said, I wanna actually start helping people with this.

So I said I'm gonna work with four people for free because I have no coaching certification. You know, I'm, my background is not in like medicine or anything like that. So I'm just gonna offer this for free. And ended up working with four people [00:23:00] for almost six months, completely for free. That helped me really deeply understand what it is that I was trying to do and how I could help people, and how I could really go from, Not mimicking this very clinical environment that people are used to when it comes to therapy and that whole, I'm gonna go in and get fixed.

I'm gonna go into a doctor's office, I'm gonna get blood work done, which really sanitizes the experience of healing and human beings. We're messy, we're nuanced. We have emotions like there's, we cannot treat ourselves like we are. A program which people mindset coaches love, like reprogram your limiting beliefs like those literal.

Limiting beliefs literally don't even exist. So I started having all these conversations, doing this free coaching. I ended up kind of blowing up on TikTok just like this random video that I posted went viral. And that gave me kind of like another platform to start reaching out and talking to people.

So I, I think the term for this is social listening. And I know there's apps and stuff like that that you can use that pick out terms, but [00:24:00] actually go in post content, engage with people, respond to questions, ask them to tell you more, like that is how you actually foster community. So all of that has led me to having a very engaged.

I hate, I honestly don't really like the term audience cuz these are like human beings. So I just have an engaged community, people that actually enjoy the content that I create because it adds value for them. And now what I'm doing in preparation for a couple of things I'm gonna launch next year is I've been offering free open group office hours one time per month.

I had my second one Wednesday, actually, there's almost 200 people that have registered for it. and the comments that I'm getting is, wow. It is so relieving to have a space where I can come and just kind of talk about what's going on in my life and I can get real guidance and feedback on how I can use an understanding of the nervous system to improve my human experience to feel better.

So a lot of people, I think when they think about creating community, it's like, how can I [00:25:00] immediately monetize from it? And I. That don't, don't do it that way because what you're doing is, you know, you're trying to build a community with human beings, and people will feel that if you're immediately trying to monetize from them.

And at a very real level, this is why you have to care about what you're doing because yeah, I'm doing a lot of things, quote unquote for free right now, but I also see it as, I'm learning so much. I'm learning how to actually truly support people, and then I can take this product development understanding that I have and actually say, okay, great.

So you said that this is missing from therapy. You said this is missing. And I start to kind of see the patterns. Then what I do create is gonna actually have a good product market fit.

Olivier B: Yeah, that's super interesting 

Dana D: yeah.

Olivier B: Sort of a little bit of a pivot here, but looking back at your, this business and the other past businesses, what would you tell our listeners what's one role that they should hire right away? Somebody that they should bring into their team or outsource , that's the most important from your experience

Dana D: [00:26:00] okay, so I actually don't think that you should hire anybody initially. I think that you should do everything yourself. I made the mistake of thinking that hiring and outsourcing when I didn't know how to do something would be really helpful and beneficial for me. When you can hire someone who's really, really good at Instagram, for example, but if you don't even know how to connect with people through Instagram, if you don't even know how to actually create content that it gets any type of engagement, no matter the expert that you hire.

It's, it's gonna come back to you because you were your business. So that being said, what I do wanna offer is some practical advice of how you can leverage your, people probably heard this, like your zone of genius. And then you can actually start to map out and see what would be the most intelligent person for me to hire when the time comes.

So, There is this woman that I have followed for a while. Her name, she's awesome. Her name is Amanda Bucci, and she recently launched this company called The Entrepreneurial Archetype, [00:27:00] which I love. So it breaks down the four different types of archetypes within the entrepreneurship community. Creator, coach, teacher, and architect.

So you go through, she has like a, you know, a quiz that you can take kind of an analysis and then it'll break down these four quadrants for you and what percentage you are of each one. So for me, I'm like 80% teacher and then like the other 20% is split between like creator, coach, and architect. With architect being the absolute smallest, which is more the operational, like sys, you know, creating systems in the business.

Really, really important. So what you can do is you can go. You can do this with any personality quiz, whatever it is. The whole point of this is really getting to know yourself and where it feels like you can consistently show up in your business. So for me, it is very easy for me to consistently show up in an environment where I am teaching to a large group of people or spending time answering questions of a large group of people doing one-on-one coaching.

a great place to learn. [00:28:00] And emotionally it is very, very energy consuming for me. And so I need to make sure that I balance that and I don't burn myself out doing that. And then the architect stuff is like what I hate and what I'm not good at. So you can go in, you can do this quiz, you can do personality tests, whatever it is, and identify even from like an an archetype perspective.

Where is your zone of genius? So that is gonna be long term where you want to be spending like 80, 90% of your time in the business, but the only way that you're gonna actually know who to hire is by figuring out what you're good at, what you're not good at, and what you don't like doing through trying to do it.

So this is why I say at the beginning, like you kind of have to do everything and then figure out who to hire based. , what you don't like doing and what you're not good at. That's kind of the category that you wanna hit and say. So for me, for example, I have a virtual assistant now that I work with, and she handles a lot of like customer service stuff.

You know, if I have to create a new product in Cajabi, which is the platform that I use for my coaching [00:29:00] and courses and stuff, she goes in and does the whole backend setup. Make sure, you know, like the thumbnail pictures, like good there, all the stuff that I really don't like doing and that I'm also not good at.

So that is my advice, is do it all yourself. , learn what you're really good at and what you enjoy doing. And then anywhere where these two things intersect, I'm not good at it and I don't like doing it is where you should hire.

Olivier B: I love that. The zonal genius. I, it's the first I heard of that, so that's really interesting. And it, it's true. I've heard of personality tests and I think it's really important for people, entrepreneurs to take, . So you could leave yourself a 60 second voicemail to your former self, what would it be?

Dana D: I would tell her that you know exactly what you need to do, and any time you doubt that, go inwards. Do not go outwards, go inwards and you'll be fine. And that's all I'd say.

Olivier B: Yeah, that's I figure it as much. Yeah, that's, that fits them well in line. That's great. All [00:30:00] right. Now I have some questions about you as an entrepreneur that and one of the questions I love is how do you stay productive?

Dana D: So no. The first thing is that I. Don't make productivity my goal ever which ends up allowing me to be more productive. So what that actually means is, especially coming from corporate and a lot of people, I think, you know, we, we have this nine to five idea, you're working, you know, you kind of always need to be working and on.

So when I think of productivity I think. , my brain power, my energy being used in a way that's gonna drive results. So that is actually completely detaching it from a specific period of time. Spent working as an, as an example. Walking and listening to music tends to be when I'm actually the most productive, because that is when I make the deepest, most profound and most impactful insights in my business.

That then allows me to go and take action in something that takes me 30 minutes to do, but will make [00:31:00] me. Thousands of dollars. And so it's a little bit of a reframe of what productivity actually is and detaching it from, it means working x hours per day. Which for me, one, like my personal number one value is freedom.

And so for me, coming into this, this entrepreneurial journey, it was the vision I'm building for myself is, You know, time freedom, being able to do what I wanna do with my time is the most important thing to me. So that is number one. What that actually looks like in practice is Mondays and Tuesdays. I don't do any coaching calls.

I try not to book any calls like business related. Those are my days that are free. So I allow myself to have creativity, enjoyment, and health. . I mean, those are always my priorities, but on these days, I specifically have time. So I'll book a massage at one o'clock in the afternoon. I will, you know, connect with friends that are in different time zones.

You know, we'll have, we'll have calls, or I will. Last week I had a Harry Potter movie [00:32:00] marathon on Tuesday just by myself and my apartment. So I actually give my body time to rest, and especially after years of being very chronically stressed out, which most of us are, I'm still recovering in so many ways from the level of stress that I put my body.

So Mondays and Tuesdays are just kind of like me. What do I need? Sometimes that'll be a random inspiration, and I'll literally go into focus mode for three hours and go sit in a cafe somewhere and work and write, and sometimes it's like a Harry Potter movie marathon. Wednesdays and Thursdays are my coaching days, and when I also teach the group programs that I run.

So those are a little more active. You know, like I'm in front of the camera, I'm on Zoom, you know, usually five to six hours those days. So to me that's also, that is so productive because this is where I'm delivering on good quality. Offerings and services. So the Monday, Tuesday also allows me to come into these days truly energize.

So when I come in and I'm hosting and facilitating my group program, every single week that I do [00:33:00] that, I get amazing messages. Thank you so much. This was powerful. I really felt like I got something from it. Same thing with every single one of my coaching sessions that also informs me. Essentially market research I get paid for to then inform whatever my next offers are, which my brain and my body needs space to kind start to integrate all of the things that I learn from delivering my services.

And then I have that space to integrate, understand, make connections. And then Fridays typically is when I'll book podcasts. Like we're doing this on a Friday. Right after this, I have a call to connect with a friend who's also in the health and wellness space. And we just kind of talk about our businesses, brainstorm together.

And then on Fridays I'll typically do a little bit of strategic work. So just kind of like thinking back to like, okay, what are the things that I learned this week from delivering my services? I'll write some notes down and then I just let them sink into my brain and my body and my consciousness over the next couple of days.

And then I repeat

Olivier B: That's that's a lot to take in, but I completely agree with you that [00:34:00] people need time off and to reset and, and that's part of productivity. I think we get so caught up in being our, keeping our calendars full that we need to also step back and say, we don't need to do that.

So that's brilliant.

Dana D: yeah.

Olivier B: So one other question I have is that I really love is what is one book that changed your entrepreneur journey that you would suggest to people read? It could be fiction, it could be a business book, but one book that you would really say that you guys should read this.

Dana D: The body keeps the score. It is a, it's not a business book. It literally, so there's a term body literacy, and this is really something that I'm starting to bring into. Essentially my branding, like what I wanna be known for, which is like, how does your body work? Most of us are not taught that, and we're taught that only doctors know that, but this is knowledge that, and people forget.

Human beings are, you know, we're, we're animals. Like we evolved from the earth and. , our brain is actually so recent compared to our body and our [00:35:00] instinctual, like the instinctual part of our physical body is so much older and so much more powerful than we know. Yet we're so obsessed with the logic in the brain, and this is it.

It's not actually very powerful when compared to the body. And this book really goes into how stress and trauma, which every single one of us. Childhood trauma, childhood stress, as well as just life stress in general. And it will teach you to understand at a much deeper level how your body works and when you can actually start to work with your physiology, with your specific nuanced life experiences, identifying emotional patterns, identifying your stress responses, and actually going in and being able to heal this so that you're perceiving reality as reality and not through a lens of bias based on what your nervous system learned was safe or wasn't safe.

This is where a life is just amazing. Like you're just, you have so much confidence in yourself. You are not being run by nervous system conditioning. You're actually kind of in the driver's seat. You will literally be healthier, your [00:36:00] hormones will be more regulated. All of these things will contribute to business growth.

And this just goes back to like that's been actually what I focused on in my business versus business strategy. This book, Will give you such a deeper understanding of how your body works so that you can actually start to apply these things. It is a little bit dense, I will say. Another one that you could get started with that is doesn't go as in depth but is still really good, is a book called How to Do the Work by Nicole La Perra.

She's called the Holistic Psychologist on Instagram. She's awesome. And that's like a little bit of an easier read. So maybe you could start there and then go into the Body Keeps the score.

Olivier B: So it's two books I've never heard of and I think that that does give us another spectrum not just business books or, you know, famous entrepreneurs, but this is actually really interesting. Cool. So my last question is how could people reach out and connect with you?

Dana D: yeah. So you can on Instagram would probably be the best, like if you just kind of wanna. Come and see some of the things that I talk about and, [00:37:00] you know, like dip your toe in the water. I post a lot on my Instagram stories about how I apply nervous system regulation to my day-to-day life. I'm always, always, always open for conversation and just coming to say hi, especially if you're listening to the podcast, just letting me know that you listen to the podcast.

And you can also find me on TikTok and I have a website as well. Dana dozi.com. So those would be the three places that you could find it a little bit more and reach out if you're interested.

Olivier B: That's perfect, and we're gonna add that to the show notes as well. So I want to thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure having you.

Dana D: Thank you. I do actually have a question for you now that we've kind of gotten to the end,

Olivier B: Perfect. Yes.

Dana D: so. prefacing this, this question, cause I know we talked maybe different topics than like a typical quote unquote business business podcast. So I'm just really curious, like, what sparks the interest for you to add a focus on health and wellness, or at least include this in the conversations that [00:38:00] you're having, because I think that's so amazing and I'm just curious what, what spurred that for you?

Olivier B: That's a great question. Thank you. So Wellbeing for Entrepreneurs is really, it's something that's came to me a couple years ago when I started to see a lot of my friends burning out and I, and a lot of frustration. And so even in my nine to five, we started to integrate wellbeing and it's something that's just, we're just touching sort of like the tip of the iceberg if you want.

So when I. and I get to meet people that offer something different to entrepreneurs and show them that it's not just, you know, business, business, business, that they, they also need to think of themselves, their mentaled wellbeing to be successful for them, for their themselves, their family, their friends, their community, and their business.

And that's something that's really important. And I think too often we get so caught up in chasing the money as opposed to chasing wellbeing. So that's why when I see people that I can reach out to and, and show us a little bit of something,

Dana D: I love that. Yeah. I, I do also think that this is a shift that we're starting to see, and I think it [00:39:00] started with some of the like mindset coaching, mindset work that a lot of people did, which was okay. There's, you know, if we're mostly run subconsciously as human beings and only about 5% of our day-to-day is run consciously and we're trying to run businesses like maybe, yeah, maybe there's something to kind of look at there.

And obviously that relates to the burnout. So I think that, I mean, I would expect that this focus that you're gonna bring in is gonna add so much value to the people that are listening.

Olivier B: I hope so, and, and I appreciate all the great information you passed along because people really need to sort of get to know that their lives and their business lives. 

Dana D: My pleasure.

Olivier B: Business Not 101 is hosted and written by me, Olivier Bousette and produced and edited by our talented podcast team to listen to Business not 1 1. You'll find us in all your favorite podcast apps as well as YouTube. We hope you've enjoyed this interview and it's given you some valuable insights and helped you along your business journey.

And if you have any comments or questions, please reach out to us. Thank you for joining us and listening to this episode of Business not 1 [00:40:00] 0 1.