Building Success from Life's Rubble Embracing Change with Openness

When life hits like a hurricane, it's not the winds that determine our survival, but our ability to find shelter and rebuild. That's the essence of what you'll grasp from my profound conversation with Drew Deraney, a home business entrepreneur who transformed his grief into a guiding light for others. Drew's candid reflection on enduring a divorce, job displacement, his son's mental health battle, and the loss of his patriarch strips back the layers of resilience needed to weather the storm of life's toughest challenges. He's not just a survivor; he's a beacon for anyone navigating their crises, illuminating the path to rediscover purpose and principles like honesty, integrity, and truth.

Our dialogue also ventures into the transformative power of emotional wellness, especially for men who've been taught to armor up against vulnerability. We tackle the Mindful Man Movement, dissecting how redefining strength to include openness and compassion can heal and create a kinder world. Drew's insight into the neurological disparities between genders in stroke recovery inspires a broader discussion on how we can adapt to life's seismic shifts and author our unique narratives. If you aim to construct a life marked by success, fulfillment, and the courage to embrace change, let Drew's story alongside our weekly insights guide you to the home business triumph you're seeking.

Website: https://profitcompassion.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProfitCompassion/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deraneydrew/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewderaney/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeraneyDrew

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Oxygen America

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Transcript

Hank : 0:40

Welcome to the Home Business Success Show. Join us as we speak to home business entrepreneurs for tips, tricks, do's and even don'ts for running a successful home business. Welcome everyone, I'm Hank Eater, also known as Hank the PR Guy, host of the Home Business Success Show, and you're listening to BizRadious. All entrepreneurs all the time. We'll meet our guest right after my two cents marketing minute Ever been shaken to the core in life or business, or maybe both.

Hank : 1:21

When it feels like everything is crashing down around you, that's when it's time to go back to your why. Your why is the reason you're doing what you've chosen to do. It's what motivates you. It's what gets you out of bed in the morning. Getting back to your why can pull you out of the direst circumstances when it comes along with focus and surrender. It may take a little time, but you just keep going back to the why and, before you know it, you're back in the game. That being said, in a nine month span of a few years ago, my guest drew. Durrini, the proud father of three, endured four faith-shaking life events that found him determined to find a better way to live. Through intense self-reflection and awareness, he realized that in order to be happy, he must adhere to his standards of honesty, integrity and truth and found his purpose and mission in life to empower others ready to make a change to do the same. Drew says he is writing his own story instead of letting others write it for him. Welcome to the show, drew.

Drew : 2:36

Thank you for having me, Hank. It's my honor to be here, my friend.

Hank : 2:41

Well, you're welcome. Hey, you know, four faith-shaking events is a lot to go through all at once, but it's tied into the story of your current business. If you would please share the story behind the inception of your business, including what you do, what inspired you to start it and the journey you've undertaken to bring it where it is today? Oh, I love that question.

Drew : 3:07

Yeah, it's been a journey, Hank. You know, we're told when we're younger that life is linear, right? We're told, if you do A plus B plus C plus D, e will happen. Well, hank, I listened and I did everything right and I still ended up with a divorce, fired from my job, son had suicidal ideations and my father unexpectedly got sick and passed away in that nine month period, back in April of 18 to January of 19.

Drew : 3:36

So, you know, I start my story by saying it was July of 2015,. I found out from my best friend my wife was leaving me. That's another story in and of itself. And we went through mediation for three years and it's interesting, it took that long because I was a man who I tied my self-identity to my wife and I tied my self-identity to my profession, two external things. I tied my self-identity where it's much more healthy tying your self-identity to your internal belief system. So when I, you know, in April of 18, when the divorce happened, that to me, in and of itself, just that one scenario was an external circumstance that rocked me to my core even though I knew it was going to happen, and it was six months later when I was fired from my job, and there is a correlation.

Drew : 4:32

Many men especially men, I mean women are a lot better at having one area of their life go downhill and maintain the other areas. Men tend to forget about all the other areas of their lives and focus on the one that's going down. It's what I did. I'm fear-focused and fighting for my marriage, all this stuff, and I lost my productivity at work and lost my focus, and I was fired. I was a shell of myself at work, so I didn't see it coming though, because when you're blindsided in your personal life, you're also blindsided in your professional life. So, having lost the two things that solidified my self-identity, the next one totally rocked me to my core, because, 10 days after I got fired from bringing my son to his therapy session, he was like what is he 14? At the time? He ends up telling his therapist that he answered the question. No, I can't promise you I won't harm myself in the next two weeks, and we found out the night before. He did make an attempt. Thank God, his girlfriend talked him down, so it wasn't successful.

Drew : 5:36

So, again, the first two things put me in a blame and victim mindset. To begin with, I'm blaming the wife for the divorce, I'm blaming my boss for me being fired, now I'm blaming myself for my son's issues, and then fast forward to Christmas Eve of that year. My father unexpectedly got sick, and then he passes away three weeks later in intensive care, and now I'm blaming God. So I went from somebody who was self-accountable to somebody who had a victim mindset and was blaming everybody, and this happened all in a nine month period, and so I was certainly not who I was prior, and all of that's a precursor to be where I am right now, because, to get through all that, I basically didn't want to live anymore, hank. I mean, that's the honest truth. I had promised myself, though, to be the best father I could be, and what would I be teaching my three kids if I gave up? So that's what slowly turned me around to say, ok, I'm going to get through this.

Drew : 6:38

The question was how, and right at then, I needed to understand the clarity of purpose of my life, which is the why you mentioned and you know your two minute marketing motivation, and, customarily, I'll tell people that everything comes from within, and I just knew at that time, if I looked inward, my heart, my head and my gut would have told me don't keep living. So I knew I had to look outside myself for that validation, and I got it from the eyes of my three kids and my mother. So I made it my purpose to help them get through this. The thing is I didn't do it healthy. I did it the way that society tells men to do it Suck it up, man up, don't ask for help, shun your support systems. No emotions, just fix it. So I did that.

Drew : 7:29

When they got through it, I was a shell of myself, though. I was empty, didn't know what my role was in society, didn't I had lost? I had lost like what my, whatever, my identity was, because I tied it to too many outside things. And what was ironic is, about a month before my dad got sick, we were at his house for his 80th birthday party. That was the end of November of 18. He told me he was proud of me. I had known that. I said, dad, why you telling me that now? And he said because I don't know how the hell you're doing it. That's the worst word I'll say on the show I don't know how you're doing it, drew? First the divorce and then the job stuff. And now, nick, you're still home taking care of Matthew and Emma, and every day you come and check on your mother and me. I don't know how you're doing it. He said and this was the key thing I know you always wanted to own your own company, and I always told you not to that it wasn't, it was too much of a risk.

Drew : 8:25

My dad was with IBM for 35 years, and so usually we copy the belief system that was passed down to us, so I adhered to what my dad said. I've been in health care for 24 years. He says to me I want you to do what's going to make you happy. Your mother and I will support you in any way possible. And so, as a 50 year old man, I needed that validation from dad, and I started crying, gave him a hug, kissed him on the forehead and I said thank you. And that's when I created my company, profit Compassion.

Drew : 8:53

My intent, though, hank, was to start my own health care consulting company, educating caregivers on how to effectively communicate with patients and families, so the patients and families can navigate the plan of care and leave the hospital healthier than when they got there because it's the opposite. These days, I felt I could impact the industry more on the outside than the inside. Well, hank, because I had so many self limiting beliefs when my father passed away in intensive care in January of 2019, I let my dream die with him. And yes, it was self limiting beliefs, yes, it was rationalization, it was my self sabotage at play. So I did not start the health care consulting company.

Drew : 9:36

What I did do is I received a cold call. The company says do you want to buy a franchise? And just to show you how lost I was, I rationalized that well, this will be like start my own company, yet I won't have all the overhead, except for the franchise fee. It'll be a business structure, a model that works, and I'll just do it. And I'll just do it. So I bought it and it really wasn't my passion. It was business consulting. It was helping companies save money, which is quite honorable. It was just very different from what I had been doing in the health care for patient advocacy.

Drew : 10:11

So I went through three and a half years of kind of going through the motions, not really knowing how to run a company, throwing money against the wall, hoping it sticks, and I lost a lot of money in that and and I wasn't happy Yet, I didn't get into that self awareness reflection until this happened I met it was right after covid when I had to pivot, because my role was to get companies to sign on with me Well, no companies or take people in person. I had to learn how to do it virtually. So I started networking across the world and I met some wonderful people and my my mind, my negative mindset, started to shift, because when you're in isolation, you can only see certain people. You start to get negative, you know. Well, I started meeting some great people around the world and I realized life isn't so bad. There's some good people out there.

Drew : 11:00

And so I started to tell my story to people. And then I met an editor, a book editor, and I'd always wanted to write a book, hank, and I never had the content. Well, now I had content. So we started the bookwriting process and it wasn't your traditional writing with pen and paper, it was done through Zoom, like this. So I would tell her my story and answer her questions, and then she'd have it transcribed on from Otter, you know, just scrunch, and then I was, I would have my words that I said on paper, and then I can tweak stuff.

Drew : 11:29

The thing is as, the more I told my story out loud, with my own voice, to my own ears, the more I healed inside. I started to heal myself from within by sharing my story. Then I had this epiphany. It was an August Saturday morning, in August of 2022. And I woke up. I said, damn, I know, I know what my, I know what my purpose is, I know what my why is? I said, hank, my job is to get men to start opening up, because if I can tell my story and heal myself from within, and then I'm telling another guy, or even another woman, they're telling me their story. They were starting to tell me true, I haven't told the story in years. I thought I was over it and they're crying.

Drew : 12:16

And then people started telling me my superpower was breaking down walls and so sharing stories helps us be healthier. And then I started looking at all this data that 85 percent of physical ailments are due to unaddressed internal stress. And then I looked at the longevity of men versus women in the United States and there's like a six year difference and I'm thinking that we're in more control over our health than we give ourselves credit. Yeah, we're listening to everybody and holding everything in. It's got to, it's got to stop. And so I took profit compassion, which the reason I named it that was that we profit from other people being compassionate to us and we can help people profit by us being compassionate to them. I took that idea and brought it over into the men's space and continue and created the mindful man movement, where my goal is to redefine what it is to man up, and that means mixing strength with empathy.

Hank : 13:15

I see that's quite the story, quite the story, and it was somewhat of a long journey to to get to that realization. But you know you said certain things about men and one of them of course you mentioned how the women can compartmentalize a little bit more and get into that other areas of their life and keep them going. And I find it interesting too that if men or women are stroke victims, the women, from what I read, the parts of their brain are more hardwired together so that if they lose part of the left, the right comes and takes over and does those functions. So they actually recover from strokes more quickly, more fully, than men do, because men are much more compartmentalized.

Drew : 14:03

Yeah.

Hank : 14:04

So so, yeah, so you took this and you made your business focus on men. And you know, I look back the last time we talked. I look back a little bit about my own life and realized, you know, in the generation that I come from, I was exposed to all those stereotypical things. You know, suck it up, be a man, don't complain, don't ask for help, don't let anybody know if everything isn't great, you know, just always plaster the smile on. I used to have something as a kid that I used to call the bar mitzvah smile, because we go to bar mitzvahs, you know, and you just walk around.

Drew : 14:44

Yeah, I think it, everybody yeah right.

Hank : 14:48

So what would you say? Set your business apart from others in this industry, if there is an, indeed a similar industry for men's groups like this, or or a men's movement like this, and what Unique value to believe do you believe that you offer to your customers or clients? That's a good question.

Drew : 15:09

You know, men, many men think that there's an either or we either have to be nice or we either have to be strong. And honestly, we don't have to choose between the two of being a good person and being a strong person. Now, yes, we want to make sure people don't think we're jerks and, yes, we want to make sure people think that we're nice. But the thing is, I have learned and this is what I help my clients is I I have a distinction between being nice and being kind. And I think this will be the unique piece because you know, you heard over, always heard the old adage nice guys finish last.

Drew : 15:48

And I was a nice guy, I would do things for people even if I didn't want to. And then I get walked all over and a lot of that is people pleasing tendencies and people pleasers Do things to make people like them because they're not comfortable in their own skin. There is a Malicious intent they'd be subconsciously with people pleasers because it is kind of misleading. You put on a mask to be somebody different from who you are, to make somebody like you For who you are with that mask on, and then, if you become authentic, they think it's out of character, yet it's really your true character. So to me it's misleading. I didn't realize I was doing it, but I was and and so I see that difference between nice and kind. Because when I was nice, yeah, I knew my value, I knew my worth. But when push came to him to shove, I caved, I relented and said okay, yes, I'll do that for you. I did not a say no.

Drew : 16:47

The difference with kindness is I firmly believe this that you still can do something nice. You have a boundary around your self-identity, all right. And to me, self-identity is you love yourself, you trust yourself and you respect yourself. And if you're comfortable in your own skin and you trust yourself, respect yourself and love yourself, then you don't care what people think of you. You can care about people, but you don't care what they think of you. So you're gonna be your authentic self. You still have that strength of that boundary around you to protect yourself identity. So you not only know your worth, you stand your ground, which means you don't compromise your, your standards. So I think there's a difference between nice and kind. I'm not nice anymore, I'm kind.

Hank : 17:33

Right and I think that by being kind, for example, if someone wants you to step outside the boundary that you've created or not created, but that you now find necessary to be a part of your life, you could still very nicely say you know, I appreciate where you're coming from, but under no circumstances will I do that Right, and it's not an emotional decision, it's just, and you've still shown respect and kindness. You just won't be unkind to yourself and perform an action that goes against that. It's amazing how quickly time is flying, because we'll be out of time before we know it. If you could give one bit of advice to someone faced with profound changes in their lives, what might that be?

Drew : 18:19

First and foremost, I'd say, to choose to write your own story instead of letting other people write it for you. And when we customarily, if we face adversity and we are scared or fearful of what to do about it and we decide to do nothing, we're allowing somebody to write our own story. So, if nothing else, do something to change your mindset, whether it's invest in gratitude, whether it's start to forgive yourself from past mistakes or forgive others, or whether it's get rid of a victim mindset and start to find something that's desirable, that you want to strive for in life, and have faith. Because that's what helped me get through the dark times was forgiveness, gratitude, desire and faith. Because think about your mindset. When you replace regret, victim mindset and fear of the future, you replace those three things with forgiveness, gratitude, desire and fear. It does wonderful wonders for your outlook, and it does. I mean. It's not easy, it was a challenge, but that's what did it for me, and it leads to total transformation over time.

Hank : 19:36

Now, if someone is interested in the mindful man movement or working with you, who is your ideal client?

Drew : 19:46

Good question, my ideal client was my younger self. And here was my younger self host, divorce struggle, connecting in a relationship. You don't like dating sites very frustrating to meet people that way. Or you're an entrepreneur, or you're an entrepreneur who's seeking validation from out the outside world instead of from within. Or maybe you're a middle manager in any industry where you are seeking your true identity because it's a challenge being your authentic self. You fall into those categories. I'd love to speak with you.

Hank : 20:24

Very cool If you would please tell our audience what are the best ways to connect with you if they'd like to explore your services.

Drew : 20:34

Absolutely. I would say. My website is profitcompassioncom. We have areas there about the men's group that I lead and the one-on-one coaching, and you can email me at druidprofitcompassioncom and I'll certainly get back to you Very cool.

Hank : 20:52

Well, thank you so much for being here with us today. And to our listeners, tune in every Wednesday for the Home Business Success Show here on bizradious. Remember, you can achieve success, freedom and independence in your own home business. I've done it, drew has done it, and you can too. This is Hank Eater, wishing all of you a fabulous day of home business success.