How AI Can Transform Your Business Workflow

Summary
In this episode, Holly Porter interviews Anthony Dahya about building resilience through a champion mindset, leveraging AI in business, and overcoming personal challenges to achieve success. Discover practical strategies for mindset shifts, AI workflows, and creating lasting success as an entrepreneur.




Takeaways
Champion mindset and resilience
AI workflows and automation in business
Personal journey of overcoming trauma
Shifting identity for success
Practical AI strategies for entrepreneurs
Resilience is built through adversity and leaning into challenges.
A champion mindset involves embracing fear and challenges as growth opportunities.
AI should be integrated into business strategy, not treated as a shiny tool.
Clarity on business problems helps in choosing the right AI tools.
Shifting identity from employee to business owner can transform outcomes.



Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Champion Mindset and AI Workflows
02:37 The Journey to a Champion Mindset
08:12 Integrating Mindset with AI Workflows
12:08 Overcoming AI Overwhelm
14:58 Developing a Champion Mindset
17:28 Mindset Barriers for Entrepreneurs
19:05 Staying Grounded in a Tech-Driven World
21:34 Rapid Fire Questions and Closing Thoughts
22:59 RNR Outro Final.mp4
23:37 RR.Gift.RetreatRnR.com.mp4


🔗 Connect with Anthony Dahya | Champion Mindset Collective
📧 Email: podcast@anthonydahya.com
🌐 Website: championmindsetcollective.com
🔗 LinkedIn: Anthony Dahya
🎵 TikTok: @anthonydahya
📸 Instagram: @anthony.dahya
📘 Facebook: anthonydahya


🔗 Connect with Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
📧 Email: holly@hollyporter.com 
🔗 LinkedIn: Holly Porter | Retreat RNR 
🎵 TikTok: @retreatrnr 
▶️ YouTube: @intlretreatassociation
📸 Instagram: @retreatrnr | @hollyporterinternational 
📘 Facebook: HollyAnnPorter

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to All Things Retreat Podcast. I'm Holly Porter, your host and CEO of Retreat R. With over 25 years of experience in designing transformative retreats. I'm here to share insights and inspiration to help you create extraordinary experiences. Whether you're a pro or just starting out, you'll find valuable ideas here. Enjoy the ride. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Hello and welcome everyone. So glad that you're here joining us. Today's guest is Anthony Daya. He's the founder of Champion Mindset Collective and AI Workflow Agency. After overcoming personal setbacks and career transitions, Anthony met his mission to help people build resilience, gain tongue-twide here, gain clarity, and move forward with confidence. Today he helps entrepreneurs combine mindset, strategy, and AI-powered systems to simplify their businesses, reduce overwhelm, and create more freedom and lasting success. So please welcome me and joining Anthony to the show today.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Thank you, Holly. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah, so happy to have you. So we met, I don't know, has it been a couple months since we've met? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And um, and I was on your show and now you're on my show, and this is just how the world goes around, right? But I was so impressed by Anthony's workflow, what he was doing, and and it just blows my mind, as everybody else, I'm sure, what what AI every day I learn something new that AI can do for us. And it's amazing how you've just made everything automated. I love automation, so I've loved that. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that today, but um let's let's go. I got a few questions for you. And um, is that are you ready for them?

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Yeah, by the way, uh AI is gonna be the currently it's gonna be the worst it is right now, it's gonna get way better. So wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Well, I heard I heard just this week. So I've been having conversations with people in the retreat industry, um, with you know, several on the call this week, and twice I heard that the reason retreats are gonna even blow up even more, is because AI is going to get so good that we're not gonna know if it's real or not. And the only way we're gonna know is literally being in front of somebody, eyeball to eyeball.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Is that crazy? Human connection is so important. Yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah, it's crazy. So okay, so what does having a champion mindset? Because I know you talk a lot about mindset mean to you personally, and how is your own journey shaped that belief?

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah, so champion mindset to me is all about uh building the resilience uh over time. It's not something that you get like instantly. It's uh every every struggle, every adversity that you go through is is shaping your resilience. It's uh building that resilience, strengthening, strengthening that resilience. And so a lot of people will shy away from uh hard moments or difficult situations. Uh, but as a champion, you lean into those situations because they are the way to expand and to grow and to be the person, the version that you want to be. Um, my experience uh if uh if I'll try and keep this short. So I went through did do you want me to explain my situation? We like stories here. Yeah. So I was uh look, I was I was born in here in New Zealand, and at the age of five, my parents separated, and uh at the age of seven I got sent to India to an ashram, a boarding school, uh, which I call it a cross between army and prison because it literally was barbed byfences, you weren't allowed out. I didn't know my mum until I was uh 21. And I saw I saw my father maybe maybe once a year. So for me, the the narrative was I've been rejected, I've been abandoned, I'm not I'm not loved, I'm not cared for. And it you know, it was at first I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. I'm in this nice place, and I've got like these thousand boys uh around me, and um, but then the reality kicked in and I was like, uh the driver's not coming back, he's just dropped me off and he's gone. Um but there was a lot of uh there was some sexual abuse from from other students, um and so so that was interesting, and then um and then yeah, just just challenges that I went through. But then what happened was uh in my teenage years I was a very angry kid. And what it uh what happened was I I just got to a point where uh people were telling me I was I was useless, I wasn't gonna mount to anything, and so on. Excuse me. Yeah, people people were uh saying that you know you weren't um you know you're useless, you're never gonna mount to anything. And I started to take that on board, and basically what happened was I tried to k kill myself at the age of 15. And of course I was unsuccessful. It was like that castaway movie where he does tries everything and nothing ever worked, right? You're supposed to be here. Yeah, exactly. And so something changed in me, and when someone said to me, You can't do this and you're not gonna be able to do this, all of a sudden something internally said, No, I'm not gonna believe this. I'm gonna back myself, I'm gonna believe in myself. And so from that age of 15 to 18, I started to build this more of a positive and mindset of backing myself and believing in myself. Uh long story short, I go into the Christian world, became a Christian, um, started singing in it in the church worship team and this and that. Um but what happened was there was I still haven't hadn't healed for me any of the trauma that I had gone through. And it's taken me about 40 something years to to get to that point where I actually went did the work to heal. You know, I went through something like 24 restructures and four redundancies in my corporate career, and every one of those took me back to my seven-year-old self, feeling abandoned and rejected. And you know, you when you get when you're going through the restructures and redundancies, for a lot of people their identity is tied to their job title or who they what they do. And when they get let go, it's a real it's really hard on them. So what I had to learn was to was to basically change my identity, and I'll I'll come to that story shortly. But in my personal life, I went through many um like relationship breakups and things like that, because I didn't know what love was, I didn't know how to be loved, I didn't know what if you know how to love someone. So for me, it took, like I said, 40-something years to get to the point where I actually could do the work and heal and become the the version of myself that is is unconditionally loved. I am love, uh I you know, I am love, and yeah, uh everything I do now is from a place of love. So the champion mindset is all about really taking those adversities and uh and being able to see the see the the positive sides in there and go that hey, everything I'm going through now is setting me up for a better comeback in life. Now, as I talked about the identity side of things, I went to uh Tony Robbins uh 2024 event in the at the beginning of the year, and he said one thing about your identity is everything, it it shapes who you are. And what I realized was that for a very long time, even redundancy I went through, I still had that employee identity. And as soon as I shifted that from employee to business owner, yeah, everything changed.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Isn't that amazing? How I mean a shift can happen that quickly. Snap at the end. 100%. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Absolutely. The thing is, we have a choice, and we have to make a choice, we have to make a decision. Am I am I gonna continue going down this path of you know, whatever you're going through, or am I gonna make a choice today to do something different that's gonna shape my future? Because you only have the present moment, and you can you you've you can make a choice right now and your life is gonna change. But if you don't change, nothing's gonna change.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah. No, it's so true. That's so good. Well, let's let's jump to a little bit about your AI workshops too. Because I know you have both businesses, so people are listening, and I was talking about AI, and then all of a sudden we jumped into mindset in case you're confused. You have two different companies. Um, you can talk about those, but I just wondered how your AI workflow agency um uh how did how how do I want to ask you this? How did AI workflows agency grow out of the uh wild champion mindset vision? And why do you believe the mindset matters when starting a business like AI?

SPEAKER_03 8:51

So I'll go go back to 2023. So uh 2023, I was going through my third redundancy and I decided to build uh I left the organization and went into life coaching, and then six months into that journey, I started the Champion Mindset Collective. Now, the foundation about Champion Mindset Collective is about being the change in the world that you want to see. And the collective is because I can change my world, Holly, you can change your world, but together we can change your world together, right? And so because we're all connected conscious in a collective conscious. Uh and then in 2024, I went through my fourth redundancy and I was like, that's it, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. Um, so I made a decision to start AI Workflows Agency. Uh initially both these both these brands were separate, and I was like, um, and I was like, okay, well, how do I what do I do? So at the beginning of this year, I knew I wanted some clarity into where I'm going with these two brands. And so what I what I decided to do was to integrate them. And so there was a thing called that there was a framework called the Champion OS, the Champion Operating System that sits between both brands. The Champion Mindset Collective is the authority, the credibility, the mindset, the clarity side of it, the leadership, the the resilience, all that stuff, right? And then the AI workflows is the capability and the execution side of things. But you can't have like at the moment in the AI space, a lot of business owners or a lot of entrepreneurs, they're just ch chasing shiny tools. Yeah. But they've got no clarity around the problem they're trying to solve. So the first thing you've got to ask yourself is, you know, do you have an AI first mindset? Do you have a mindset that's healthy? Do you have clarity around where you're going, right? Because if you don't know where you're going, if you if you don't know the direction you're going in, you're just going to be flip-flopping and going wherever you want. Um, so once you have the strong mindset and the clarity of where your business is going, then in the AI workflows, I do what we call clarity assessments, where I take them through six different dimensions of their business and we we do uh answer a whole lot of questions, which then gives them uh an idea of where their business is at. Then we look at okay, how can AI and automation play a part in this business? It's part of the strategy of your business, it's not separate. So, how can it be a vehicle to move you forward? Um, so we look at things like where is the business owner being a bottleneck in their own business?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Where where have you got repetitive tasks that you you can automate? You know? So these are so these are the kind of um mindsets and and clarity you've got to have. Most businesses don't even know what processes they've got. They don't know how if they're efficient. Um and so, you know, processes can be made up of workarounds and a whole lot of different things. So um, yeah, it's important to get clear on where you're going, understand, understand where the bottlenecks are, where AI could help you, and then systematically just working through that, you know, incrementally, not not doing a big bang approach, just test, measure, do something else. Test, measure, do something else.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

And most of our listeners are are retreat leaders because that's our industry, is the retreat industry, but that's pretty broad because you can be a retreat leader in about anything. Uh so you know, a lot of them are business owners, and if if you're running a retreat, it's a business. I mean, I hope it's a bit not a hobby for people because then they're usually losing money, and we don't want to see that happening. But um, you know, getting these systems and processes set up so that you're not bottlenecked as a retreat leader is so important. So thank you for bringing that up.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Yeah, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

But I know many businesses feel really overwhelmed, and especially retreat leaders get really overwhelmed, especially when they're not filling their retreats, and AI is overwhelming to them. They know they need to be using it and doing it. But what does moving from AI overwhelm to clarity and confidence actually look like in practical terms?

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Yeah, so right right now it's very confusing for a lot of business owners. Uh and there's tools coming out every day, and you know, every every person that's developing a tool and putting it out there is going, oh, you need this because this is gonna help you do this. And then you end up with all these different fragmented tools everywhere that you're and you're paying subscriptions coming out of the out of you know, uh out of the wazoo type thing. So you you you've got the this is where the clarity comes in, is like, okay, what are the problems that I'm trying to solve? And then what are the best tools that are gonna help me do that? It's like if you've if you've uh got a problem with your in your house, you determine what the problem is, and then you work out which tools are gonna help you, you know, with are you gonna use a screwdriver or a hammer? Well, you're not gonna use a hammer to screw to you know screw a screw into the into the uh into a wall, you'll use a screwdriver. This is where once you work with someone like myself, once we get that understanding of where you want to go and what your what challenges are, where the problems are, what the pain points are, then we can understand clearly how AI can uh help uh automate or you know help you with uh your your processes and and and your business. Yeah. And as I said before, sorry, as I said before, it's not a separate strategy, it's actually part of your business strategy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Well, you don't have to be an expert in everything. You just you don't know, you don't have to know how to do everything, you just need to know who knows how and be willing to let that piece go and somebody else does the how.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Yeah. I I've spent uh 30 years in tech in technology in some of the large organizations like um Vodafone, uh uh also Local Government Transport Council and and so on. So I had a lot of knowledge um of dealing with at corporate level, and that knowledge I can bring back now to small businesses to help them, you know, with my with my experience that I have here.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you talk a lot about having a champion mindset. What does that actually mean? And can anyone develop one?

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Yeah. We've all got the ability to be a champion in our life because we can champion ourselves. The question is, are you willing to do the hard stuff um that's gonna going to move you forward? Um and most people fear is the thing that stops most people in the tracks. And uh I see fear as a friend, a companion. And the more you uh lean into fear and and and start listening to the feedback it's giving you, and then do it anyway, then um right, because your brain your brain is there to protect you, it's there it's there to to um you know uh make sure that you're not in danger. So it will tell you things, but the other thing is your brain also can only handle about 40 bits of information. So so what it does is it it deletes, generalizes, and distorts information. So it's telling you lies. So half the time your brain's actually telling you lies, and so you've got to get clear, again, get clarity around where you're going, and it's about it's not about the distances, but it's about the direction that you're going in. Is are you in the right direction? Are you going in the right direction? And also remember that every every challenge that's going to come up is something that's gonna help you grow and expand into a better version of yourself. So if you take that mentality and go that a champion, if like if you have a a champion hurdler, the hurdler is going to jump over the hurdle, they're not gonna stop at the hurdle, right? When you're driving your car and you come across a speed bump, you're not going to stop your car, you're going to slow down and drive over. So sometimes we do have to pause and reflect and go, okay, what's happening? And I think this is where we've got to get to a point where we're actually very we're very aware. Awareness is the first step. We're aware and we are conscious about what's happening in our life. And if you see patterns appearing, then a champion would look at those patterns and and you know, try and break those patterns so that it you've you're winning going forward. So yeah, that's to me a champion mindset is about embracing everything that comes to you uh towards you. And um it's there, remember that it's there to shape you into the person that you're destined to be.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah. Um many retreat leaders, I feel like they they want to wear every hat, you know. They they can can do all this by myself and I don't want to pay anyone, whatever. Every hat in their business. But where do you see mindset getting in the way of that from them growing?

SPEAKER_03 17:28

Yeah, so I mean, look, all of us entrepreneurs, we all uh we all go through this and uh I'm no different. Um I'm I'm not gonna sit here and say that I'm I'm I've got it all sorted. Um I'm a one-man band, but what I've done is um at the moment, but I am bringing other people on. But what uh what you've got to do is look at uh where are you if you're a business owner or CEO or founder and your time is worth say five hundred dollars and you're doing something that's worth thirty-five dollars an hour, then are you actually, you know, are you actually spending your time in the right place? Yeah. So you so you might it might be easier to get a a virtual assistant or get get some sort of assistant or use AI or automation to automate some things um so that you can then go and do what what you meant to do, which is build your business, build relationships and and bring more people into your into your community. So I I think you know often we try to hold on to things that we've when we started the business. And so what we've got to do is uh start letting go of things. And the more you give the more you let go and give tasks away to someone else, they own it and they will do it to the hundred percent of their ability, whereas you may only be doing it to maybe twenty percent of your ability because you've got your you're scattered across many different things.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh you know, how do you stay um grounded with all the tools coming out? Like how for somebody that's just so overwhelmed with AI, what would you what would you suggest they start with?

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yeah, so I've put my blinkers on because I don't want to be distracted by all the the tools that are coming out. And there's some amazing tools out there, but do I really need all of those tools right now? No. Um, like I said before, you've got a whole tool belt of tools, but you're probably only gonna just use a screwdriver or a hammer, right? Um you're not gonna use a chisel, you're not gonna use a saw and so on. So if everything has its place and time. And so when you're first building your business, you wanna you wanna put your blinkers on just like the horses do when they're in a horse race, because they they block out the other horses and they're focusing on the track ahead. Um and so you've got to stay in your lane and just focus on that. Um and then uh other tools may come along down the track, but what I personally I use two two platforms. That's it. I use ChatGP ChatGPT as my ideation partner, and I use Lovable AI as my build partner. So ChatGPT knows all about me because I've been using it for four years now, and it knows everything about my business, so everything about Champion Mindset Collective, and I say, look, I've got this idea, I want to do this, and I ideate it with a get to a point where I'm going, okay, I'm happy with this, and then I say, now give me the prompt that to build this in love in lovable, and it and then I go and build it. Now there is a bit of technical knowledge required to do certain things, but uh I I would start with you know, take one simple task that is taking a lot of time and ask AI to help you solve that task. And nowadays with the Chat GPT and Claude and all these uh different large language models, you can actually connect your G your Gmail account, your you know, your your email accounts, and if you can get it to go and sort your your mailbox, for example. Yeah. So um and then what you're doing is you're actually just chatting with one space and then yeah. The other thing is a lot of people, business owners carry a lot of knowledge in their heads. Yeah. And and if your to if your staff or your your team are asking you the same question over and over and over again, then then what you can do is you can build a knowledge base, put that in there, and the AI can be the front face, and the people can ask the AI and say, what would Holly do in this situation?

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Yeah, smart. No, I love that. Yeah. Okay, you ready for some rapid fire? Go for it. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Are you an early bird or night owl? Night owl. Paper notebook or digital notes? Digital notes. One word that defines a champion. Relentless. What's one productivity habit that you can't live without?

SPEAKER_03 21:49

That's an interesting one. Productivity habit. Staying focused, just staying focused on what you've got to do. Fo focuses everything. Where your where your energy goes, oh sorry, where your attention goes, your energy flows.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Absolutely. Oh well, Anthony, thanks. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show today. I hope everyone, I know I learned a lot, and I'm sure everyone else did too. But we're gonna put all your information in our show notes so that they can reach you and ask you any more or find out more about you. But any any last words?

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Yeah, just don't be scared, don't be overwhelmed, be be clear about where you want to go. Remember, it's all about direction and never give up. Just keep keep moving forward. Uh, I think it was Earl Nightingale said the definition of success is if you're moving forward, then you're successful.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah. And I'm gonna add, do it scared. I don't care if you're scared, do it scared. 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

That's right. Yes, yes. Fall fail forward fast. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

And fail often as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_03 22:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

Well, thank you again, and everybody, we will see you next time on the show. Bye for now. Thank you, Holly. You bet.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Thank you for joining us on this episode of All Things Retreat. We hope you're leaving with new ideas, fresh inspiration, and the motivation to take your retreats to the next level. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps us grow and reach more retreat leaders like you. And if you have any questions, topics you'd like us to cover, or just want to say hello, send us an email at infowreetreatrnr.com. Follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all the latest updates. Until the next time, remember, great retreats start with great intentions. Let's make them extraordinary, one step at a time. Grab your free are you retreat-ready checklist and find out if you've got everything in place from your purpose and type it to your audience and agenda. Don't ask it clearly quick checklists and show you exactly where you stand and what you need to make the return. Click the link below in the show notes to grab your hand and find out the more common comments.