SHE Asked Podcast
Welcome to The SHE Asked Podcast with Anna McBride—a space where the stories we tell ourselves are challenged, reimagined, and rewritten to unlock personal transformation.
Hosted by former therapist, storyteller, and lifelong seeker Anna McBride, this podcast dives deep into the power of narrative. Through personal stories and intimate conversations with guests, we explore how shifting our internal dialogue can change not just how we see our lives—but how we live them.
Each episode offers what Anna calls “practical hope”—real tools, lived experience, and emotional honesty for anyone feeling stuck, lost, or ready for change. Whether you’re navigating divorce, grief, reinvention, or simply trying to understand your past, The SHE Asked Podcast invites you to become the author of your own story—and the hero in it, too.
Follow along for weekly episodes filled with compassion, perspective, and the courage to ask yourself:
What story am I telling—and is it still serving me?
SHE Asked Podcast
When Success Isn’t Enough: Derick Grant on Inner Work, Healing & Real Transformation
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this powerful episode of SHE Asked: Tools for Practical Hope, Anna McBride sits down with her personal mentor Derick Grant.
Derick is a world-renowned performance coach, former Harlem Globetrotter, and advisor to elite athletes, founders, and leaders. He joins Anna for a raw conversation about what happens when “having it all” falls apart.
Derick shares his journey from professional sports and entrepreneurial success to a profound personal collapse — including financial loss, identity breakdown, and a spiritual awakening that reshaped how he lives and leads. Together, Anna and Derick explore how inner work becomes the foundation for sustainable success, emotional maturity, and embodied leadership.
Derick also shares what’s next in his work — including the evolution of his leadership community and his approach to building aligned, sustainable success.
✨ If this conversation resonates, share it with someone who’s in a season of rebuilding or reimagining their life.
Connect with Derick Grant:
Website: DGmindset.com
Instagram: @dgmindset
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Where healing meets practical hope. New episodes weekly.
Meet Derek Grant
SPEAKER_01Well, welcome back to She Ask: Tools for Practical Hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride, and I am so excited that you are here. Today I'm joined by Derek Grant. I first met Derek through social media, but the moment we spoke, I knew he was different. Not because of what he'd accomplished, but because of what he was willing to face. Derek is a world-renowned performance coach, former Harlem Globetrotters, professional athlete, and advisor to some of the most elite athletes, coaches, and founders in the world. Derek helps high performers break through internal ceilings, rewire survival patterns, heal past wounds, and build sustainable success from the inside out. And on a personal note, Derek has been my coach for a couple of years now. Yet more than that, he's been my friend. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome, Derek.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. So good to be here with you.
SPEAKER_01This has been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_00I know it. We've it's funny because we've we've talked about you creating something, and now like I get to sit in what you've created. To see it come to fruition has been amazing.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'll tell you, it's been it's been great uh having you knowing that you're supporting me through all this. Um so on this podcast, we like to start with a story. So, Derek, for our listeners who don't know you yet, can you take us back and tell us your story from having what others would describe as having it all to maybe losing it all and how that loss became the beginning of your real work?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we go back to being a kid growing up in Rochester, New York, playing in the driveway, playing basketball. Uh, parents took me and my brother when I was seven years old to go see a team called the Harlem Globetrotters. And that was my introduction to basketball. It was at the uh the Rochester War Memorial Coliseum, and I'm sitting there watching, and I'm like, they're throwing buckets of water and they're pulling people's pants down. I'm like, this is basketball. Like, this is what I want to do. So that was my introduction to basketball. And all through the years, um, I just said, I want to be a professional athlete. Nobody in my family played sports. Like, I'm the tallest one in my family by at least five inches, and I just had this dream, like this divine spark, if you want to call it, that's say, like, I know I can do this. And I went all the way through high school, college, played at the College of New Jersey. Um, then I got done. It's like, okay, here's my chance. Had a bunch of tryouts, got
From Globetrotter To Collapse
SPEAKER_00cut, didn't make teams, and then I landed on a team called the Harlem Globetrotters, and did that for eight years, went to 70 different countries. I was on Today Show, Good Morning America. Um, got to do a lot of cool things. Um, and that was like the climax of life, right? I was like, mm-hmm, like everybody, oh, there's Derek Grant, he plays for the Globetrotters, and then as with everything, there's going to be a crumbling of your ego. And this is I got done in 2014 and I was trying to figure out what do I do next. And I started training two boys at a two brothers at a at a at a park with basketball because I'm like, I don't know what else to do. Like, let me take all the knowledge and information that I have in my own career and maybe help the youth coming up. So I started training kids on a basketball court. I started with two kids. This is the first steps of my entrepreneur journey. Nobody in my family's an entrepreneur. I don't know what I'm doing, business-wise, nothing like that. Marketing, and these two kids a year later, ballooned to over 350 kids. I was training over 350 kids, and it was like it was just one-man army. I'd be in the gym for like eight to ten hours a day, just one group after another after another. And then 2018 hit. Um, I met uh a person who we became business partners. He said, Hey, let's move down to Florida, we'll open up this basketball facility, you know, you'll have this great life. And he got me. And I said, Okay, well, let's do it. And my wife and my two kids, we all moved down to Naples, Florida. And probably about four or five months in, I was like, something's off here. Cars were stolen, money's missing, we don't have a house in our name.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00And I realized I'm trapped. And I have to say this because we all get to this point where we have to look ourselves in the mirror. And when we look ourselves in the mirror, we look and see shame, and we see guilt, and we see not enoughness, and this was me, and I had never been to this point in my life. You know, I was this athlete, I could accomplish anything and do anything, and now here I am looking at myself, saying, I'm not enough, I'm a loser. I let my family down. And I never forget one day my kids were young. I was in such a dark place, I was just sitting in our living room on the floor crying. And my kids at the time, they were like five and three, and they just came and they like hugged me and they're like, Daddy, daddy, what's wrong? What's wrong? And it was just I was over like overcome with shame. Well, after realizing what was going on, we moved back to Indiana because that's where we were to live before we moved down there. And I'm at the lowest of the low. I don't even want to live life anymore. And I just I let my family down. That's how I felt. And you know, growing up, my dad used to always tell me, you know, you gotta be able to provide for your family. You gotta be able to provide for your family, and now here I am. I can't I can't go buy groceries. I can't. I'm trying to figure out how we're gonna pay rent. I have no idea. And I got a knock on the door, and there was a guy, he's probably about five foot seven, five foot eight, and he had a suit jacket on. He says, Hey, I'm so-and-so from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm like, Oh my goodness. First of all, when the FBI comes to your house, at least in this particular example, it wasn't kicking door down the door and everything. They were like, Hey, we just want to let you know you haven't done anything, but we know that you were involved with somebody who we've been chasing for a long time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00And he came and sat in my living room for four hours and was just asking me questions. And now, you know, I'm I told you I'm in the lowest of the low,
FBI Knock And Victim Mindset
SPEAKER_00but now before I know it, they're like, here, take this cell phone. So I have two cell phones now. They're like, here, go to this site and create a fake email address so we can contact you. You're gonna meet us in this location every week because we're gonna pay you to be basically a confidential informant. And I'm just like, I'm like, how did I get to this point? I was literally just training kids in basketball. Now here I am, a confidential informant meeting the FBI in an undisclosed location every week. And I'm just like sitting here asking myself, why? What happened? And then one day I woke up, I just sat on the edge of the bed and I was just sitting there. And this voice just so clear said, Change the way you look at it. I'm like, change the way I look at it. Like, what? And Anna, and the reason why I'm saying this is because myself and so many other people don't realize how much we play the victim.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And that was the start of all of my issues because it was woe is me, and somebody's gonna do something for me, and somebody I can't do it myself. Right. And this is what got me into this predicament. So that's really it was right before COVID. This is when everything changed. I started to basically grab my life by the handles and say, I'm going to steer this thing. I'm gonna control it, but it has to be from the inside out. And this is the journey I've been on since.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. Wow. A little more detail than I was sitting next to a FBI informant. That's incredible. Yeah. Okay. So a few follow-up questions. Sure. When everything fell apart, what was the first practice or tool that you reached for?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, I don't I don't know why. I mean, this became a coping mechanism, I think, growing up when I was young, but it was always isolation. Right. And now that has evolved into stillness. Right? In between isolation, stillness was meditation. Okay. So I was seeing that I was unconsciously creating uh basically a space where I could just be with myself.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And I couldn't run away from it anymore. So I would literally just go in my closet.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And I would just lay it down on my floor. I didn't know what meditation was, nothing. But this was me now looking back on it, it was me just saying, let's get away from all the chaos and let's just sit with our thoughts right now.
SPEAKER_01Okay. You know what I love about what you just said is that it reminds me that our processes, even when we're in our darkest times, are not all bad.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Right? They could be a setup for something better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It was the foundation of it.
SPEAKER_01Because I used to think like isolation was my nemesis. Like, like it's my tendency that when I get out of sorts, I just want to be alone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? Yeah. And and I always, you know, I've kind of dinged myself for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, and yet you're right, it is an opportunity to get introspective.
SPEAKER_00That's it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We can't find ourselves unless we're with ourselves. And it just sometimes takes us being by ourselves. Right. So we can be with ourselves so we can find ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Right. Wow. That's so good. Was there a specific question you asked yourself that shifted your mindset?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I asked myself, what is life?
Isolation, Stillness, And Meditation
SPEAKER_00What is this? Like, what is this? Like, because at that point, life sucked. I'm like, what like what is this? This is is this what I came here to do? Because this is awful. And I'm like, what is this experience? And then I started to realize, I'm like, wait a minute. Why is it when I tell this guy about my situation, he doesn't have the same reaction that I do? We're listening, he's hearing the same details, but like I'm having like a different reaction. Maybe life is subjective. And that's when I went down a rabbit hole. So now when that voice said change the way you look at it, right? Up until that point, I didn't even know I had an option.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I didn't know I had a choice. I thought life was happening and this is what it is. Yeah. And then I realized I'm like, oh my goodness, this is why my mother used to always tell me the glass is either half empty or half full. It's based on how you perceive it.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And then I started to ask myself, why am I perceiving life this way? Are these my beliefs? Is this my perception, or did I adopt this? And I never will forget. And I was sitting at a stoplight and I asked this question. It sounds silly, but this was what really cracked everything open. I was like, why do we work five days a week? And why is it Monday through Friday? Who came up with that? Where'd that come from? Just by asking that question, it allowed me to see I'm not actually living my life. I'm living a societal program, a generational cultural program. I'm not actually perceiving this situation the way I want to. I'm perceiving it based on how I've been taught to perceive it.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And that's it's almost like a reframing and and then it through questions.
SPEAKER_00That's it. Yeah. That's and then you look at the word question, like I was looking at a quest for information.
SPEAKER_01That's one of the things I love about you because I'm the same way. I love breaking down words to find the real meaning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's hidden right there in front of you. Yeah. So I just I start asking questions. That's it. How do I do this? Why am I why am I doing this? How do I get there? What's in my way? Like if you ask questions, your life is a direct reflection of the level of depth of the questions that you're asking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you mentioned earlier about the victim mindset, right? There's a difference, I think, and tell me what your thoughts are on this between questions that you ask when you're coming from a victim mindset and questions that you ask when you're coming from a curious For sure. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was asking like, why me?
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Like, how could this happen? Why would this happen to me? I remember I had a story telling myself, I've done good to so many people. Why would something bad like this happen to me? And yeah, and then my question started to ask with
Life Is Subjective: Reframing Through Questions
SPEAKER_00bringing in accountability. What did I do or what didn't I do to create this situation? And that was a hard pill to swallow because I realized I'm the one who put myself in this position. Ouch. That was I can't blame anybody now. Like to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say that, right? It was hard, but that's actually where the breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, breakthrough. So this leads me to my next question. For someone listening who's is in their own losing it all moment, what's one grounding practice that they can start tomorrow morning?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean first understand that the situation isn't the issue. It is the way that you are perceiving the issue.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00So the first thing that I do is we have to bring awareness to it. So I just asked the question if I could go back and redo this whole thing over again before this happened, what would I do differently? So now, just by asking that question, you're extracting the information. So now, if we have the information, well, we're not going to then go do the same thing that got us in the predicament.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So you've just taken back the steering wheel of life and you can't be the victim now.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00The victim doesn't know why it happened and what's going on, but when you know better, you do better now.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. So that's that's brilliant. That's brilliant. So let's talk about moving from you know, no, excuse me, moving or let's talk about the identity and childhood wounds. Okay. How did your childhood wound show up in your ambition?
SPEAKER_00Well, it's it was it's weird because it was both sides of the coin. So I spent a lot of time by myself. Okay. So my imagination is just it runs wild to the point where sometimes it gets me in trouble. But there's nothing that I don't think I can't do, right? That's one side of it. But then also, too, you know, growing up, you have these big dreams, but yet you don't see anybody who looks like you, who talks like you, who lives around you, who's doing what you want to do.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So now the inner critic that you have deep down inside that's saying, Yeah, but nobody's ever done that before. There's nothing to say, well, he did it, so now I have to wrestle with myself and that.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So yes, this imagination has a positive side, but then also too, it has a negative side of, well, I've never seen anybody do that. So how can it be done? And I see this happen with people I work with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We think because someone has never done something or we've never seen it, that it can't be done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00There always has to be a first. And I started to like, I'm relearning how to have this childlike wonderment and belief that anything is possible regardless of what it looks like on the outside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I can re so relate to that. I mean, I never was alone as a child because I came from such a big family. Sure. Yet and because of the dysfunction that was going on at home, I also uh clung to my imagination for escaping and and dreaming about what I wanted to do. And and I shared with you before how I w really wanted to be an Olympic athlete.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01A swimmer. And so, and I announced it like at age seven in front of my family, much to their you know, laughs. And um I I used that to make me or push me to raise money to buy my first bike so that I could ride myself to swim team practice. I was creating because there was no one around me. I mean, what female athletes when I was growing up were rare.
SPEAKER_00Sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it was kind of like either you were an athlete or you weren't.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Right. And everyone in my there was no one in my family that was that kind of athlete. Sure. And I think that's what I was hearing. The laughs were about. And you're right. We can use our imagination to either fuel our uh our uh our actions or we can do choose it to talk us out of it, right? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of people, a lot of us don't realize we're using our imagination to create the prison instead of the paradise. Oh they can do both, right? But which
From Victim To Accountability
SPEAKER_00one are you using it for? So, like when you ask the when you ask the question, like what question did I ask? I like when I realized, oh my goodness, if I did this to create this mess, do I have the ability now to create something that's like exactly the way I want? And I mean, that was back in 2019, and I've just been on a journey ever since trying to figure out how do we create our lives the way we want.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01That's great. So how can someone identify whether their drive is coming from purpose or from an unhealed wound?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I always say, say the thing that you're you're you're going towards. If you didn't accomplish it, how would you feel? So I want to, you know, build this and make this much. Okay, cool. Just imagine you never get there. Would you be disappointed? Would you be sad? Would you be upset? Would you be angry? If it's a lower emotion that tells you that you had unconsciously created this through the ego, and the ego thought that if we accomplish this, then it will be enough.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And that's what we were actually chasing. But when you do something out of passion, because it lights you up, and passion always leads to purpose, I'm just doing this now because this aligns with me. So whether it shows itself in the physical world, it's really irrelevant because it's lit me up.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So it's really that feeling that you get through the process.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the level of attachment that you have to it, okay, happening or not happening. I I see it all the time with athletes that I work with. It's like, I want to make this shot and I want to play well. I'm like, you'll never play well and you'll never make make that shot because you are living outside of yourself. You think that this shot or this performance is going to make you feel enough.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Life can't work that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, spoiler alert. All right. So what's one journaling prompt you'd give someone to uncover the root of their ambition?
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_01Is it that one about whether you're about feeling, how it would feel?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I every every if you go to my journal, every journal prompt is the same with me.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Every day. It always says, today I feel, dot, dot, dot. And then I just let it out. And that will tell me what is the energy that's behind right now. That's more important. Like whatever your goal is, that's irrelevant. It's the energy behind it. Okay. Am I doing this out of fear? Am I doing this out of shape? Am I trying to prove that I'm enough through this accomplishment?
SPEAKER_01So it identifies the outlook, not the outcome.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah, which is the mindset. Exactly. Yeah. I just think of our minds as engines. Mm-hmm. And that's what pushes
Purpose Vs Wound-Driven Ambition
SPEAKER_00everything. That's what fuels everything. So what's the fuel source of me taking action right now? And a lot of us, we don't realize that we we we have ambitions and we're creating goals out of shame. Okay. Guilt, fear. Yeah. Those are very fleeting energy sources. They're not sustainable.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00But if you do it out of joy, you do it out of peace. You do it out of this is just my passion. I don't know why, it just lights me up. That is coming from the divine spark inside of you. That is sustainable.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So that's where like I know me as an athlete has shifted drastically. I went from I want to do this and make this much so I can show everybody I can do it to now it's like, I just want to follow whatever like my heart's saying.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And now I don't care what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. Wow. Um, so if someone suspects that their success patterns are trauma-driven, what's the first safe step toward healing?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I would say the first step is awareness. So if you have that, okay. The second step is acceptance. And when when I say acceptance, that's us saying, Wow, this is the reason why I wanted to do this. I don't know if I ever told you a story about the Lamborghini. No. I wouldn't buy a Lamborghini. And I I told my wife I said, I want to buy a Lamborghini. She goes, For what? She's like, uh, you're too tall for it. You can't drive it as fast as you really want to. And they're loud. So the homeowners association is probably going to be complaining about your Lamborghini. And I was like, she shot me down, right? But then it forced me to go back and ask myself that question. Why do you really want a Lamborghini? So as I'm sitting here asking, I was like, imagining like it's summertime, we pull up to a restaurant, and everybody's like, man, who is that in that car? Is that Bruce Wayne? Who is that getting out? And then I realized I didn't really want a Lamborghini. I wanted people's approval.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_00And I was using the Lamborghini as a way to get there.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Once I realized that, I didn't want the Lamborghini anymore. So that's the little subtleties of like how our ego will create this desire and this goal. It's like, no, I really want to do it. No, you don't.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00No, you don't. It's representing an energy inside of you that you're looking to get to. But if you figure out what that is and provide that, now I don't need the thing.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness. Wow. That's that that's too bad for people selling Lamborghinis. So let's talk about moving from collapse to healing. When did you realize this wasn't just a financial loss, but a spiritual wake-up call? Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00First of all, I didn't even know what a spiritual awakening was. I had no idea. And I just started to look at life and realize how much of my life isn't really my life. It's not mine. My relationship to money. That's mom and dad's relationship to money that you've adopted.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00How I view myself. How I view myself, that's really not how you view yourself, Derek. That's how you think your dad views you. Ouch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I started to like look at my life and I'm like, I'm not really living. I'm not. This isn't my life right now. I am wearing all these masks
Daily Journaling And Energy Behind Goals
SPEAKER_00and playing all these characters. A performance. It's a performance.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And at that moment, I was like, I'm taking my mask off. I'm taking it off. Because when you hit rock bottom and you have your ego shattered, there's you don't, I didn't know who I was. I thought I was my money, my house, my car, I thought I was all these things. And now all of that's gone. So I started asking, like, really, who am I? And that's when I realized I'm living a lie. This isn't really my life. I just want to be who I am. But to be who I am, I have to go back to all those past versions of who I thought I was.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And recover each and every one and let them know here's who you really are. Here's what you are. You're not unworthy. You're not less than. You're not, and that's the healing journey that and I'm still continuing to this day.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Wow. Wow. So what were the non-negotiable habits that rebuilt your internal foundation?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I journal every day. Okay. Okay. And some days I have a lot to write and some days I don't have a lot to write. But this was the process of I have to become aware of what's going on in the background inside of me. So journaling became a non-negotiable meditation at first, I say for the first couple years, and that's kind of now segued into 15 minutes of just nothing. Quiet. No phone, no journaling, no nothing. You're just sitting there. You can have your eyes open, you can have your eyes closed, but what it did was it allowed me to just sit with myself. And I started to notice something. There's these patterns of thinking that were happening on autopilot all the time. And by now observing it and seeing them, when I start my day, I don't have to give in to them.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And then I started to make a non-negotiable of minimum 20 minutes of some type of fix physical exercise. Okay. And, you know, at the time all I had was uh I could do push-ups and I do pull-ups. And I said, okay, well, one day I'll do pushups, the next day I do pull-ups. And every day I just started doing that. And now I mean, as a former athlete, I'm kind of used to it, but these are my three non-negotiables every single day that that I do.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01How did you rebuild trust with yourself?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was and I'm still I'm still working on it. Uh it was it was the extensive process of getting to know who I really am. Right? You can't trust something that you don't understand.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00Right. That's why we don't trust ourselves. We really don't understand who we are and why we are.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So as this self-awareness journey, this self-development journey started to continue on, I started to trust myself because I knew why I was making this decision. I knew this version of me who was looking at it this way. So it's easier for me to say, like, no, let's go left in the business. And everybody was saying, Well, no, go right.
Awareness, Acceptance, And The Lamborghini Story
SPEAKER_00Go right. Why are you going left? Because I know this lights me up. I know that this is aligned with me. And that's how I started to learn how to trust myself. And now I'm to me, I'm to the point where it's I know when something feels off, when something feels misaligned, and I don't question it. Okay. And it took all those times that I did question it and I didn't listen to it. Before I moved down to Florida, there was something inside of me that said, Don't go.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I ignored it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I didn't trust myself. And I wouldn't say I paid dearly for it, but that was the tuition that I had to pay.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I learned.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love I love again breaking down the word intuition, right? Yes. The tuition that we have to pay. That's it. It's what we have to give. Yeah. Right. And it takes what it takes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a great great, great. Um is there a specific reflection exercise or spiritual practice you still use today?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I use um, I guess we can term them as triggers.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm constantly looking for the most subtle triggers. Okay. Meaning, so think of it like this. We have all these identities inside of us. Okay. So physically, I may be 43, but I have a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old, an 11-year-old psychologically that are still inside of me.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So what ends up happening is those get locked up, stored away in a closet in the shadow in the back of our psyche, and we forget about it. But then life gives us a trigger. Could be outside, and somebody starts yelling and screaming at you.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then you're like, you lash back out. Not paying attention though to what you're feeling. That trigger of that person is trying to get you back to a part of you that you had locked away. So instead of what I what I do is I constantly have to remind myself, that man yelling at me is really a reflection of what's going on inside of me. So instead of wasting my energy on him, the first question is, why is this bothering me?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And what it's doing is it's getting me back to the past version, the past identity who had the wound. And then I start to see, oh wow, it's not him yelling at me that's bothering me. Him yelling at me makes me feel less than. And I remember when I felt that when I was 12 years old, when daddy would yell, he's trying to help me get back to the 12-year-old.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, like I always tell people, yes, you know, like, triggers are your friends. They're literally like portals to past versions of yourself that have been haunting you.
SPEAKER_01We hate hearing that. Yeah, I hear you. I mean, oh my gosh. Yeah. So let's talk about moving from healing to purpose. Um, when did you realize your healing was wasn't just for you, that it was meant to become
Taking Off The Masks: Spiritual Wake-Up
SPEAKER_01the work?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I became fascinated with this thing that we call manifestation.
SPEAKER_04Hmm.
SPEAKER_00Right? And I had never heard of it, didn't know what it was. And I started to understand it, it was basically the embodiment of an abstract thought. Okay. That was part one of manifestation, but the other part of it was basically an internal state that wasn't depending on an external outcome.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I can I can regulate how I feel on the inside, regardless of what's going on on the outside. So through wanting to know how do I regulate the inside of me? How do I do this? I had to first understand that the inside of me is the sum total of all of these past versions of me. Some of them I remember, some of them I don't.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So the healing journey, I started to realize that every time I went and found a new version of me in the past, it created a new capability in the future.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And I was like, oh wow. I believe I can do this now because I got rid of the version who didn't think it was worthy enough of doing that. And I started to see this kind of the connection of the past and the future. Every time you clean up a past, it creates a new future. And I started to say, like, well, that's all I'm doing anyway when I manifest something. I'm just creating a new identity.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness, I gotta go back and get all these identities because every time I do, I get one, a new one that I can use in the future.
SPEAKER_01Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00And this became like it was almost kind of like a trade-off.
SPEAKER_01Like is this what you kept referring to as like a game?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Like it's like it's think of it like it's like a pawn shop. Yeah. Right? I go and get this past version, clean them up, exchange it, and now that I get that one up there. Okay. And that's the one that I really want.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00That's the one who's who's going to do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But first I have to go help him.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And that's where like I tell people like you're never because people ask me, When would I get to a point when I'm done? I'm like, you'll never be done.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Because you're infinite. There's infinite versions of you who you can create up there. There's infinite versions back here that you're just not aware of.
SPEAKER_02Oh boy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And then when you start getting into like, your stuff isn't only your stuff. You're carrying mom's stuff. You're carrying dad's stuff. And then it's like, well, I better go ahead and turn off this shot clock and get comfortable because we're going to be here for a while trying to patch up everybody's stuff. Right. So it's big. That's where, like, to answer your question. I've realized it's bigger than me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you have your life, you have your parents' life.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You have your culture. You have your country. There's a lot of wounds. People don't realize, like, we like until each person takes their wounds seriously, the collective isn't going to change. Because the collective is a culmination of each individual.
Non-Negotiables: Journal, Stillness, Movement
SPEAKER_01Okay. So for those people who are now worried that we have to worry about everybody else's stuff, what are we going to tell them, Derek?
SPEAKER_00That's so here's what I did, right? Because it became overwhelming. Because I used to here's what I used to say. I'm like, I want to change the world. I want to help the world. I want to change. That's what I used to say, I want to change the world. And one day I just sat and I looked at my street, and there was a lady across the street, and I was like, Well, why don't you start off helping her? You're over here worried about going over here and doing this in the world. Why don't you just start on your street? Start in your community. But then when I said help her, I'm like, how would I help her? I have to be in the right state. Right. So why don't you just focus on you then? Okay. And then that will help you to help her, and then she'll help.
SPEAKER_01All right. It ripples out.
SPEAKER_00It's a ripple effect. So this is how we keep from being overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Stop trying to eat the whole pizza pie. Just eat the first slice. The slice was you. Focus on you. Uh-huh. That's what makes the world a better place.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Wow. That's so deep. So when did um what did it take to trust that your lived experience was enough to start helping other people?
SPEAKER_00Can I be honest with you?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00I said I wanted to help people and help the world, but really I after like diving deep into it, I realized I just wanted to help myself. I didn't want to help the world. I want to help myself. I didn't want to heal the world. I want to heal me. So now the focus has shifted. I really like people send me DMs all the time. Oh my gosh, your content helps me so much. It's how I'm grateful for that. But really the mission has always been Okay. Help yourself D. Okay. Heal yourself. And that's how it creates a ripple effect by me healing and helping myself and just expressing and talking with the world. It touches that individual, it touches that individual.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it was never like, go help Susie and go. Because then if I do that, that's the ego.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm living outside of myself again.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Instead of fixing the inside first.
SPEAKER_01So yeah. I I I do think you know my biggest purpose is really to heal. Yeah. And the rest will take care of itself. That's it.
SPEAKER_00That's literally it. That's it. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Incredible.
SPEAKER_01Now, what shifted when you stopped chasing success and started less, you know, leaning in towards alignment?
SPEAKER_00Life became so much more uh streamlined, so much more smooth. It's just Okay. Like like, oh my goodness. There's not many, there's no words. It's just free flowing. Like now, I say that. I don't want people to think like, oh, you sit around all day and like, okay, well, life's gonna come and make it. It's not that. It's does this align? Yes or no? And
Rebuilding Self-Trust And Intuition
SPEAKER_00here's what we have to understand. This is why trust is super important. Alignment in your life may look like misalignment in someone else's life.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00What's aligned in my life may not work for you. That's why I have to know what alignment feels like in my life.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So that was a just a learning curve of just learning how to trust what I feel. And then I start to look back. Oh my goodness, I remember being a little kid and intuitively just knowing, just knowing this felt off. There's something weird about this. This doesn't feel right. But I would just ignore it because the logical mind was like, well, maybe it's this, this, this, instead of just trusting that feeling.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00So now I just I mean, I run my business this way. Everything I do is based off, okay, how does this feel?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then we can apply logic and reasoning to it. So if it's an alignment, it feels smooth, it's easy, it's yeah. And and here's the deal, right? Most of the time, alignment on the inside looks like misalignment on the outside.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Because because you're not taking care of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or that, right. But even what I do now. Like if somebody would have told me 10 years ago that this is what I'd be doing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm no I'm a basketball coach. I don't I'm in the basketball world. I'm in the athletic world. I wouldn't be talking about this and this. But I just gave myself permission to follow what felt right. Okay. And it it defies what it would look like on the outside.
SPEAKER_01I understand. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about coaching for coaches.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you created coaching for coaches as a spiritual path to for business, which is so different than the traditional hustle model, right? I was lucky enough to be in the pilot program of it. What did you see missing in the coaching world that made you build it this way?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I so like I hired business coaches, and after like three months, every time I'd be like, I don't agree with this. This doesn't align. And I'm over here just shelling out a bunch of money, and it just doesn't feel right. And then I started to trust myself that maybe they're not wrong. It's just an outdated model.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Maybe that's for the three-dimensional reality, but there's something more in the fifth-dimensional reality that they haven't quite understood because they haven't gone and healed inner parts. I've gone to the point where I'm like, okay, oh, I created this product because blank, blank, blank inside of me, and I'm struggling with this, and this is really how I'm expressing this wound. So I started to dive deeper to realize that things got flip-flopped in business.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00We always get told, you know, work hard, you know, make income. And I'm like, wait, no, income is on the inside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I want to generate income so I can produce outcome.
SPEAKER_01So one of the things I noticed right away in the program is the language. Right? Because it's a unique language where we really do you make you coach us to listen to what we're saying.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and really understand that, as you said, income is an internal investment. Right.
Triggers As Portals For Healing
SPEAKER_01And the outcome is the outward, which is really what we're used to calling income.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yes. So we so you see, like we flip-flopped it and we put our income on the outside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So now we chase the money. We chase and it's like the money will come when you are aligned with the version of you who already has the money. So when I started coaching for coaches, it was really like, how can I help people who help people to learn how to one, the framework to help themselves, but then to grow their business, to grow their empire, whatever it is. And it it it's it's evolving. And we're gonna you were part of the pilot program, and uh April 1st is the next round where I'm gonna launch it and it's gonna be way more. Can I go ahead and tell you what it's gonna be? Can I tell you? Please. Okay. So it's gone from coaching. You're hearing it here first. Yeah, you're hearing it here first, right? She asked. But uh instead of coaching for coaches, because coaches, because I I realize I want to help people who aren't only coaches. And now I'm like, coaching for coaches, it's like, well, I I may be able to help him, but he's not a coach, so he'll say, Well, so I'm like, what do I want this to be? So I was just sitting at home and it was during those 15 minutes of stillness, and it came and it was so clear. It was embodied leadership collective.
SPEAKER_04Oof.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, okay, what is this? And this is like uh breaking off of DG Mindset, or what is this? It's like, no, this is like its own flagship, this is its own thing. There's no DG Mindset logo. There's it's just this is for anyone who's a founder, a business owner, a leader, uh uh, a healer, a coach. This is for you. So the logo, I'm like, well, I'm not gonna have DG Mindset in it. What do I do? And it's like, the Jaguar. The Jaguar. So I put the Jaguar I as a logo, and it's really clean, really cool, but I'm just sitting this the way my imagination works. I'm like, man, I can just imagine we got like 20 or 30 people in this. We go on this journey, and we're and then at the end of it, we all go on a field trip.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00We call them retreats, but there's to be a field trip.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And we go down to Brazil. And we go see real Jaguars in their habitat on a safar on a safari. So true story. This was literally like in the last 48 hours. I start following a page on Instagram that's called the Pantanal. That's the name of the rainforest down in Brazil.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I send them a DM, and I never send DM, I never, never. I just send them a DM just saying, like, I love your videos of the Jaguars. Hopefully, one day
Manifestation As Identity Work
SPEAKER_00I'll get down to the Pantanal and see him in person. And that they wrote back and they said, Well, we would love to form a partnership with you. And I'm like, Well, we're going on a field trip here. If you're part of the if you're part of the ELC, you are going on a trip. So my point of this is, is uh I give myself freedom to like allow it to go where it goes. And now it's so obvious. Like you were part of the pilot program, but it was you were really the foundation of what this next thing is, and to teach people how to do what you've done in the last year and grow and build and have podcasts and do all this stuff. So Right.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Yeah. Wow. Can't wait. Um, so why can't business growth outpace emotional and spiritual maturity?
SPEAKER_00We'll never outperform ourselves. You'll never outperform your self-worth.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, like, oh, I want to make a million dollars, you can't because you don't think you're worthy of 500,000. You can't, you can't, that's your ceiling. Whatever you believe you're worthy of, okay, your actions, everything that you do will be in direct alignment with it. So, what a lot of business owners don't realize is we have these lofty goals, we want to do this, we do this, and then they get stuck. Right. They don't realize it's not because of strategy. Has very little to do with what's going on in the actual business. It's because internally you have a subconscious block that says, I can't do that. I'm not smart enough. I'm not good with money. Right. I'm unworthy. And this is what's stopping you from reaching the levels that you want to. So I spend more time on that part than I do this part. A monkey could figure out business. But that's not what stops us. It's the inner part that's unseen.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right. So let's talk about some practical questions. So, what are the top three mistakes coaches make when they skip the inner work?
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. Well, what what I found is we can't help someone to the depth that they need to be helped at. Right. So lose this, you will use this analogy. Okay. As a coach, if I work on myself, I understand myself just a little bit more. I can go to different depths. Okay. So if we're in a pool, I can swim down to 30 feet because I've gone 30 feet within myself. And we know when we get down to 30 feet, there's the you know the pressure, your ears hurt. Like it's a little different than being on the surface.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But if I haven't swam 30 feet in my life, and now here I am coaching or working with somebody who, for them to get out of this rut, they have to get down to at least 20 feet. I can't take them there. Okay. Because I've never done it. I can read it in a book, but that's not the same thing as experiencing something.
SPEAKER_01So the mistake is coaching from theory and not from experience.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Wow. And until then, you really don't know. Think about it. You only know something when you experience it.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00So now I'm actually coaching somebody from borrowed wisdom. Because I read his book, and this is what he said, and now I'm regurgitating, but I myself don't really know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Authentic is so key. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why it's I always say if you're a coach and you don't have a coach, you're not a coach.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00You need to be doing your work on your on you too. Right. That allows you to be the lifeguard to take somebody to the depths that they've never been before.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible. Um, how can someone discern between fear and intuition?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is where I go back to like how how it feels. Okay. Right. Um, fear will invoke a feeling in your body,
Start On Your Street: Ripple Impact
SPEAKER_00right? Your nervous system. Your nervous system right. We know that feel whether it's, you know, tingling or sweaty palms, or like there will be a physical sensation that's not desirable.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Right. Now, when something comes up intuitively, notice how it feels if you were to go and do this. Like, I don't know, it would feel good going that way, but then if I feel fear, that's secondary, it's not the primary emotion. So I always tell people to like that first inclination without bringing the head in, how does it feel? Because the head's going to create the fear.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Our body, though, intuitively is going to say, go left. And the head's like, Yeah, but if I go left, but that's not intuition. That's the secondary, that's the ego coming in, secondary saying Okay.
SPEAKER_01So fear is a secondary feeling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00When it comes to things like that, exactly. Yeah, when it comes to things like that. Now, don't get me wrong, there's uh we have primal fears and things that like make our nervous system go here. But I always tell people the first thing you need to affirm to yourself is that you're safe.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00If I know that I'm safe, it makes it so much easier to be able to discern what is this right now? Is this fear? But we don't have very rational thinking when we're living in a survival mode state.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's so true. It's so true. And it takes us out of the present moment, right? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Incredible. So if someone wants to build a soul-led business, what's the first foundational practice?
SPEAKER_00Oh gosh. I just think back with me, because this was never the plan. This was never the goal. Um it really became I gotta make sure I can cook for myself.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Forget about growing a business. Are these things that I want to teach? Are these habits, are these principles, are these core values that I can live my life by? And if they work in my life and they and that life feels good, now let's just figure out a way to basically uh document this, document the process. Here's what I do. I do this, I do that, I do that. When I feel this, I do this, I do this, I do that. And this is like I'm
Alignment Over Success
SPEAKER_00telling this is how I've grown my business.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00I'm literally just sharing everything that I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01Okay, right.
SPEAKER_00That's it. It's it's made it so much more simple. So now I don't have to necessarily focus on growing the business directly. I have to focus on growing me.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And then I can share that. And and documenting that's the process you keep talking about. Yeah, yeah. Being able to tell, because if you can't, if you can't uh repeat what you've done, you really don't know how you did it.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And if you don't know how you did it, you can't scale it.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00You you won't be able to grow a business. Right. So like I asked myself, okay, if I had success, well, how'd you do that? Right.
SPEAKER_01What did you do? You've always said success leaves clues.
SPEAKER_00Success leaves clues, yeah. But we don't pay attention to it.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Because those clues are what we call a recipe.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00If I have the recipe, I can cook it whenever I want now.
SPEAKER_01There you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right. So that's really as you get as it gets bigger.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The recipe doesn't change. Mm-hmm. The amount of the ingredients is what changes. Oh, okay. But you still have the same ingredients.
SPEAKER_01And that's what scalability is. And that's what scalability is.
SPEAKER_00And it's super, super, super simple. It's simple. It's not complex. No. Right? We always say in coaching for coaches, simplicity scales and complexity fails. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Love it. Wow.
SPEAKER_00You're really good at this.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.
SPEAKER_00You have I've done a lot of podcasts. Uh-huh. You do a really good job of asking engaging questions and then allowing somebody to speak. You're a great listener. Thank you. Thank you. I know you're a storyteller. Yes.
SPEAKER_01But it's taking all of the storyteller of me to just sit on my hands.
SPEAKER_00But you're like seriously, like this is you're good. Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. All right. So let's talk about um practical hope, which you know, in this podcast, she asked, we offer tools for practical hope. So I'd love to ask you directly. It's almost like a quick fire. All right. What's what are some tools that you would give someone who feels like they're starting over?
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness. Um first, give yourself permission. Okay. Give yourself permission to see yourself as more than what you are right now. That's the first step. I can't get to the top of the mountain if I haven't given myself permission to see myself as that. Yeah. And that's sometimes a struggle. It's a struggle because we have to go fight against self-worth and the inner critic and all these things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But like I literally wrote out a permission slip for myself. I give myself permission to be everything I know I can be. And then I signed it.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And it was like I made a contract with myself to say, like, yeah, go do it. Go.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And what's a tool for rebuilding self-trust?
SPEAKER_00Oh, goodness. I told you earlier that trust comes from just understanding, right? Okay. Um, when I say understanding, just becoming more predictable, seeing what your patterns are.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Why do I feel this way? And that's the self-reflection of asking those questions. But then you'll start to understand why
Coaching For Coaches To Embodied Leadership Collective
SPEAKER_00you feel that way. Where this came from. And then as I understand myself, I know like why I'm this way. I can trust me. It's just like a human being. If I don't know how you're going to be today versus tomorrow, it's going to be really hard for me to trust you. I had teammates who were like that. It's like one day he's talking to you, the next day he's not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So predictability, patterns, understanding why you are the way you are, it allows you to start trusting yourself. But then also too, you know, we learn how to ride a ride a bike by falling off.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00You learn how to trust yourself by not trusting yourself, and then seeing kind of the consequence from that.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And that's how you learn.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01All right. So here's another one. What's a tool for regulating the nervous system during uncertainty?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay. Um, let's understand the nervous system's job. It's just to keep you alive and keep you safe. Yes. And it doesn't know the difference between if a tiger's chasing it or I'm about to get a ticket in New York City. Doesn't know the difference. So if I know that survival is its core job, I have to let it know that it's safe. Oh, safety. So the first thing I always do is I remind myself we're safe. So self-talk. Self-talk, and then I have to breathe into that. Right? Something's like we can exhale, like what you're really saying is, I'm safe now. I'm good. It's over. You can do that in the face of something, right? In the face of something that's triggered your nervous system, letting yourself know we're safe. True story this morning. I was on the way to the airport. I'm driving. Maybe I'm driving a little faster than I should. And I look up in my rearview mirror and I see a cop with his lights on. I'm like, are you kidding me? All of a sudden, though, my nervous system's like. And in that moment, I had to tell myself, you're safe. It's okay. If you get a ticket, if whatever you get pulled over, you're fine. Uh-huh. And I didn't get pulled over. He was going somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01The story is always worse than the reality, right? Exactly. All right. So let's I want to share a personal thing. You first coached me spiritually, you know, before business even came into the conversation. And you helped me to finally face some childhood wounds that I avoided for till now. Until then. Why is healing the foundation of sustainable leadership?
SPEAKER_00Because the only thing that has ever stopped us was ourselves.
SPEAKER_01It was us. Don't tell me that. It's a hard thing to swallow. No.
SPEAKER_00As much as we wanted to beat them, it was us. No. They may have done things. Right. But we're the ones who are still holding on to it. Yes. So this is why sometimes it's just really hard because we've we've we've we've been the victim for so long. Well, they did this and this happened. Yes, but why are you still holding on to it? Oh my goodness. And that's where, like, I always tell people, I'm really just your Uber driver. I take you to where you haven't been wanting to go. Let's just go. I'll go with you. I won't, I won't, you'll be safe. Yeah. But let's go there and let's go get her.
SPEAKER_01Let's go tell her everything that she needed to hear. I love that. What shifts when someone integrates her childhood wounds instead of performing over them?
SPEAKER_03Oh.
SPEAKER_00You become, I don't know, I don't know another word, but like so much more aligned. Your desires change.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um tell me more about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I use the the example of the Lamborghini. Right? The desire changed drastically. I didn't want I didn't want to spend $400,000 on a car.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_00I was like, I'm fine with buying a little $40,000 car. I'm fine with that. I'm okay. I don't need that anymore. But here's what ends up happening. You move so much into alignment that we start to experience experience this thing that we call fulfillment. The smallest actions, the smallest we go to dinner, you could be playing with your kids, a conversation, it brings you so much joy.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Because you're seeing it through the lens of a healed version of you instead of the unhealed, distorted version of you. Okay. So everything, the quality of life increases drastically.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And you won't be able to like really articulate it. I'm just not happier, I'm just content. Content.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00More regulated.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. I love that. I love that. What would you say to the woman listening who feels like she's behind?
Why Strategy Stalls Without Inner Work
SPEAKER_00You're right on time.
SPEAKER_01I've been I've been there.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01You need to think like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Society has done a wonderful job of making us think that there was these checkpoints that could be measured by time. Right. Time just creates pressure. That's when you have think about looking sports, right? He shot that same shot in the first quarter and it was no big deal. But when he shot that shot at the end of the game for the wind, there was all this pressure.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00The shot didn't change. The time of when he shot it changed.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00So society's done a wonderful job to make women think, well, you have to be at this place at this time. And you gotta have kids by this. You need to be married by this. Says who?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is my own subjective experience that I'm calling life.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I get to decide what my timeline is. So having that authority and autonomy over your life will be key because you're not, you're no nobody's, everybody's exactly where they were supposed to be when they were supposed to be there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everybody everyone.
SPEAKER_01I love that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're right on time. We're right on time. Yeah. Wow. So let me add some finishing up questions. What does having it all mean to you now?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna try not to get emotional here.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Where's the tissue?
SPEAKER_00Uh I've realized I have it all. Having it all isn't out there.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Or I thought it was. Um This is part of having an abundant mindset. Right? The richness of life. My son asked me one day when he was in third grade. He said, Dad, are we rich? I said, Well, what does it mean to have to be rich? And he says, When you have a lot of money. I said, No, that's not what it means to be rich. He kind of looked at me, he was like, Well, that's what everybody else at school says. I said, No, what it means to be rich is when you realize you don't need anything because you have everything already. I have my awareness, I have a sound mind, I have uh my health, I have love around me, I have access to all of these things. Right. They were already they were always there, even when I went through my tough time. They were still there. I though just couldn't see them. Right. So this is why the healing journey is so important because we we look at life like this, but as you start to heal, you start to see everything was already here. I had everything inside of me. Wow.
SPEAKER_01So that's a true wizard of oz story.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. That's that is to me like I have it all. I've already like, I feel like I've I've I've beat the game already. I'm just trying to enjoy it for what I can, but if I died today, I wouldn't be like, oh man, I wish I've already I'm I'm I'm good.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's great. Um okay, so let me see. I have a closing
Depth Over Theory In Coaching
SPEAKER_01question. If someone listening is feeling called to a bigger life, right? But also feels afraid, what's the first question they should ask themselves?
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be twofold, but the first question I would ask is who or what version of me is this that's afraid? And why are you afraid? What are you really afraid of?
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_00If this goes the way you've imagined, what are you afraid will happen? And what you want to do is you want to get to the root emotion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm afraid that if I fail, everybody'll laugh at me. Right. Or people say that I'm a failure. Okay. So you're really more worried about not being accepted.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Not being accepted makes you feel shameful. So this is the energy of shame.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00You need to realize that you're enough and go back and find those versions of you who learned or thought that it wasn't enough. If you do that, you won't have a fear now.
SPEAKER_01So it's almost again becoming aware of what is the energy behind your drive towards a bigger life.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. Who's the one sitting in the steering wheel? And that one is of energy. It's shame, it's guilt, it's fear. Okay. To make it easy for everybody, you may be feeling fear, you may be feeling guilt, you may be feeling anger. It will always trickle down to shame.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And for that's the biggest one.
SPEAKER_00It is literally like if you look at Dr. David Hawkins' scale of our map of consciousness, everything, the bottom one is shame. Every human being has this innate. That's the lowest energy. That's the lowest frequency, the lowest energy. We're all scared that we're not enough as we are. So this is what makes coaching easy.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I'm just taking you on a journey to show you where you were worried about not being enough.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And this is where we're going to repatch.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my God, that's so good. Yeah. So 2026, what's next? You know I'm a numerology geek, right? And 2026 adds up to one, which means this is the year of growth and beginnings, creating. So what's on the horizon for DG Mindset? You mentioned the Jaguar.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. So I want to take this embodied leadership collective and help build sustainable leadership in different industries. So maybe this person's in real estate, maybe they're in the music industry, maybe they're in, you know, coaching, teaching and coaching them so they can then go off in their industry and slowly start to make this ripple effect become just a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. So um definitely want to get out there and travel more. Uh
Fear Or Intuition: How It Feels First
SPEAKER_00I've I've, as you know, with retreats, um, love throwing retreats. I love having them. Uh, but now it's like, okay, let's start branching out. Let's start seeing the world now.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Let's start going to places that are great in and of themselves, but when we have an experience that's linked to it, so people can start to experience and re like create lasting memories that also have transformational change.
SPEAKER_01Wow. I love that. Oh, thank you. I love that. So I know this conversation has sparked a lot of our listeners. So for those that want to learn more about this program that you just described, or more about DG Mindset, how can they find you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh I make it easy, make it simple, right? You go to DGMindset.com. Yeah, yeah. Um, or you can go to Instagram. It's at DG Mindset. Uh I don't go on TikTok much, but there's enough content on TikTok. It's the same thing, it's DG Mindset. Um I always tell people, like, send me a DM, send me a message. Um, I run my all my stuff, so um it's not some somebody else running it, and I don't have access to it. So I always try to get back to people when I can. And um yeah, uh, there's those I try to make it as simple as possible. Those two places you can you can find me.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01That's how I found you. Yes. And here we are. Here we are. Yeah. I just want to thank you, Derek, for being my special guest today. Uh it meant so much to me to have you here on She Ask, where healing meets practical hope. And until soon, I'm your host, Anna McBride. Be well.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was fun.
SPEAKER_00Really, really good. I want to tell you too. Um it's like in the basketball world, they call them coaching trees. Coaching trees. Where like, say the coach of the Knicks, he used to be under this coach, and then he went off, and then and you start to see like there's a trunk in like Red Arbach had all these people who were underneath him, and now he's and then there's all these branches. As a coach, as a teacher, as a mentor, to see you and what you are doing. It makes like I shouldn't say this because I don't want to come from ego, but like it makes me proud because I always knew I'm like, she's gonna do something that she's gonna do it. And to see you then doing it. Yes, when a lot of people give up when they don't see the results right away.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, I got this income thing down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're you're a true student, so so thank you for just really staying true to you.
SPEAKER_01The you're the true coach. Oh I so appreciate it. Thank you so much. Yeah, this is this is good.
SPEAKER_00So how many how many guests do you have on like in a month? Do you do an episode a week? Okay. Are they mostly like around here?
SPEAKER_01Like how do you No, we branch out all over.
Building A Soul-Led Business By Documenting
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we've had peop you know, a lot of them are done by Zoom. Okay. And the ones that are local will, you know, either bring them to a studio or I'll shlep make them schlep to my apartment studio.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um This was nice. This is really nice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is nice. I mean, apologies for the location because of the traffic.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Brooklyn would have been where you get your studio.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay. All right. Thank you, Derek, for joining us on She As where healing meets practical hope. I'm your host, Anna McBride, and until soon, be well.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Is there like a not a dream, but like what do you want to do with this?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll tell you where this came from. So my parents, and I think I told you the story. When my dad first retired, well, let me back up. My dad always wanted to be an actor, but he grew up in the family that he did, and his father told him that actors were, you know, sissies, right? So um my dad went to college for law, but he uh minored in um drama. And his roommate was Ed McMahon, and uh Ed McMahon went his way, right? Ed McMahon was majoring in business. And my dad and Ed McMahon used to do this tech crew for all the plays at Catholic U in Washington, D.C. And um and so my father, when he retired, because he became a um pharmaceutical uh HR VP, uh that was his career, right? Training people, basically education. And um when he retired, he him, my mother and him bought a radio station in Cape May, New Jersey. Yeah. And um and I was just getting out of college and had a lot more free time. And so I um went down and spent the summer, and one of my brothers lived there, and he and I did the midnight to 7 a.m. shift, and we turned it into a jazz radio station, WBNJ, Joy 105.5 FM. This is your host, Anna McBride, doing jazz and all night. And so anyway, we I got to play a little bit of that, and then now it's like a a a fulfillment of that kind of the dream. Wow. Because I always was told I had a voice for radio. For sure, yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, you're and I believe it's deep for a reason. Yeah, for sure. Is there any like guests that you would love to have on here? Like any people?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah. I mean, I would I would I'd love to see people from all kinds of walks of life, but I would I just love good conversations. I I think I could have a really great conversation with uh we see some big personalities, whether that be Oprah or whether that me um I would love to have Ayanla Van Sant. Do you know who she is? She's a very colorful woman from Baltimore who actually was on the coattails of the Oprah
Practical Hope: Permission, Trust, And Safety
SPEAKER_01Network when she first started. And Yanla started this fix your life idea. So she helps people fix their life. She's a lawyer by training, but a a uh evangelical, but she's this very colorful woman. I've done a lot of studying with her.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and so I she's just a colorful character. And uh anyway, I think that would be great. Also, uh Brene Brown, I would love I've I've I've studied with her.
SPEAKER_04Wow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and so, you know, some personalities that have similar ideas, whether it's about mindfulness or about um you know really seeing patterns in people's behavior and and how to kind of really heal these childhood wounds. You know. Um But uh, you know, I don't I I find like it's fascinating. I meet interesting people all the time. And I I always want to get into a conversation with them and I have to I'm learning through you how to sort of like hold back a little bit and reel them in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, keep create curiosity and without giving too much that they it's like uh Costco, right? Yeah. Give them just a little sample, but I'll just have a full. That's right. Yeah. So this is great. You're should be proud of yourself.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I am. I love I love conversation.
SPEAKER_00So I I really, you know, you're really good at holding it and listening and like talking and like I've grown into this version of trusting that I know how to have a conversation.
SPEAKER_01I've been doing it my whole life.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah, you can tell you're you're you're comfortable in who you are. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's the biggest thing I've noticed with you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have become that version. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's showing up also in my storytelling. Like it's really just very natural. Sure. Because just as much as I can ensure that my name will get picked and I get up on that stage, which again, I've told you I've done this for seven years and I've only not been picked five times. Wow. That's I mean, seriously, I was there two weeks ago and my and there were 50 people not picked. Wow. They only picked ten.
SPEAKER_00So when you go into it, you're like, yeah, they're gonna pick me. I know I know it'd be perfect.
SPEAKER_04With your luck, I'm like, how can you transfer that into like getting crazy amount of clients all the way back?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, it'll come. I think I I think there's shifts that are happening. Like when it comes when it comes to the storytelling, I just know I'm gonna be picked, and it's all about telling the story versus winning, right? And um, and so yeah, there's there's definitely something there for clients.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Just gotta find where what is your like like who is it? Who is your client? Who's the fur like who is she? Who is he? Like Right. It's a she. It's a she. Like, what is she? So like I don't I don't do anything. I don't do anything publicly for one-on-one. The last time I did was when we you and I, it was like a little six-week program. Right. I don't do anything publicly. And I started to notice that all of my clients one-on-one are all like very similar. They have this like athletic mind, they were athletes or former athletes. Right. But I never marketed. I never like Yeah. And I realized it's because when I created my avatar of what I wanted my ideal client, this was
Healing As The Basis For Leadership
SPEAKER_00what I wrote out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So now I'm like unconsciously broadcasting this, and when I say things, I don't even realize that I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_01Right. You know, it's funny that you said that because I have this avatar that I've kind of l never shown anybody. I haven't even shown Jennifer, that is about a a really physically fit woman in at this stage of her life. And and it's really how I see myself. Right? It's not how I physically look, but it's how I see myself. Like that. Like I could see myself doing this 29029 thing, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um putting myself out there knowing that it's not a problem. Like people say, why would you do that? And I'm like, why wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think it's that's the that's the person that I find so interesting. It's that kind of client. The ones that can't see themselves the way I secretly see, you know, I don't advertise it, but I see myself that way. Yeah. I've never thought I couldn't do what I really that was the seven-year-old who earned the money to get the bike, to ride herself up that highway to get to swim team practice because she was going to be in the Olympics.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh yeah. You know. So is it told me you used to go cycling? Like Yeah.
SPEAKER_01My favorite way to get through the city, you said drive. No, it's riding a bike.
SPEAKER_00First of all, I can't even imagine biking through here.
SPEAKER_01If it wasn't winter, I would have come here on my bike.
SPEAKER_00Oh. Okay. So there's something, some element around endurance.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_0029029. Like, there's something with you and didn't you do Did you do a photo shoot or something?
SPEAKER_01Remember that photo shoot where they wanted you to to have uh let them erase all the uh stretch marks off my belly. Was it for something like it was a fitness model i in and uh yeah and I said no, so they said okay, goodbye.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I'm just thinking out loud, like what if you thought about like marketing towards like not necessarily female athletes but females who have this athletic mind like yourself. You're an athlete. Yeah, right. On the surface, you may be like, oh well she does something, but like inside you're an athlete, so like everything that you're doing is geared towards that frequency.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And then those women will resonate. Everyone, every person who when you're being who you are, you will naturally attract people who are that's why like now like all my clients are athletic athletes, former athletes, do like they're no like regular people anymore. It's because I've embraced like I just like that's what resonates with me. And now it's just spread out across all different sports. It's not just basketball, it's hockey, it's football, it's this
You’re Right On Time
SPEAKER_00I just think it out loud, like for you, like maybe owning like well that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_01We have just talked about this, about how I I'm I'm shifting from, you know, I so when I first started pursuing this uh line of work, I I have this not only do I have this avatar of this um fitness person, right, athlete, I also have this avatar of this very sexy leather-wearing New York City badass, right? Who uh and I you I have a whole closet full. Leather. In fact, I brought a blue leather skirt that I almost wore. I thought, no. Um anyway, it it's like I have that as well. Yet um I f I found like I was leading with that. And and I and quite frankly, when we get down to the frequency, I have more trouble seeing myself that way than I do seeing myself as the athlete. Sure. And it had all comes down to what I can trust about myself. I've trusted myself to get up and do the workouts, do those three non-negotiables as you've talked about, right? Yeah. And and I've done that forever. Yeah. I haven't always looked at myself in the mirror and said, you know what, you're beautiful. And so that's something I'm new, newly trusting. Yeah. And I find like for it's true for a lot of women, right? We want to have this show, this performer who can show up and and be a badass. Right. Beautiful badass. Yet do we always feel that? Is or is that really just a performance? And I'm going from performer to the authentic version. Like so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like asking yourself, who like who am I like really at the core of me? Like when do I feel the most? And it's is it the athlete?
SPEAKER_01Is it the It's it's it's both in a way. Sure. You know, however, you know, if I had to pick, I'd want to be the athlete. Yeah, yeah. I want to be the person on the bike riding down central, I mean, uh 42nd Street, 7th Avenue, cutting through traffic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's how I've already got it. Thrilling. Does your message or how you talk to the the audio do they see it? Because what's gonna happen is there's gonna be a 40-year-old who's gonna look at you and say, that's who I want to be when I'm her age.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're naturally gonna draw towards you. But if we're like not fully expressing that part of us, they never get to Right.
SPEAKER_01I um I
Redefining Having It All
SPEAKER_01want to say that uh, you know, I I met an 85-year-old woman on a recent retreat. I think she might be 88. She's a book publisher. She was hilarious. She said to me, She said, Who's publishing your book? And so I told her, and she goes, Oh, she's the discount publisher. She goes, When you really want life to be big for you, the TED Talks, the show promo, she goes, You'll come see me. She's 88. I was like, I want to be you. You know what I mean? I mean, she she she at the age of 55 decided to become a book publisher. You know what I mean? And and she's been married three times, and she got, you know, and she has such a great attitude. Yeah. Wow, wow. That's what I want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But you see, like, what are you, 30 years younger than her? Yeah. Well, 20. More or less. Think about you and 30 years younger than you, right who are looking at you like. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't know. Just uh I don't think you realize how much uh weight you carry in terms of like your energy and your presence for younger people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I I do struggle to to own or understand that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're like this trying to think of a character from a movie, like this like the oracle from The Matrix. You're like you have this wisdom in this like you've you've lived life. Like you've experienced, you've gone through divorce, you have kids who are older. You have so you can go to somebody who's 20, 30 years old and say, Okay, here's what to look out for, here's what you have to make sure you start doing now. And really what you're doing is you're talking to you when you were that age.
SPEAKER_01Yes, right. Yeah. Right. Wow. Yeah. Wow, this has been so cool. Yeah, this has been great. Thank you. Thank you for coming. This has been turned out great. Great. Yeah.