242 MINISODE Debbi Dachinger: Ask and Receive

Debbi Dachinger is a visibility expert who helps her clients dare to dream bigger and get on stages and TV.  She shares her advice about why asking for help can make us feel so uncomfortable, and why real growth (personal and business) comes from pushing through our resistance. Debbi, host of the syndicated radio show Dare To Dream, shares what is inspiring her and how to think positively abut resistance.

Melinda Wittstock:         Debbi, welcome to Wings.

Debbi Dachinger:             Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:         I am excited to talk to anyone who dares to dream. So I want to start by asking you what’s inspiring you right now?

Debbi Dachinger:             Growth. That really is kind of huge for me, and it’s pretty specific growth. It’s not just, oh getting bigger and more exponential. It is really specific like were it feels like fun, where it feels like I want to play and I haven’t been before, where I know my soul is meant to be, and I’m moving into more fully. So those types of growth. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         I love that. I mean, as we grow personally our businesses grow and hopefully the growth of our businesses help us grow personally as well and how beautiful. And so along the way, along the path we all have challenges. And I’m always keen to demystify those or de-stigmatize them rather, because they’re part of the territory for any entrepreneur, any woman in business. We all have challenges and there often the thing that makes us grow. So what are some of yours right now?

Debbi Dachinger:             There are three off the top of my head and those three are time as in management, my puppy as in if I didn’t care for her when I am growing and going out and into the world and doing these things and the third one which is literally something I’m exploring this week is resistance. Yeah and the fun thing about resistance, of course, resistance isn’t fun at all, right, ’cause it’s just basically us against ourselves and I have decided that a lot of my resistance is basically an illusion which I believe it is anyway.

You know I’ve made a decision about something and so for me personally, I get overwhelmed. I get overwhelmed because I tend to have a pretty nicely size to-do list and there are times that I have a really big project and I’ll just feel like, “I can’t even … I don’t even want to deal with it.” And I’ll put if off and put it off, and then, of course, what it creates is a lot more stress for me because I know I’m putting it off and it has to get handled, so I am playing with resistance right now.

I’m changing the story and saying, “What if it actually is the easiest thing on my list to do?” And I handle it. So I’ve been starting to do that and I found, Melinda, doing that, that 97% of the time that thing that I’ve decided is going to be so overwhelming and so much work and so hard to get through is actually very quick. And I handle it and it’s done. The other 3% of the time I just fight it. It actually is still a bit of a project and more than I would have liked to have tackled but it still needs to be done. Nonetheless, I don’t want resistance to keep limiting me and stopping me.

So I’m playing with that and I’ve even been telling my clients, you know who have issues with that and they use for procrastination. And they’ve been playing with it too, and they often find, “Oh, this is actually a lot of fun. This wasn’t so hard. This was very enjoyable and I might do that again.”

Melinda Wittstock:         I love this concept of resistance and always how you’re approaching it, Debbi, because so often it really is in our head, right? And so-

Debbi Dachinger:             Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:         … how to just be conscious and in the moment, in those opportunities, ’cause I see them as opportunities to think, “Oh, I don’t need that any more. I can just let that go. Release it.”

Debbi Dachinger:             You know it’s funny that you say that because I actually think that this was a received behavior much more than an indigenous behavior. I grew up with a mother who was overwhelmed by almost everything. And frankly, she still is. She behaves very much from that space. And so I think I watched it. I also think I rejected it you know? So it became sort of a shadow thing. I was able to see it in her and think it didn’t exist in me but I found the older and wiser I get, oh no, there but for the grace of God go I, and then the apple didn’t fall too far, I definitely learned how to employ it.

But it’s really unattractive. I think it’s unattractive when you deal with somebody like that and it’s really unattractive to live like that and you use such a beautiful word, Melinda. You said, “It’s actually an opportunity,” and I have found that to be so. It’s always the places and spaces where I want to play and I want to grow into that I have a tendency to resist and it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. So I think this is that statement you hear often, it’s actually the good fear, where this fear sometimes, that’s where you walk into ’cause that’s where the jewels are.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yeah, so what a perfect segue into the advice section of the Minisode. I’m going to ask you Debbi to give your top three go-to pieces of advice for any female founder or entrepreneur or woman in business, some of the things that you’ve learned along the way and want to pass on now: Your one, and your two, and your three.

Debbi Dachinger:             I think the most important thing anybody can do, is to ask for what we need. I really do. I have learned that the worst anybody could say is no. And that’s not so bad, right. I just move on and figure out another way to get it or ask somebody else. My experience is that I often, often get a yes. And sometimes a hell yes! It’s happened recently. I’m putting up anthology book. I’ve got some great relationships in the world and I was able to go to some pretty big names and say, “Would you be willing to write an endorsement for the book?” And boom, boom, boom, 10 out of 10, all said, “Yes, we’re in.” And they wrote beautiful endorsements.

So wherever it is, ask for what you need. I would say networking. The relationship aspect of business today, without a real relationship, is just not going to work, right? So you have to develop those kind of reciprocal things but also really show up for people, get to know people, have that kind of comfort with people. And when they know and like you, people are going to really go out of their way to recommend you or work with you.

Melinda Wittstock:         Debbi, what do you say about relationship is so important because people don’t buy anything unless they know you, like you, trust you and sometimes women, you know, we work so hard on that big task list, keep our heads down and we forget to do the thing that we’re ironically best at, which is creating great relationships. So thank you so much for mentioning that. That’s so important. What about advice number three?

Debbi Dachinger:             Well this is sort of an ‘and’ rather than an ‘or’: I recommend and the way I try to do my entrepreneurship, is have big plans. I have to always be heading somewhere new and big and learn how to say no. I’ve been employing that a lot this year. And sometimes it looks like opportunities that I’m having to say no to but I there’s no, no then I can’t have the big yes, the big plan come. I have to have space and capacity for the big stuff to happen. So have big plans, take action to the big plans, be willing to do these big, awesome things ’cause they’re amazing dreams and then know that saying no actually creates space.

Melinda Wittstock:         Yes. That’s true. If it’s not a hell yeah, it’s a no. And creating space is so, so important because if you don’t have any space you can’t welcome anything new into your life. You just end up on the same, in the same place. You’ve got to actually, it’s like a got to create some empty space in your closet if you want to put some new things in there, right?

Debbi Dachinger:             Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:         So what a great, great advice. Thank you so much. And so you do amazing things in the world, helping people get known, get their voices heard, get their messages out there. How can people find you and work with you, Debbi?

Debbi Dachinger:             Well my website is the best place and it is my name. It’s debbidachinger.com and I’m sure on Melinda, on her page there is somewhere in the podcast that it’s D-E-B-B-I no e, D-E-B-B-I and Dachinger is D as in David A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R.com and I do a lot of wonderful media work out into the world and help people write a book, take their book to a guaranteed international bestseller and get interviewed and booked on podcast and radio shows.

Melinda Wittstock:         Wonderful. Well thank you so much for putting on your Wings and flying with us.

Debbi Dachinger:             Thank you.