Special 300th Episode: Surprises, Satisfaction & a Sprinkle of Regret (Part 1)

We celebrated the 300th episode of the Dynamic Women Podcast. I was joined by a bunch of friends and supporters and I answered their tough questions and vice versa. 

Sharing with you below some of the questions and answers from this recording. 

A recap of the Dynamic Women Podcast

This is the 300th episode. We're in our fifth year. My goal with this podcast is to share my experiences, share my truth about all areas of life for women, a lot of it based on businesswomen and how to have success and be dynamic.

In those years, I've done a lot of personal solo episodes, but I've also brought on amazing guests to do shows with me. Also, we've done panels, and I'm proud to say that we've won five awards. \We were third in the list of top 50 podcasts and Jenna Kutcher was ranked number one. I was pretty proud of that. We're in the top 2.5% of all podcasts. That's the exciting news about the podcast.

Question 1: In your experience, what defines a dynamic woman?

I'm going to just tell you why I chose “Dynamic Woman” as the title. Back in 2013, I started a community called Dynamic Women. We were doing live events across eight different locations.

Then the podcast came from that. Why I chose Dynamic Women is because when I thought I was going to call it Confident Women, I realized, there's going to be a lot of women saying, "I'm not a confident woman, so I can't show up at this event."' 

But it was funny, when I thought of the word “dynamic,” I asked myself, “What does that even mean?” We'll probably get a lot of people saying, “I'm dynamic!” Those are the confident ones, and then the not-confident ones will say, “That sounds cool. Maybe I'm dynamic, I don't know, but it sounds like a cool place to be, and I'm going to meet some great women,” and that's actually what happened.

After you tell me what defines a dynamic woman, I'll tell you what all of these women told me at these events. 

Pamela: “‘Dynamic,’” for me, I mean, just reading the actual definition, constant change, active, you're lively, you're energetic, you're spirited. I think it's a woman who is always on the go and continuously learning and continuously reinventing yourself because to keep up the pace with everything and the way it's going, that's what I see it as.”

Barb: “Similar to Pamela, I went to the definition because I didn't know what “dynamic” meant. I don't know, am I a dynamic woman? I have no idea. Yet, one of the core components of what I talk about and how I help people is about leading people through change and understanding - our lives are filled with change. Everything that we do, if we can't learn how to overcome the change that we have to get through, and we will always be going through change, we can't be successful.

The fact that we're here, whether you are on camera or not, whether you speak or not, the fact that you've shown up in some way says that you've gone through enough change that this is a place that you can be. I think you fill your place with some incredible women that are filled with dynamic abilities.”

Lydia: “I took a little bit of a different approach. I did not look at the definition, but to me, a dynamic woman is a woman who knows herself, knows who she is. She creates her own unique style and lives by that style. She builds a community, and she shares what it is that she has learned that brought her to the place that she's at currently.”

Patricia: “Well, of course, she's a resilient woman, and I love to say, “Know your gifts and give what you can.” A dynamic woman knows what fuels her up, what helps her flourish, and she takes that energy and her gifts, her strengths, her skills, her knowledge, and she gives what she can to make a positive difference in the world.”

The reason why I started Dynamic Women was because I was sick of surface-level networking. When it's like, shake a hand, take a business card, and then you see the person the next week, and they shake your hand, and they give you a business card, and you go, “We met last week,” or you meet people and they're like, “Oh, what do you do? You're a coach?” Oh, and they're looking for the next person to speak to. I was like, forget that. I'm going to start a community where we actually aren't allowed to sell ourselves. We have to meet as who we are, rather than what we do.

By getting to know each other, that know-like-and-trust will happen, and we'll get to know each other in different ways, and then we'll want to do life and business together. 

When I asked at the events, “What makes a dynamic woman?” and all these words were coming at me, it was so interesting to see they were juxtaposed. They're complete opposites: great listener, great communicator, creative, analytical. They're funny. They're thoughtful. We even got really fun ones, like “sassy pants.” I'm like, “Sure, okay!” We have both sides, and there were so many different definitions of who a dynamic woman was that it was so interesting. This happened every single time I opened up a new location.

Karen’s question for me: My first question is around the fact that there's a trend going around with people having coffee with themselves, a younger version of themselves 10 years ago. What would that conversation look like for you? And what’s your biggest regret?

If I can, I'd actually like to go back to the younger version of me, past 10 years because I've been in this business for like 15 years. If it was 10 years, I'd probably say, “Start the podcast sooner.” That's what I would have said to her at that moment. 

Also, my children were young then and I wish I would have said to her, “This is not how life is going to be like. You're just in the trenches now, it will get easier, and you probably have postpartum depression. Go take care of that.” I wish that would have clicked in sooner, but it's hard when you're such a driven high achiever, to be able to not just push through the hard times.

But my biggest regret actually, and this is something I think should be taught in the school system is actually measuring my life according to success. This was a game changer for me. As I was mentioning, high achiever, top performer, pushing always like, “Oh, I can be president of that. I can win that award. I can achieve that.” It wasn't a case of “Will I go to university?” It was “Which one and how many scholarships will I get?” It's always been check-the-boxes, reach the success, and get awards and achievement. That's where my focus went.

Always measuring my life according to success until I hired a life coach. I did the Wheel of Life, and I realized, “No wonder I can't keep life balance between work and life because work is actually just one area.” I now work on a 10-area wheel of life. That was mind-blowing, that, “Oh, it's not about success,” because I was at a moment in my life where I had checked all the boxes, had all the success, was engaged, going to buy a house, doing all the things before I'm 30, great job, all the stuff. I wasn't happy. I was like, “Well, how am I not happy?” Then I felt super bad because it made me seem ungrateful because my life was so successful on paper, and yet I felt like a void.

I won't go into it too much because that'll just wreck the next episode. I'll have nothing left to say, but when I could start measuring life according to satisfaction and look at all 10 areas, I realized, “Wow, I'm not happy in that area, and I'm not happy in that area, and I'm not happy in that area, and that's why I'm unhappy and eating nachos and drinking wine at night” - it was mind-blowing. 

My biggest regret is that I didn't know about that until I was 29, and so if you're right now going, “But I don't know about the life wheel and the 10 areas and measuring my life according to satisfaction.” Okay, so we need to talk, and I'm going to show you, and life's going to be a lot nicer for you.

One piece I also want to add to that is the other thing I realized, and probably what I would tell myself or my younger self, even 10 years ago: Always align yourself according to your values. I don't mean my morals or my faith beliefs and following the Ten Commandments. I don't mean that stuff. I mean my value for things like adventure. I love being a trailblazer, but not the one that's like, “Look at me, I did all these things, and I'm awesome.” More so like, “Hey, I went ahead. I did this thing. Now I'm back with you. I'm going to show you. Here are the steps. Do you want me to walk with you, beside you, behind you, in front of you? Like, I'm going to make it so easy for you.”

I also have a value, which came from the word “challenge.” I like challenge, and challenge came through my sports, my love of sports, and I tore my ACL when I was 28, and so I was unable to play rugby at a competitive level or soccer anymore at a very competitive level. I lost a part of myself, and so I had to bring challenge into my life for fun, to feel alive, and so I wish I had known earlier to really stick with my values, and if I always chase my values, I will always have energy and resonance and happiness. It's when I say yes to things that aren't in my values that I feel dissonance and friction, and it's not fun.

Karen’s follow-up question: Diane, so the follow-up is: the first thing you said was one of the things you would have done sooner is your podcast. How does that podcast relate to your values, the wheel of life that you talked about? How does that all come together?

I'm really excited about this question. Two pieces: So the 1st piece actually is that I love efficiency. That's a value of mine. This podcast helps me with efficiency. 

On the other side, the efficiency actually helps me balance my wheel. Before, I used to do a blog and do a YouTube video and then do all my social media and then do my newsletter, and I did something new for everything. Well, that's stupid because it's not efficient, and you have to do so much work. When I did the podcast, I started to realize this is a repurposing machine.

The podcast is also my YouTube video because I record on video. If you're a podcaster and you're not recording on video, record on video and then use that for something. Then my team now takes the transcription and they make it into my blog. If you've been reading my blog and listening to my podcast and they sound similar, it's because it's the exact same thing. The blog is just cleaned up a little bit because I speak not as well as I guess people write, or my team transcribes it and fixes it, and then I look back and I go, “Why did I say it that way? I'm going to change it.” Then that is turned into the newsletter and turned into all my social media posts. Then the newsletter and the social media posts refer back to YouTube, the blog, and the podcast.

I actually called it Content Multiplication Magic (a program I developed), how to make one piece of content into all these different pieces. Even better if you have a virtual assistant to do it for you. It has given me time back in my life because it's much easier if I'm a speaker first and a writer second - or a writer fifth, I don't even care about writing as much as I do speaking. But for those of you who are writers, you would write first, and then you could read it, and that could be your way of repurposing content and being efficient.

When and where are you most satisfied in your life? 

It's not the success piece. This is satisfaction. Where do you feel that contentment, fulfillment, happiness? Where is that for you? 

For me, a lot of satisfaction comes on the soccer field, and when I tore my lateral meniscus, the orthopedic surgeon looked at me and said, “Do you do this for fun or fitness?” I'm like, “I love it.” He's like, “Okay, then keep doing it. But it's not the smartest.”

Cathy: “Right now, I'm the most satisfied I've been in my life, and it's because I've learned to make decisions based on what I want, what I need, and keeping in mind that if it's not going to either maintain my happiness or increase my happiness, then it probably isn't a good decision. That was where this little guy. He's two and a half now, and I've realized he's 24 pounds, not 20, but he still just wants to be with me. He is my source of exercise. We do a lot of long walks together and gets me outside. I've lost over 30 pounds in two and a half years and gotten fit. It's helped keep my brain clear to focus on my job, focus on my work, and what it is I want and what I'm going to do with it. It’s where I am and what I am doing.

Recently, I moved to Halifax. Since I moved here, I lived out in the country, and just being in the city is a whole different dynamic. It recharges me in a way that I didn't even expect when I made this decision. It was based on the fact that I was having way too many in-person meetings to be commuting 65 kilometers each way, two to three times a week. It was too much, and I said, “Well, here's the financial side of it.” But that's not why I'm doing it. I don't want to spend that much time away from home. I don't want that. I don't want to come home and be exhausted. As much as I love the dog, I'm exhausted. I have to make supper. I have to do laundry. I have to take the dog for a walk. I probably have taken him for two walks. I just didn't want that stuff in my life. I wanted the simple life, much simpler, much clearer. Lots of outside time, lots of opportunities to network and start to build my profile more here in Nova Scotia. I had one in BC, but not so much here yet. So that's all the things that are starting to happen, because the dynamic has changed.”

The thing that I'm hearing from Cathy is that she looked at “Where am I not satisfied? What am I not happy about? I'm going to do something about it.” That's what’s important around measuring your life according to satisfaction, rather than measuring your life according to success. I've worked with people who have, on purpose, taken demotions instead of promotions, in order to have the lifestyle they wanted or worked one day less a week and maybe made a little bit less money, but they were fine with that. Even better, if you can do both - make more money and work less. 

Paula: “I was really thinking about satisfaction, so I'm glad you asked this. When you were talking about your own striving for success, and it just really allowed me to reflect that it's that shifting away from success to satisfaction has allowed me to blossom more. I think that's what I would say, and to really refine what it is that allows me to flourish. I think that is the key because success to me just - we're just constantly on that little hamster wheel, but in satisfaction, allows you to take a step back and sit in what it is that's surrounding you, and what it is that allows you to flourish and really, really understand I think the deeper points of yourself through satisfaction.”

I love the word “flourish.” That's what we're wanting, right? We want to flourish in our lives. We don't want to be like ho-hum, every day is the same, and life sucks. That's why I actually created the ReIGNITE program, because when I lost my spark thankfully, my friend called me out and was like, “You lost your spark.” I definitely wasn't flourishing on the inside. I was flourishing on the outside, and then my face had to keep up appearances with “Everything's good,” but that's not how things are.

Lydia: “It's interesting the last several years, I have put myself in a place where I move around a lot, like last year, for example, I went to Australia twice. I stayed for three months at a time, and that was part of me developing that I have to be satisfied and know who I am no matter where I'm at. It's not being responsive to what's going on around me. It comes from within me. I feel satisfied because I can be in that place no matter where I go."

That's goals, everyone. You can be satisfied no matter where you are. I went to a conference, and  a lot of the people attending were complaining about everything and blah, blah, blah, complaining, complaining about this speaker and that speaker and this abstract not matching, and all this. I was just like, “We can be in this place of dissatisfaction and annoyance and frustration and anger, or we can be like, what's one golden nugget that I'm going to learn from this person?” It made me think about how we're in control of our own state. 

Sandrine: “I am more satisfied when I'm being productive. I can be very happy doing nothing like I do lots of dog sitting. I have my happy moment. But to be satisfied, I need to be busy and productive. I only get satisfaction, I think, from that, whether it is from cleaning the house or helping someone or planning, but I think productivity - and people shouldn't know “Oh, you work too much, or you move too much, or you can't relax.” I really take a lot of pleasure and satisfaction by being on the move, and as happy as I can be doing nothing, to really be truly in my element, I need to get things done.”

I think that's the key thing Sandrine is bringing up is knowing what makes you happy. That's the hardest question when I talk to audiences when I'm speaking, or even when I was in a professional women's group, and we were waiting for the event to start. I asked, “What do you want?” They were like, “What do I want for lunch?” I'm replied, “No, what do you want in life?”  “Oh, I don't know. I never really thought of that. I don't know, a bigger house, more vacation.” ​

A lot of times, people come to me and they confess, “I don't know what I like to do or want. I have all this time off, and I haven't booked it because I don't even know what I would do with the time if I'm not working.” 

Pamela: “I love to sing. I love to connect with people. Writing and also my podcast, I love that. I love interviewing people and having them share their story. I love to hear how they took their power back when they went through scenarios, but that connection with people and just really helping others. If it can involve music, I love that too. That really fulfills me.”

Rochelle’s question for me: How do you GROW into being a leader?

First, the leadership part for me comes around having a really high work ethic, commitment, and doing what's right. I think of my times when I was younger. When I was chosen as captain of the teams, no matter the sport, I was often the captain, president of clubs, and president of Student Council. Then, when I grew up and was doing all this stuff, I had a very high work ethic.

In soccer, I would be there first, and I'd be already ready and warming up. I would be doing all the drills to the top of my ability. I had to be the top because I'm like, “If I'm going to be your captain, I need to be able to run further, farther, faster.” I would train on my own, and I did a lot of things to raise my own bar so that I could then expect others to raise their bar. Because if I wasn't going to do it, why would they do it?

Then also looking at “How can I empower others?” That was probably one of the lessons that I learned and it was news to me that not everyone could do what I could do, or as quickly as I could do it. This sounds a bit egotistical now that I'm sharing that. But I was surprised. I was very surprised because things did come easily to me. 

When I moved up in my company pretty quickly. I was everyone's friend until I was promoted. Then all of a sudden, people don't want to be your friend anymore when you're evaluating them. I had to keep up the small talk. That's the hardest for me, when growing into being a leader. Because I just like, “Let's get it done.” What I realized too is because I can think of like 20 things, and then I implement the things, and then I'm like, “Oh, it's easy,' and blah, blah, blah.” But it's not for a lot of people, it wasn't. I had to realize that I had to share with people like this level and then this level and then this level, but I get so excited, and I'm like, “But here's the whole thing and all that,” and people get overwhelmed.

What I realized is to be a great leader I had to go back to when the teacher sat me beside the struggling kid, I had to remember to share at their level and then help them to build their confidence and not to focus on making it perfect. In business in general as well - make it be easy for them to replicate. The more I made everything look perfect, the more people felt they couldn't achieve what I achieved.

I had to learn to turn up the vulnerability, because people think, “Oh, you're so perfect. Everything comes easy to you.” But the reality is, “No, I've had this trouble and this struggle and this and this.” I think the other part of me being a leader was sharing enough of my vulnerability that people thought, “Okay, I could do that.” An audience member yelled, “That gives me hope!” I asked, “What do you mean?” She goes, “You showed me that video of you in the beginning, you sucked. Now look at you. That gives me hope that I can do the same.” And I was like, “Oh, thanks - I think!” Haha!

When I learned how to share my vulnerability, not as a weakness, and to show my imperfection, that's when I really became a good leader. 

Then the last thing I need to share is “Eat humble pie and make small talk.” Yeah, I have to do that. 

I feel like I need to do a whole episode on that question. That's a good one, and it actually leads me into a side note here. We're putting out “Dynamic Women Leadership Secrets,” launching in—or being published and available at the end of May. 

A special shoutout to our guests: 

• Barb Stuhlemmer
• Catherine Deluca
• Karen Ta
• Lydia Burchell
• Mandy Rushton
• Pamela McClure Duran
• Patricia Morgan
• Paula Kent
• Rochelle Odesser
• Sandrine Ramoisy

Wrapping Up

Reaching the 300th episode of the Dynamic Women Podcast is a milestone I’m truly grateful for. It’s been an incredible journey filled with insightful conversations, powerful stories, and invaluable lessons.

This was just part one of the episode, so go to the next blog for the rest of the questions!

If you have a topic, question, or story idea you'd love to hear on the podcast, I’d love to know! Feel free to reach out at [email protected]. If you haven’t yet, I’d truly appreciate it if you could leave a review of the Dynamic Women Podcast. When you do, send a screenshot along with your mailing address to [email protected]—I have a little surprise waiting for you!

Read part 2 here.

Diane

Read my other blogs:

1. Why High Achievers Self-Abandon—And How to Stop
2. The Happiness Mistake Successful Women Make
3. 6 Reasons Why High-Achievers Often Feel They Need to Do or Be More to Feel Valued