806: How to Get Unstuck and Achieve Your Goals with Dominique Henderson

Pete Mockaitis
Dom, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Dominique Henderson
Thank you, Pete. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat about some insights from your book Assess, Address, and Adjust: A Practical Guide to Becoming Unstuck and Achieving Your Goals. Could you kick us off with your favorite, the best-est unstuck story that you got?

Dominique Henderson
Well, I got a lot of those. The best-est one would probably be…so, I really figured that I married up. I’ve been married to my bride for 25 years now. And one of the things that she taught me or told me as an observation, when I first started my business about six years ago, was that, “Hey, so you’re a financial advisor,” and I’m like, “Yeah,” and she’s like, “And you’re hiding behind your podcast, not showing your face, and you’re trying to get people to trust you with their money.” And I was like, “Whoa, that’s a really good insight.”

And so, even that right there helped me get unstuck because I think some of the things that we realize, and I’ve realized in coaching people, is that getting out of our own head and unlearning things that we maybe perhaps we’ve been comfortable with, or other people have told us, but just getting that outside perspective, I think, is really, really one of the foundational truths of what I’m trying to convey in this book. And that’s probably my favorite story about being unstuck. It started with me.

Pete Mockaitis
And did it work out? You got your face out there? Did that bring in the clients?

Dominique Henderson
Somewhat. I got my face out there, maybe a little bit too much.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s a good-looking mug, Dom. You got that going for you.

Dominique Henderson
I appreciate that, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell me, as you’re doing your research and putting together Unstuck, was there any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discovery you made along the way?

Dominique Henderson
So, we have to go kind of back a little. So, Unstuck is the product of a couple of things. The first is probably, if I’m just being really honest and transparent, my own selfish ambition to be, like, I want to be a writer. I’ve got a lot of stuff in me. And the pandemic afforded us some, of course, unfortunate things but also, with me particularly, the luxury of time, if you will, and to reflect.

And what I was noticing as a financial advisor, as well as a coach and consultant to financial advisors, and at least aspiring financials professionals, is there kept on resurfacing this theme, Pete, of people feeling like they had not reached their life’s potential, they were not living out their lives’ purpose, they were not fulfilling what they felt like they were on this earth to do.

And as I kept having those conversations, it kind of dawned on me when I was sharing those with my wife and just peers in my mastermind, is that I actually had some pretty good frameworks for working out what I would call where people were, which was this stuck place, to become unstuck. And so, that was the genesis, is really the pandemic. That was a blessing for me because it gave me a lot of time to reflect on those conversations, and actually put some things into action to help people.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, so then could you lay it on us then, what’s sort of the big idea or main thesis if there’s an actionable takeaway you got to remember? What is it?

Dominique Henderson
Yes. So, let’s just start with the title and then we can kind of dig a little further. So, assess, address, and adjust to achieve is a framework that I’ve used for quite some time. It is not just because I like iteration and I like the letter A. It was just because when you think about a problem that you have, let’s just look at weight. A lot of people may not be happy with how they look. They look in the mirror, and they go, “Man, Dom, you could do better. You could look better. What about those six-pack abs that you want?”

Well, first, I have to kind of assess my situation. I have to see where I am relative to where I want to be. Now, we may introduce a scale into the situation because it’s a pretty objective measure for where I am and where I want to go. And then I have to address, I have to say, “Okay, based on what I’m looking at, I want to do something about this. I need to address the situation.”

And then I move on into adjust. That means behavior-wise, I can decide to diet, I can decide to work out, I can decide to do both. I can hire a gym buddy or whatever. And that’s the way that I achieve the goal that I want. So, I think when we look at a problem or a set of problems, whatever we’re doing, that’s the rubric that I’ve kind of laid out to kind of dissect what stage you’re at in relation to getting to the end result that everybody wants when it comes to fixing a problem.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s say the problem we’re finding in our careers is that we’re just not feeling it. We’ve lost our mojo, Dom. I used to be fired up and energized, and now I’m just kind of ho-hum. And I’m wondering, do I need to find something else? I don’t know. If we find ourselves in that place, how do you recommend we work through this assess, address, adjust bit?

Dominique Henderson
Yeah, I think I’m always a big fan of Gay Hendricks’ The Big Leap, that zone of genius part. What do you like and what do you love to do? Start there. What was it about the job that originally attracted you to that? And if you were to just kind of assess where you are right now, what about the job is not so exciting?

I think a lot of times it’s easy for us as humans to kind of look outside of ourselves for answers to what we may be feeling as a problem or reason that we’re stuck. But then to kind of say, “Hey, Dominique,” let’s just use my own personal example. So, I’ve been in financial services for 22 years now, and six years ago, approximately, I was in this really successful firm from all the metrics and stuff you do in this industry but I was not, like, really liking the rat race. Like, I was, to your point, like my mojo was gone. I wasn’t motivated to go to work. I was just like, “Ahh, I got to go through this again today.”

And my wife was noticing this behavior in me and we were talking about it, and she was like, “Well, maybe you need to start your own. Like, if you feel so strongly about the way financial services should be rendered, maybe you need to do your own.” So, I think people need to start with those questions about, “Hey, this is where I originally was thinking about this job or how I was thinking about this job, and it’s moved away. Maybe I’ve changed, maybe the job has changed, maybe the career, the industry has changed.” Do an evaluation on that and get back to what you like or what you love to do.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, when we do that evaluation, one bit is thinking about our zone of genius, what I really love, what’s important to me. Any other key steps in that evaluation?

Dominique Henderson
Oh, yeah, yeah. Plenty. So, I think the first part of this, and we talked about this in the book, are these three pillars that I think all success is kind of placed on. If you kind of think about this as a three-legged stool, you have your perspective, you have your programming, you have your process.

So, your perspective is just kind of your outlook, your north star, your philosophy in life. Like, how do you view things? Are you a glass half full guy or are you a glass half empty? What is it that kind of gives you how you view the world?

I think that first has to be a very, very healthy spot because, sometimes, we can, and I talk about this also, we can sabotage ourselves because we are too pessimistic, we may be a little bit too cynical about the situation, or we’re just the victim all the time. So, your perspective needs to be healthy. And I think, when we’re talking about a career situation, especially with how the pandemic has changed things, we went from being around people possibly, and interacting, and having all this feedback, if you will, to now we’re remote working, or we’re going to the office two times a week or something like that.

So, perspective is really, really good to kind of revisit to make sure that you’re coming at your particular problem and this goal that you’re trying to achieve, or wherever you’re trying to go, looking at it the right way. And, sometimes, Pete, we may have to employ other people. We may have to ask a wife or a spouse or somebody close to us that doesn’t have as much bias that we may have, looking at our own situation. So, I think that’s the beauty about perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. And then you actually have a full-blown 30-day blueprint for approaching this stuff. any key actions then that pop up along the 30 days that are really transformational for folks?

Dominique Henderson
Yeah, I think, so as we go back to the three pillars, let’s revisit that. We take about 10 days or so to deal with your perspective. We take about 10 days or so to deal with your program. And we take about 10 days to deal with your process. So, your perspective, obviously, is your outlook, and that’s how we talk about that.

Your program is kind of how you run things. So, when I say run things, think about an operating system to a computer or an engine to a car. Like, you’ve got to have a way that you take your human capital, your purpose, your will, your relation, all that kind of stuff, and translate it into the world as some type of productive thing.

If you’re not doing that, it’s going to be really, really, really hard to achieve goals because the only way that the world really works is in exchange of value, so that’s your program. And then your process is you really need to have an organized system on how you’re going to spend your time. It may be, you like…I can name some things but there’s, like, the Getting Things Done method by David Allen, or Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain. There’s all these different systems that kind of organize your thoughts and how you’re going to spend your time and how you’re going to, basically, be valuable and show up in the world.

So, what the blueprint is doing is concentrating some time on different points along that journey and affirming you as you go through there. So, one big insight, I think, that most people don’t really incorporate in their lives that I’ve seen particularly powerful is accountability. And having someone that knows your situation well enough that can tell you, “Hey, Pete, I know you said you were going to do this.”

“You said you were going to do a hundred podcasts this year, and you’re only at 50, and there’s two weeks left in the year. So, let’s assess right now whether or not that was a realistic goal and if this is something you can achieve. But, as your buddy, I really want you to get to this because you said all these good things, yadda, yadda, yadda, that was going to come from it and now you didn’t achieve it. So, how are we going to fix that?”

So, it’s really, really crucial, I believe, to have that in your life, and sometimes it doesn’t feel good. Like, rarely does it feel good if it’s done the right way because they’re noticing things about you that could be defined as blind spots in your life. So, I think that’s one thing that I like in the 30-day blueprint that, if people do it, I think it will work for them, but often, like I said, it can be difficult because it’s not the most comfortable thing.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Yeah, I’m huge on accountability and just the power of when you commit to someone else, suddenly it’s real-er and it’s not make-believe in your head. It’s entered reality and you’re going to have to talk to somebody about it.

Dominique Henderson
Well, here’s a cool story. So, my wife was in education for 10 years, and most recently as an administrator at a public school, and she decided to leave her job as of January this year. And when we were just kind of going back and forth about the different ideas and her talent and her skill stack and all this kind of stuff, I was like, “You should really consult and kind of use some of the classroom management you used in your career for teachers because teachers are just struggling with that, educators are struggling with that.”

And I told her, I was like, “One of the first ways to do that, I mean, the easiest way is just to get on social media and just do this.” And so, I challenged her, I was like, “Do what I do with all my consulting and coaching clients. Get out there on social media and post something every day for 30 days.” Well, she went beyond and did it for 54 days, and she went from zero to, like, 36,000 followers on TikTok, so she really went at it. But the point is I was her accountability, I was like, “Hey, this is what I think you should do. I’m going to hold you to it,” and she’s like, “Yeah, this is a good idea.” And she went with it, and it worked for her.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right. Well, so we’ve assessed things, we’ve got some accountability. Any other transformational approaches when we’re looking to make a shift?

Dominique Henderson
Yeah, I think, one, and this is not a subtle thing necessarily in the book. It’s very pronounced. We talk about this also, which is vision. I think vision is so important. When I’m sitting down with a wealth management client or somebody that’s trying to get into the financial services industry, the first thing I talk about is, “What’s your why? Like, why are you doing this?”

In the case of a wealth management client, like, “Why do you want to save a lot of money?” “Because I want to retire.” “Okay, why do you want to retire for?” “Well, because I want to spend more time with the kids.” “Okay. Well, you know, you can actually spend more time with your kids without retiring. We don’t need a pile of money to do that. We can really think about the things that are important to us.”

And one of the questions I always ask is, “Why is money important to you? Like, what is it going to afford?” And so, getting back to our why, one thing I know, Pete, is that as a kid, I used to dream a lot. Like, I used to think I could be anything. I didn’t really have these self-limiting beliefs. I didn’t have boundaries on where I can go in my mind. But then “reality” sets in as an adult and I dream less.

So, I think one of the things that I really implore people to do is to dream more, like have a vision for where you want to go in life, and really define your why. I think it helps so much on the journey. It’s not going to be roses all the time. You’re going to have some difficulties there. But I think the vision, having that north star, if you will, really, really invigorates you to be the best that you can, and show up the best person you can.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, Dom, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear some of your favorite things?

Dominique Henderson
I think one of the things that I was thinking about when I wrote this is I really wanted people to finish this book with the idea that “I can.” I really wanted them to literally remove from their vocabulary that “I cannot.” Because from “I cannot” comes so many negative things. But, really, to have “I can” and here’s the deal.

“I can” may take some time. More than likely, it will. You may have to develop a new skill. You may have to become a different person than you currently are. But to eradicate from your vocabulary that “I cannot” was really one of the things that I think motivated me to finish this and to get this in people’s hands.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Beautiful. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Dominique Henderson
So, “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” That’s one thing that comes to mind. I think that was attributed to Henry Ford, if I’m not mistaken.

The other one is, and I think they get the attribution on this wrong, but I think it’s Mark Twain, the one I know, which is, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you think you know for sure that’s just not so.” And I think sometimes the fact of unlearning something is so much more difficult than learning something new. And challenge yourself. I do this all the time because I challenge myself to unlearn concepts that don’t benefit me anymore.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Dominique Henderson
I like Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain. I think this is a really interesting notion for knowledge workers in today’s time because I have always been the type of person that collects information like artifacts. But before I came across his work, I was not really great at being able to retrieve what I knew, and that was because I was trying to use my brain to do it.

Just like I don’t use my brain to remember phone numbers, I use my cellphone, he has a really, really interesting framework, which I mentioned in my book also, about building a repository that allows you to retrieve information really, really quickly. So, it may be Evernote for some, it may be some other type of software that you use, but the framework that he has around it is, I think, excellent and probably would serve most people well.

So, that would be something to kind of look into if you’re one of these people that collects a lot of information, and you’re always, like, “Where did I put so and so?” whether it’s in a digital or a physical form.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Dominique Henderson
I’ve been reading a lot about The Infinite Banking Concept by R. Nelson Nash. So, just recently, I finished Killing Sacred Cows by Garrett Gunderson, but I’ve always got a lot of stuff on my nightstand. Favorites would probably have to go along the Andy Andrews. He’s a very favorite author of mine. I love The Noticer. I’ve read it a couple different times. Do I get another favorite?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure.

Dominique Henderson
Okay. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. I love that one. I read that a couple times. So, usually, when it gets in my rolodex, like, the second or third time, it means that it’s pretty significant.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Dominique Henderson
Oh, man, I couldn’t live without Evernote. Evernote is my go-to of just kind of brain capture. So, if you kind of think about the thousands of ideas that run through your mind every day, how do you keep track of those? Some of them, obviously, don’t need to be written down. But for the majority of those that, or at least for creatives like myself, you’ll have something that you need to come back to later, and Evernote is kind of like my go-to because I can get to it pretty quickly as long as I have my phone, which I do always.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Dominique Henderson
I don’t think it’s a vice. This would be qualified as a vice but I love, probably three to four times a week and maybe more if I’m honest, a nice glass of red wine.

Pete Mockaitis
Got you. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; you hear them quote it back to you frequently?

Dominique Henderson
Choose your version of hard. I think we have a lot of agency and more choice than we give ourselves credit for or sometimes wiling to admit, but we get to choose our version of hard. A lot of things are hard. Most things in life that are worth having are hard. Choosing your version of hard is probably something that I’ve heard more often than not, especially inside of my community.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Dominique Henderson
I would point them to DomHendersonSr, as in like senior, dot com. DomHendersonSr.com is the kind of hub for everything. You can get to the wealth management side of the stuff that I do. You can also get to the podcast, blog, and all the other fun stuff there too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Dominique Henderson
Yeah, I would say don’t be so preoccupied, if I can use that word, with what others are doing. I think one of the problems that I’ve had, just personally speaking and being transparent, with my growth over the last six years as an entrepreneur, at first, I was way too concerned about what others were doing, and particularly comparing myself to others.

And so, I think comparing yourself to others is a recipe for failure. From a notion of replicating, duplicating what is already working somewhere, I totally get that. But I think where I took it, and where most humans take it, is “They do that better than me and I’ll never be able to be as good as they are at that particular thing.” People look at my podcast or my YouTube channel, and they go, “Dom, I can’t do video like that.” I’m like, “Well, you can start. You can start somewhere.”

So, get out of your head about comparing yourself with people. Stay in your own lane and be awesome at what you do, not what Pete does, or what Dom does, or what somebody else does. Be awesome at what you do.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Dom, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck and minimal time being stuck.

Dominique Henderson
Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.