714: How to Find Success and Purpose with Tanya Dalton

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

Tanya Dalton
I’m so happy to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, me, too. We’re happy to have you back. And I’m curious to hear, any pretty noteworthy discoveries you’ve made over the last two years you think that might help people be awesome at their jobs? Let’s just get that right up front at the top.

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, let’s just go for it, shall we? Let’s just start it right away. Yeah, I’ve been on quite a journey for sure for the past couple of years. I had the Joy of Missing Out come out two years ago at this point, and have had a lot of things happen to my life, notwithstanding my name change. I changed my name. I have a new book coming out. I have a kid who went to college. Lots of things, lots of shifts in my life.

You and I were chatting before we went live here, and talked about, “Okay, you changed your name. It’s kind of a big thing. It’s kind of a big deal.” And it really is especially when you have a book come out with your other name. So, my name just changed the spelling, T-O-N-Y-A, to T-A-N-Y-A, still pronounced the same, but we were talking about it and it was really important to me to really signify that I’ve been on a journey, that I’ve changed who I am spiritually, emotionally, in a lot of ways have done a lot of deep work.

And I was mentioning to you, what’s good about changing my name is this is something that a lot of cultures do. It opens up the door for conversation to talk about things like this, “Oh, you went and you did some deep work mentally.” And, for me, it really was wanted to signify that to the whole world that I’ve changed who I am and I think I’ve changed for the better and I think, because of all that I went through, I was able to write an even better book, for this new book, that’s come out On Purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
And I know in the book, there are some themes there associated with taking a look at the past and such. So, it’s called On Purpose: The Busy Woman’s Guide to an Extraordinary Life of Meaning and Success. Now, Tanya, I presume men can also find value on having an extraordinary life of meaning and success.

Tanya Dalton
Oh, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good. Good.

Tanya Dalton
Men also need an extraordinary life as well. Most of my writing is really focused and narrowed in on women because, let’s be honest, Pete, for hundreds of years, books have been written for men. And we, as women, we’ve read those books and we make it work for us, and it’s the same thing here. This book is written for women but it absolutely applies to men.

Pete Mockaitis
Men will make it work there.

Tanya Dalton
You can read it too. I think that a lot of people can get a lot out of this book. I think it has the ability to allow everyone to see that they have an extraordinary life just waiting for them.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, would you say that’s the core thesis here, everybody has an extraordinary life just waiting for them or how would you articulate kind of the big idea?

Tanya Dalton
Oh, absolutely. I think that we think that extraordinary is this thing that we have to claw and scratch to fight to achieve, and an extraordinary life is just waiting for us. Living on purpose isn’t about changing who you are. It’s rising up and becoming the best version of you. It’s really about looking out beyond today and seeing a brighter tomorrow and then making strides each and every day to get to that tomorrow, to that vision we want for ourselves.

[03:22]

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that all sounds pretty cool. Could you make it all the more concrete for us with an inspiring story of someone who did just that?

Tanya Dalton
Yeah. Well, I love that question because, honestly, me, in my journey, is a perfect example of, really, shifting and changing who you are. In the book, we go through four different sections. We go through reflection, projection, action, and alteration. And what’s beautiful about this is they all weave together so intentionally, and I know they have in my life.

I think that reflection is such an important part of growth. It really is, that we have to look backwards in order to move forward, in that when we take the time to dive into who we were, to see how far we’ve come, we understand how far we can go, and we understand what’s possible. And I know, for me, in my own life, I’ve seen this manifest in numerous ways, in numerous times.

We talked about my name change. That was certainly one of those times. But when I closed my first business and made the decision to open up inkWELL Press Productivity Co., that was definitely me making a very intentional choice to shift and move into what I was really meant to do. I started my first business in 2008, and I started with $50, and it was just a little side business that I was doing, selling to friends, maybe friends of friends. And I had a moment where I was on a phone call with my husband.

He was doing marketing for Fortune 500 companies at the time, and he would buy a ticket called the Round the World ticket where, literally, he would leave our home in Dallas and he would fly all the way around the planet, come back to the other side, so he’d be gone for three or four weeks at a time. And we had a conversation where I was telling him all the things that the kids were doing, they were really small at the time. And he said, “I’m missing everything. I’m missing all the moments. I’m missing all the milestones. I’m missing everything.” And I said, “No, no, no, you’re not.” And he said, “No, I am.”

And I hang up the phone that night and I made a big decision in my kitchen that night, that this girl with a ponytail, with $50 that she started her business with, no business experience, was going to grow that business to the point where it could absorb my husband’s MBA income and he could come work alongside of me, so we could have that lifestyle freedom that would allow him to be a part of the kids’ life, more a part, which is what he was really wanting.

So, I sat down, I created some plans for myself, I sketched out some systems, and it was about a year I made that happen. So, he and I started working together in 2009. It was great.

Pete Mockaitis
One year. It’s pretty quick. From fifty bucks to two income size in one year. That’s well done.

Tanya Dalton
Thank you. Well, I think this is a thing, it really is about choosing and then I had that to work towards. That’s me looking bigger than today. That’s me looking at tomorrow, “Where is it I want to go?” I knew at the time I wanted him to come and work alongside me, or rather across the desk from me, which is where he still is, and have this life for ourselves.

So, that gave me the motivation I needed to dig in and figure out what it is I need to do next. And that’s what I really think is so important, is understanding where it is you want to go. So, it was great because then he and I started working together and we loved that. But then in 2013, I looked at him and said, “I love you. I love working with you, but I don’t love what we’re doing.” That big goal that I had of getting him to work alongside me, I was ready for something else. I was ready for something bigger.

I knew that I wanted to make a bigger impact, and what we were creating together with that business wasn’t it for me. It wasn’t hitting those buttons of what I was truly passionate about, what I really wanted to do in the world. I used to be a teacher and so I’m really big on influencing and impacting other people’s lives, teaching and helping others grow.

So, he said, “Okay, what do you want to do?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I have no idea.” So, I had to do a little reflection, I had to get my little Marty McFly time machine, go back in time and reflect back on, “What is it I want to do? What am I passionate about? How do I figure out what it is I want to do when I have no idea? How is this going to work?”

So, I did that, I did this process of reflection. I tried to find activities and exercises to dive into it myself but nobody seemed to have anything that would work for me. And out of that reflection process, which we can dive more into if you want to, but I found that there were really three things that I am truly passionate about.

I’m truly passionate about teaching. I have always been a teacher even when I was like eight years old. I was teaching and educating and I love watching lightbulbs light up in people’s eyes. I love empowering women and I love productivity. I love structuring things and systematizing things. That’s how I was able to grow that business, that first business, and able to really make that work for our family.

So, through that process of reflection, I realized, “Oh, this is what I want.” So, reflection tells us why, why we want what we want, “This is what I’m passionate about.” So, then we have projection, which is what, “What is it I want?” Well, I have these three things that seem very unrelated: empowering women, educating, and productivity. What can I create out of that? Well, that what became inkWELL Press Productivity Co., my company that I started and created.

So, I projected and figured out this is what I want to do, this is where I want to go with it. I started looking to the future of where could it go. And so, that’s when I stepped into that third step of action, creating action, “How am I going to get there? How am I going to create this for myself?” So, really, creating an action roadmap for myself of, “Okay, if this is where I’m starting out with closing down a business,” mind you, going without income, this is a family of four, both my husband and I are now getting income from my business I started, making that decision to close that up and open up something brand new, that was a big choice.

So, I needed to create an action plan to make sure that I had a map in front of me, that I knew where it was I wanted to go. So, I created that action plan for myself, scaled to seven figures in less than 18 months because, again, I love systems, I love productivity, so I was able to really make that work. And then along the way, there was a lot of shifting and changing that had to happen because life happens, life gets messy, things shift, we evolve and change and grow.

And that’s where alteration step comes in where we know where it is we want to go. We know that vision, that north star. You heard me talk about before our mission, our vision, our core values, I know where that is. I’m at A right here where I am today. The Z is where I want to go, that big vision I have for myself. The B to Y is how we get there, “All right. Now, let’s figure out how we’re going to get there.”

So, I started off by offering up physical products. We started off by selling physical planners, weekly planners, daily planners, all kinds of planners, productivity tools. And then that shifted and grew into having a podcast. And then that shifted and grew into having programs and courses. And then that continued to shift and grow into having publishers reach out to me and offering me book deals which is where I am today.

So, really, it’s all aligned with where it is I want to go. But you can see through every step of that, it’s really understanding that it’s not the actions of today. It’s the actions of today that build into tomorrow, into where I want to go. And I think that’s really when we achieve that extraordinary part of the life. It’s when we’re satisfied, it’s when we’re fulfilled, it’s when we feel successful at the end of our days that we go to bed at night and feel really good about what we did because we’re working towards something bigger than just checking something off our to-do list.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Okay. So, there we have it. You are the case study, and we walked through those stages. So, let’s zoom into each of them then in terms of what are some of the best practices or questions to engage in each of these phases when we do want to understand where you want to go? How do you go about getting after that why to uncover that clarity?

Tanya Dalton
Yes. Well, that’s why I think it’s so important, I think reflection is one of those things that’s really important to do but it’s something we will avoid doing. We would rather clean the cat’s litterbox, we would rather start the vegan cleanse we’ve been putting off for six months, we’d rather do just about anything than reflect back because our past is often filled with lots of great moments but there’s also failure and trauma and frustration and things that we don’t like, and we want to push those underneath the bed. We want to just sweep them underneath the rug and pretend they’re not there, but, really, reflection is so important because that’s the fertile ground from which we grow.

I often tell people that it’s the regret that we can push against that gives us and builds up that resilience that we have. So, when we’re looking back, looking at the things that we have learned, the failures that we’ve had, the trauma, what have we gained from that? Because out of every one of those things, we gain lessons. We have a backpack that we all wear, it’s invisible, but we’re piling it full of these heavy lessons that we’re learning. And those backpacks help us in moving forward.

People will ask me, “How did you grow your business to seven figures in less than 18 months?” I had a backpack filled with experience. I had a backpack filled with knowledge and learning that I pull from teaching, from my first business I’d grown, from parenting, from all of those things. That’s what I used to allow me to grow and I think we tend to discount some of that.

And, really, it’s important to recognize that in a lot of those hurtful moments, those things that were hard, those things that feel like we don’t want to think about them, when we know what we don’t want, it’s so much easier to see what we do. We will move away from pain so much faster than we will towards pleasure.

We don’t go on the diet till our pants get too tight. We don’t stop working long hours till we recognized and realized we’ve missed dinner with the family again for the second week in a row. I know, for me, I had a period of time where I was working way too hard, and that’s a whole another story, where I was working every day, seven days a week, for 12-hour days minimum, and the kids were coming to the warehouse after school. They were coming and they were there on the weekends, and I ended that season of time and I reflected, “How do I feel about myself?” and I felt terrible. I felt like the world’s worst mom.

And it would be really easy to just say, “I’m the world’s worst mom,” and let that be the end of it, “I’m not going to think about this ever again. What a terrible mom I am.” But I realized out of that season, “If I feel like a terrible mom, how do I not feel like a terrible mom? What do I need to do to shift and change so I never feel this way again?”

So, because I had this oozy hurt that I didn’t want to think about being the world’s worst mom, how can I push against that to get to what I want? Well, I made the decision, “Okay, no more of these days where I’m working these insane hours. I’m leaving work every day at 3:00 o’clock. I own my own business so I can make that work. I’m going to leave every day at 3:00 o’clock.” That’s now a boundary for me.

And that’s been a boundary for me ever since, that’s years of me leaving work at 3:00 o’clock every day. I probably wouldn’t have believed it was possible, I probably never would’ve done that except for the fact that I didn’t want to go back to where I’d been. I didn’t want to feel like the world’s worst mom again. So, that’s what’s so beneficial and beautiful about reflection is the trophies we hold up, the beautiful things that have gone well. Those are amazing and they show us how amazing we are.

But the things that aren’t trophies, the things that feel like awful and terrible, those are amazing too because they also tell us how amazing we are, how strong we are, and how resilient we are. And we can build off of those things to get to that life we want.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really powerful in terms of it can very much be a temptation to not think about that at all and then move along.

Tanya Dalton
Yes, easily.

Pete Mockaitis
I think when you talked about working a lot and with the kids, I saw an episode of the Supernanny. I pull things from everywhere. And so, there was a couple, a mom and a dad, they were working a lot, and their strategy was to, well, I guess for the Supernanny to come over. I don’t know.

Tanya Dalton
That’s a strong strategy right there.

Pete Mockaitis
But before that it was just buying them a lot of stuff. And so, yeah, that’s a lot easier in terms of, “Oh, I feel kind of guilty because I’m working a lot and my kids are disappointed. And so, I’m going to buy them something because I can.”

Tanya Dalton
“Because I work so hard, I can afford it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I think that’s common in terms of whether it’s a like a little feel good, quick Band-Aid option that doesn’t get after the stuff. So, it may be like, “Well, I’m going to have a drink. I’m going to play some video games. I’m going to have a smoke. I’m going to…” I don’t know, fill in the blank, whether it’s a healthy or not so healthy means of making yourself feel better in the moment. What they all share is that they don’t experience that pain full on and allow that to be a force for powerful motivation.

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, we don’t want to pull back the bandage because it looks gross. When we pull back the bandages, that’s when it gets air, that’s when it heals, that’s when it feels like it’s better, it scars over. And scars are not ugly, scars are beautiful because they’re part of our journey, they’re part of our path. And I think that when we start to recognize and realize that we’re all so beautifully human, which means that we are imperfect in a thousand different ways.

When we can embrace that in ourselves to know that we’re not alone, the frustrations we feel with ourselves, the negative self-talk, the trauma that we’ve experienced, we’re not alone in that. That’s a collective human experience that we share together. It really is about the healing that we do with the moving forward. Having hard things in our past does not make any one of us unique but it does make us human, and it means that we’re able to grow and we’re able to heal. And I think that’s really important to understand and to acknowledge. It’s not easy. I’m not going to pretend for anytime here on this show that that’s an easy process.

I go into some of the deep dark trauma that I’ve experienced in my life in the book to kind of show how we can overcome it, how we can dig in and understand why it happened to us, and where we want to go in moving forward, because I think it’s really powerful to understand that we have that ability. And I think it’s just believing in yourself, choosing to believe that you can move forward, that tomorrow is a brighter day.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. All right. So, we have a powerful distinction and an action we could take that many people don’t, to take a hard look at that which you’re not liking in the reflection and trying motivation.

Tanya Dalton
I can give you an easier one if you’d like because that was a tough one.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, we’ll take an easy one too.

Tanya Dalton
Okay, here’s an easy one for reflection. You can also look back at your past and think about what did you love when you were a kid before you started adulting. Because what happens is we lose sight of what we love in the pursuit of adulting. We got to pay the rent, we got to pay the mortgage, we got a car payment, we got all those things, and so we lose sight of what it was that used to fire us up, that used to light us up and get us excited.

So, really, going back and revisiting what were the things that you loved as a kid, what were the things that you got fired up about, not the piano lessons your mom dragged you to. That doesn’t count. The activities that you wanted to go to again and again? Maybe it was softball, maybe it was playing the violin. What was it? And then go a little bit deeper why did you love that.

If you loved softball as a kid, or a sport, was it being outside? Was it the camaraderie? Was it the competition? Was it the physicalness of it? Use that as a little bit of fodder to get you started because, oftentimes, our passions, even as adults, can be found in our childhood. We just lose sight of them because we’re so busy doing, we don’t stop and recognize and realize. And a lot of times, those things that we did as kids, we can build upon and grow that into what it is we want to do in moving forward. So, that one is a lighter one.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Beautiful.

Tanya Dalton
A little less trauma, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s move onto the next step. We did a reflection. And then what comes, projection

Tanya Dalton
Projection, yes. So, reflection tells us why, why it is we want what we want. And projection answers that question of what, “Well, what is it that I want? What do I want in life?” And I think what’s really interesting is we have a hard time knowing what that is. I can guarantee you have some listeners right now who are thinking, “I have no idea what an extraordinary life looks like. I have no idea what it is I want. I have no idea what goals I should set.”

And so, what happens is we look left, we look right, we look over the fence, and we see where the grass is greener, and we go, “That’s what I should be doing.” And what we really want to do is understand what it is that you want and what you look like in the future. But here’s, really, what’s fascinating, I think, is that our brain has an extraordinarily hard time seeing ourselves in the future. Our brain is hardwired for today because that’s what’s kept us alive and allowed us to avoid the saber toothed tiger, it’s what allowed us to get to the next day.

And there’s this really fascinating study where they’ve used fMRI machines on people’s brains, and they would have them talk about themselves today, and certain areas of the brain start pinging and lighting up and really showing that they’re active. And then they would have the people talk about themselves in the future. Now, the future could be three weeks from now, it could be three years from now, it could be three hours from now. But when they talk about themselves in the future, it lit up a very different part of the brain, not the same part of the brain when they talked about themselves.

What’s most fascinating is when they had these same participants talk about Natalie Portman and Matt Damon, those same areas of their brain lit up as it did with when they were talking about themselves in the future. So, in other words, to our brain, you in the future is not you. It’s a stranger who looks like you, has the same name as you, is you but it doesn’t recognize you as being you. And this is why we often fail at our goals. This is why we splurge on the Paris shoes instead of investing in the 401(k) or why we eat the cookie instead of eating the carrot because the person in the future who has to pay for that, or has to deal with the outcome of that, isn’t you, and so our brain prioritizes today over the future.

And I think when we understand that, it’s incredibly powerful to understand, “Oh, this is why I’ve struggled in the past, and, again, I am not alone in this. This is how my brain works.” So, it’s really understanding, “Now, if I can start to picture myself in the future and I can start really projecting forward into what I want in the future, then I can see myself, and then I can connect to my actions from today to what I want to do in the future.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s fascinating in terms of that fMRI study.

Tanya Dalton
Isn’t it? I found that so interesting.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, that would seem extraordinarily powerful is that if we can view “future self” as sort of just as real and valid and important as “current self.” And so, it seems like you’re hinting at a pathway that’s very different other than just, “Buckle down and get to the gym.” It’s sort of like…

Tanya Dalton
Yes, that’s not what it is at all.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s more about know what you really need to see and adopt and embrace the future self as yourself. And so, how do we do that?

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, that’s the big question, right? Because it is, it’s a mental game. It is. And we love to blame willpower on why we haven’t gotten things done, “Oh, I don’t have the willpower,” or, “I’m not disciplined enough.” And it’s not discipline that you need. In fact, if we know that our brain is prioritizing wins for today over wins for tomorrow, it’s our brain that’s hijacking this, that’s causing us to do that.

So, what we can do is we can really look forward into the future and create a map for ourselves. I call this wayfinding in the book where it’s really looking forward into the future to what is your potential. Okay, what is your potential? “Like, ten years in the future, what could I possibly have in my life? Like, what could that possibly look like?” What is your potential? So, figuring that out, and then we back it up a little bit. So, that’s your potential, you want to back it up to what is possible, “Okay, if that’s the potential in ten years, what’s possible in the next three to five years on that map to get to that?” what I’d call your cathedral. What’s possible?

Then if we back that up even more, “Okay, if that’s possible in three to five years, what’s practical? What would be practical for me to accomplish in the next 12 to 18 months?” So, here, we’re talking now about long-term goals, a year to 18 months. Well, let’s back that up a little bit more on our little map. And in the book, I literally make it like a little map of, like, “You are here and there’s a roadmap.”

If we back that up any more, we can figure out, “What do I need to prioritize in the next three months, the next six months, the next nine months?” That’s how we decide what our goals are because then those goals are on that path to get to that potential that we’re dreaming of. And there’s lots of things that we can do to really help solidify that in our brain. As I just said, we have a hard time seeing ourselves in the future so we can do things.

There are all kinds of amazing technology now. You can do these things on Snapchat even and Instagram where you can use a filter to age yourself and put yourself. Let’s say that your potential is that you want to be on the cover of Forbes magazine. All right, you can create a picture of yourself in the future on the cover of Forbes magazine. Put that someplace where you can see it and then start solidifying it in your brain. Start mapping that out and seeing who you want to be in the future.

When we back that up, that’s when we begin to see, “Oh, this is the action I need to take right now. This is the goal I need to set for myself right now. If that’s where I want to go, here’s where I need to be in a month, here’s where I need to be at the end of this week, here’s where I need to be today.” And that’s when we start to make motions and take action towards that big potential out there, that big extraordinary life when we’re making those connections, when we create that map for ourselves.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I think make connections is the phrase because with that pathway in place, with all the dots connected, it really does feel real as opposed to, “Sure enough, I did this thing and I saw some improvement. And, thusly, I can see that if I do all of the things, they will lead me into that place, and, thusly, the future-aged person on Forbes magazine is not Natalie Portman but it is me.”

Tanya Dalton
“But it’s me,” yeah. I think it’s really incredibly powerful when you start to recognize that and you realize that. I think this is why we set goals and we’re never quite satisfied. We build into that someday syndrome, “Someday, when I accomplished this goal,” or, “Someday when I cross the finish line,” but that finish line keeps moving back, doesn’t it? Like, we never really get it crossed.

And even when we do, we have this fleeting moment of satisfaction and excitement. It’s called the goal-setting paradox, where you get a fleeting high when you accomplish a goal, and it’s followed immediately by a question of, “Now what?” “Okay, I finished the marathon, now what do I do?” “All right, I just climbed…”

I actually spoke to someone who’s climbed Mt. Everest who’s blind, Erik Weinmeyer, and he said after he summited Everest and he went on his way down, someone said to him, “Okay, now what?” He’s like, “I just summited Everest. Isn’t that enough?” But this is what we go through in our life. We accomplish a goal, and then we’re like, “Now what?” But if that goal is to connect to something bigger, to a brighter future, it becomes just a stepping stone to get us to the next one, so we get that satisfaction and we’re ready to go to the next step. And that’s how we continue on the daily basis to feel happier, more satisfied. And isn’t that really what our goals are all about?

I would argue that every goal, every dream, and every aspiration is steeped in happiness. You want to cross the finish line in a marathon? Why? So you can feel that pride and joy, that happiness of crossing the finish line. You want to lose 15 pounds? Why? Because you want to feel happy when you put your pants on. You want to get that promotion at work? Why? Because you’ll be happier when you have more money and when you have a team underneath you.

All of those things are tied to happiness. Let’s stop waiting for happiness to happen to us. Let’s make happiness happen on a regular daily basis. That’s absolutely achievable. That’s what makes life extraordinary.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well said. All right. Well, this is so much good stuff. Can you give us maybe the quick greatest hits in terms of action and alteration? What should we be doing to do those masterfully?

Tanya Dalton
They go hand-in-hand because alteration is really woven throughout. Alteration really is about building in that flexibility and that grace to allow life to happen because, if we’re honest with ourselves, we all know life is messy. And the best-laid plans allow for detours and re-routing and all of those things to happen because life demands flexibility.

So, as we’re creating action, action answers the question how, “How are we going to do this? How are we going to accomplish this?” it’s really about breaking it down into bite-sized milestones. So, you have this big thing off in the distance. It seems really far away in our future self because we know we’re not connected to it. It feels like it’s not us. So, how do we back that up even more to create little milestones we’re working towards, little stepping stones to get us closer to that life we want.

We do that by creating an action roadmap for ourselves. You’ve heard me say before here on the show, I’m sure, overwhelm isn’t having too much to do. It’s not knowing where to start. When we know where to start and we know what actions we want to take, it’s incredibly empowering and it’s incredibly confidence-building. And so, that’s really powerful for us to do.

But really, it’s about creating a plan for ourselves so we feel confident to step over our fears and create time in order to allow these things to happen in our lives, to allow ourselves to get closer to those big goals and dreams and aspirations.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. All right. Well, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Tanya Dalton
Yeah. Well, I would say we kind of touched on that whole idea of discipline earlier, here’s what I would say. When we people talk to me about needing discipline, I really want to encourage more people to let discipline go, to stop worrying about needing more willpower, or feeling like they have to force things to make it happen. Discipline is really just a series of small actions.

So, when you recognize that and realize that, that it’s really just small actions, little tiny steps on a regular basis that build up, that begin to look like discipline, it’s just habits that we build over and over again over time. When we start to do that, that’s when we start to get that momentum we need. So, just focus on the next small action you can do. That is honestly the way you get on that path to that extraordinary life.

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

Tanya Dalton
Oh, a favorite quote. I would say probably one of my favorite quotes is actually from Harry Potter, and it’s when Albus Dumbledore tells Harry that, “It’s our choices that show us what we are far more than our abilities.” I think, really, when we understand our choices, it’s incredibly powerful.

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

Tanya Dalton
Oh, I have a study I just stumbled upon not that long ago that I love, where they took these men out of a retirement community and they separated them into two groups. One group went to another retirement community, and the other group, they fashioned everything in the place where they were so it looked 20 years earlier, and they encouraged them to talk about things that had happened 20 years earlier, all the appliances were 20 years earlier. And so, they encouraged them to really think about who they were 20 years ago.

After less than a week, they took the control group who’d gone to the retirement community, they were still in the same place, still have the same aches and pains and all of that. They took that group who had just kind of time traveled 20 years mentally, and they found that within those seven days, they had built more muscle mass, they had gotten rid of a lot of their arthritis. Not only did they feel better, but their bodies have physically reacted.

I think a lot of times we think that mind over matter thing is just a bunch of woo-woo, but, truly, our bodies are able to change and shift when we get our minds set right, when we really think about what it is we want.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Tanya Dalton
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. That’s a great book because it really is, again, really how strong your brain is and how it can really get you where you want to go.

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

Tanya Dalton
Well, I use inkWELL Press products but that’s kind of a no-brainer there, isn’t it? I have to be honest with you though, so I do a lot of my planning obviously using inkWELL Press but we use a lot of Google Docs and we found some ways to kind of hack them so they work for us. I felt like I was using far too many different tools to do all the different things. So, we’ve kind of created a little hub in our own system within Google Drive and Google Docs so that we can make that work to get rid of a lot of our project-planning tools and all those things.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I’m intrigued. Can you share a particular Google Doc hack that maybe many people might benefit from?

Tanya Dalton
I don’t know if I can give it really quickly, but we have a whole system that we use and we use, it’s kind of funny, because we use like emojis to kind of signify the different steps we’re in in a project. And what I love is that all the conversation happens within the Google Docs because we were getting things from Asana, and we were getting things from Slack, and we were getting things from email, and I felt like we were going far too many places.

So, we started using this icon system where if something was in process, we give it a thumbs up. And if it’s something that’s completed, we give it a check mark, if we’ve shared it. So, there’s a whole system of using these little symbols, and it’s made it, it’s so insanely simple that I think sometimes we overcomplicate things. So, that’s what we’ve done is just using all these different symbols within Google Docs.

I create a table of contents for every project that we do, and that’s our main Google Doc. Everything is, that’s become the hub. So, everything that we create off of that, other documents, other spreadsheets, other things, that table of contents becomes almost like our little bible where we click on it and it sends us exactly where we need to go, so everything is succinct and together inside Google Docs.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Well, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Tanya Dalton
I would tell them to go to TanyaDalton.com. You can find links to my podcast, The Intentional Advantage, there. You can also find information about both my books The Joy of Missing Out and my newest book On Purpose. TanyaDalton.com is probably the best place to find me.

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

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, I would say that extraordinary life is there. And I know where you are right now, it might seem like that’s impossible. But what I would challenge you to do right now is just take a moment and start with that reflection step that we talked about. Go the easy route. Let’s not worry about the hard things or the difficult things or the things you don’t want to think about. Let’s start with the easy things.

Let’s start by thinking about who you were before you started being an adult, like before the age of 16, we’ll say, and just make a list of the things that you loved. And then ask yourself, “Why did I love that? What was it about that that I loved? I don’t want that stuff there.” Ask why again, and then maybe ask it one more time. Get to the heart of why you loved what you did and start to rediscover your passion. Because when you start to remember and recognize that passion has been there all along, it’s so much easier to build that fire.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Tanya, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you much luck and fun and purpose.

Tanya Dalton
Thank you so much. This is great, Pete. We always have a good time together.