Healing and Growth: Embrace Your Past to Empower Your Future

Hey, one more thing before you go. Have you ever wondered how to turn your deepest struggles into your greatest strengths?

What if the key to healing and growth lies in embracing your past and transforming it into a powerful force for good?

In this episode, we're going to answer these questions and many, many more when we have a conversation with my extraordinary guest whose story and expertise will leave you inspired and motivated to take action in your own life. I'm your host, Michael Hurst. Welcome to one more thing before you go. My guest today is Denise G. Lee.

She's a transformative business coach, a podcast host, and creator of courses designed to help individuals heal, grow and lead.

Drawing on her own journey as an incest and rape survivor and a recovering alcoholic and sexaholic, Denise brings a deeply personal and empathetic perspective to her work.

Her mission is to empower leaders to transform their mindsets, prioritize their healing, and build meaningful connections with her audience as the host of the Introverted Entrepreneur podcast. It's a really good podcast. Have listened to it. You're going to have to, but listen to this one first.

Denise inspires listeners with insightful discussions that resonate deeply with with those seeking personal growth and professional clarity. Her courses combine practical strategies with emotional intelligence, setting her apart as a thought leader in the field of healing and leadership.

Her website, deniseglee.com served as a hub for articles and resources, positioning her as a trusted guide for making those looking to make lasting impressions in their lives and businesses. So get ready for an enlightening conversation and welcome to this show. Denise, Michael.

Blessings. Blessings. We're going to have a great conversation.

Yes, we are. You an amazing, amazing journey that you've had in your life, especially becoming or coming from being a trauma survivor in so many different ways.

I'm excited to kind of share that journey and look where you're at today. I mean, that's definitely triumph over tragedy.

Everybody at one point in their life has experienced trauma. Like 90% of us. I hardly is somebody farting rainbows and sparkling unicorns and living their best life, right? Fabulous, beautiful life.

We've all going through something, right? It's the issue of what have you done with it that counts.

Absolutely brilliant words of wisdom there. I think that, you know, we, especially in my old profession, in my life, my childhood, I can absolutely emphasize that.

And realistically I think that it's that old cliche is that once we go through something, we have a choice. And I think those times that we are presented with a choice, we can move forward, we can stay where we're at or we can fall back.

I think that helps us to define who we are and who we become. So. And you've got answers. So I mean, I can't wait to kind of get into this. You are a trauma survivor.

You had a rocky childhood and unsteady adulthood. Can we talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. So, you know, every time I talk about my childhood, it always feels like I'm talking about somebody else's stuff.

Like I'm like reading through some Hollywood script, right? Cute tears, you know, explosions and crashes along the way. But what happened to me, I know it happened to me because like, I have memories of it.

You know, I grew up right outside the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Silver Spring, Maryland. And I'm a child of two Sierra Leone immigrants.

And on the outside we looked like we were like the Jeffersons. We were moving on up. In fact, we lived in a nice upper middle class neighborhood and Jewish neighborhood. And inside it was like a house of horrors.

My father was, even though he was a banker, executive banker, you know, he was also a philander, he was gone, out partying, doing whatever. And my mother was seething angry. And on top of it, she had, I know for a fact she had had and probably does have emotional issues.

And during, from as long as I can remember up to 14, before child protective services took me away, you know, she abused me mentally, physically, sexually, you know, and I couldn't really understand a life other than chaos, confusion, yelling, screaming.

I mean, I remember so many times, like when my mother would get into rage, she sometimes she would just strip her clothes naked and run around the house, sometimes with a knife in her hand.

I remember like when I got in fights with my brothers, she thought it was a great time to call the cops because she couldn't handle dealing with people without it exploding into craziness. And through that experience I just replicated with new Playmate addiction, specifically alcohol. I was drinking heavily since as long as I can.

16, 17, I was a chain smoker. I was introduced to smoking via one of my dad's ex girlfriends. And I just couldn't really live life normally.

I shouldn't say normally, I should say like in a healthy way because all I knew was just to replicate what I knew. And I know I'm glossing over so much Michael, but suffice to say, like my life was just turbulent because I didn't know what stability looked like.

Yeah, it's interesting when we come from a dysfunctional family like that and you know, there are many, many, many of this out there that, you know, you never know what goes on behind closed doors. And, you know, I found that in my personal life as well, but especially when I was a police officer, because, you know, you would have.

You go into neighborhoods, it didn't matter. You saw the worst of the worst, and you saw the best people at their worst in those situations. And you.

And this is not speaking to you individually, but you as an audience, you wouldn't believe what goes on behind closed doors, especially in neighborhoods that you would never think did. When you think everything is silver spoons and happy, and it could be the most chaotic aspect of somebody's life that they ever experienced.

But you made a journey out of this. You worked your way out of that environment. But I'm sure it took a while, that journey. You said you were addicted. You got into alcohol and drugs.

Did you say no? Well, if. If you count sugar addiction as a drug, which probably it is within itself.

I mean, no, through science, that the effects that it has on our mind biochemically is no different than storing up a line of coke.

Yeah.

It's consumed enough.

Yep, absolutely. So, you know, it. Sometimes it takes us a jolt. What, what kind of. At what point did you realize, or what. What was your doorstop? What. What happened?

How did you come out of that? How did you realize that this is not good for me? This is what I need to change is this. I don't want this anymore. And.

And, you know, how did you walk through that door?

Well, I can't speak to everybody's journey for sure, but I can speak to what happened to me. And quite frankly, Michael, it was an issue of asking myself, like, how low did I want to go?

I mean, I cannot tell you how many scenarios where my life was threatened. I was in very dangerous situations.

I think about being raped by a boyfriend, being dragged out to a place with no money, and given the option of we're either going to have sex or. Or things are not going to go well and think, and then wanting to marry him later after that. Someone who's done that.

I mean, I think about, you know, driving home drunk with people who are more heavily intoxicated than me, not thinking that this. This car can be wrapped around a tree, having sex with strangers at work, with people I barely even knew.

I mean, it was just so many dangerous situations after dangerous situations. And it wasn't really, honestly a point where I woke up and said, you know, knees, I want you to be better. I just want you to do better.

It was never that situation. It was the threat of either losing my. I shouldn't even say losing my life.

It was a threat of honestly realizing that if I go any further down, I actually. There's nothing else left. And so I don't want to sit here and tell everybody who's listening or watching this. I think I had an epiphany.

And one day I just wanted better for my life. It literally just got to the point where I hit my bottom and I knew I couldn't go any further down and in.

And during all this time I was in therapy, which is kind of weird because like I'm. I'm drinking, I'm drugging, I'm involved in these situations. But you're in therapy. Yeah.

And so that's really common a lot for trauma survivors where they're quote, unquote in therapy, but they're not getting healed, they're not getting well. And my moment came when literally I was first involved in Sexaholics Anonymous as a 12 step spin off of AA, Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I actually had to talk with people who did worse than me and could see through my BS and can say, hey, let's finally address the things that you are running away from so many years ago.

That's actually interesting, the way that transpired, because I've dealt with my.

Both my parents were alcoholics and I watched my father go through treatment centers quite a bit in aa and it worked for him up to a particular point point. But at one, he kind of learned how to. And I'm sure that that's why it was really cool the fact that somebody had actually seen through your as.

As you. It. It is, it's, you know, he, he was able to play the game.

And when he realized that, you know, hey, I can just go in and play this game and then still get away with it.

And when I leave there, I go back to doing what, then show up to the meeting like the court ordered and then play their little game for a little bit and then go back and doing what I was doing. And you know, unfortunately, other outside forces put a stop to his.

You know, you were at least I think, lucky enough to have somebody kind of, kind of stop you on it. Did you have any aspirations to go to college? University? What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you.

Did you want to be an astronaut or a yacht captain or a cook?

I just wanted to be loved, Michael. I didn't care about school. In fact, I graduated a year early from high school because I couldn't get along with people.

And I thought it was just the kids at high school. It was them, right? Yeah. It took me five years to graduate college because it's not me. It was too hard. It was them.

They made the standard too hard for me. I was always externalizing it. I didn't.

So I think about my professional life, I think about my academic life, and it never came from a place of I wanted to learn and grow and how it was just like, what can I do to get people to not ridicule me, shame me, and ultimately love me?

Yeah, that I think. I think there are more people out there that are in that particular position than we really want to admit to.

Yeah. Yeah. It's hard because it's like, wait a minute, you got a degree that you.

I have a dual degree in environmental science and geography that I haven't used in almost 10. Over 10 years. Right. It's just sitting there. It's like, rolled up in a tube in my closet.

Like, I don't even use it because when I think about everything that I did that surrounded, accumulating that degree while zonked out, drugged out, was from a state of insecurity fears and just wanting desperately to have someone applaud me.

And coming from the type of family that you came from, I understand that. I think that there are those of us that grew up in an environment, a dysfunctional environment like that.

We're always seeking the attention that we didn't get, or the love that we didn't get, or that we felt we should have gotten.

And I think it opens the door, as you just presented, it opens doors to doing things that we're not really proud of and doing things that are detrimental to ourselves and those around us. What inspired you to become a transformative business coach? I mean, in business in particular, actually.

You know, it's funny, because my whole life I was hustling. When I think about my life, you know, when. As long as I can remember, even when I was in childhood, I was always trying to just do something else.

When I was in college, I had. I shouldn't say college. When I graduated college and I first started working, I had a.

A colleague, he made suggested, like, you should be entrepreneur. You should like business. You should own your business. I said, no, no, no, no.

I'll just do it when I'm, you know, old and gray, you know, and I saved a lot of money. I had a pension and all that stuff. That was before the golden parachute got ripped off from a lot of people.

Right now we've got 401k, which is what turned the market turns into 201k. But I digress. The point, but the blow I'm trying to try and make is that I had a little experience.

Experiences where I thought, well, if I could be independent, I can have my own security, right? But I realized there's no security in serving people. And so I had to realize that in order to coach others, I had to coach myself.

And I realized that the more I kept giving, the more I learned.

That. That. I think that's an. That's interesting, actually. I mean, I think that's the. Now I'm going to age myself.

And there's nothing wrong with old and gray. See, I got a little gray and I'm a little old. I won't say how old, but I'm a little old. We'll call it wise. Wise is a good word, right?

Instead of old, wise.

Mature.

Mature. There we go.

Seasoned. Like seasoned.

So in regard to learning and you know, kind of having the impact where you were able to, as you were in your journey for understanding yourself a little bit better and having to coach yourself a little bit more, I think that we all have to kind of take that opportunity to look within ourselves to decide. I think again, it comes to choice. Your inspiration for becoming a transformative business coach turned you into an entrepreneur.

And as an entrepreneur, you were able to understand yourself a little bit better, which allows you to be able to help others in your coaching business with them. So how do you help individuals grow through what you have learned? And in fact, kind of putting a.

Holding a mirror up to themselves so that they can see that within themselves as well?

Well, you know, Michael, I'll just tell you flat out, I can't turn a snail into a butterfly. You either are a. But you're like. You're like a moth or whatever and turn into a fly. I'm messing up all.

And all the entomologists in the room listening are like cringing at what my analogy, the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to transfer me from one creature to another. Right? You are. You're not.

The real issue is can you get up out of yourself mentally, emotionally, in order to see how your own issues block you from connecting with the people that you really want to connect with? Because that's really what it is. Like, I'll give you a perfect example. I was like, I'm always thinking about this perfect example.

I had this one client, she was a lawyer, right? I want to. I want us to call her ambulance teacher. She was not an ambulance station personal interest lawyer. All right?

And in Hollywood, she's an ambulance chaser.

And I said, we were talking about how to present herself on her ad. And she's like. I asked her, like, what did you do? She's like, I'm just going where.

We were talking about, like, her colors and all this stuff and things that would have complement her skin. And I said, so what did you end up wearing? And she's like, a black suit.

I was like, like all other ambulance chases where on the billboard, a black suit and it. And a grin with the veneers popping out. Right? Like that. The white on black, the veneers and the black suit.

And I said to her, why did you do that, love? And she's like, well, I don't want to stand out too much. I said, well, that's the point, is to stand out.

Because everybody knows exactly what to expect from, you know, they think better call Saul. They think about the sleaziness. Right. Why don't you pop out and actually show what makes you different from everybody else?

And that's the thing, Michael, that, like, trip people out is they don't want to be different. Because I think that they're different. They can be squashed. And so that's why no one ever goes out and just be them.

Yep. It's amazing because society and culture, I think, have ingrained upon us that we need to do specific things. We need to be a specific way.

If you're a lawyer, you got to dress this way. If you're. If you're a cook, you have to dress this way.

If you're a cop or a garbageman or whatever you happen to be, you are supposed to act this way. You're supposed to be this way. You're supposed to. Even in our relationships, you're supposed to grow up, you're supposed to meet the right person.

You buy a nice house with a picket fence and have two and a half kids and a dog and a cat to make it balance it out. And that we all need to be the same. And you look up and down the neighborhood and you see the same house and the same house, the same.

You can't see my hands moving. Same house, the same house, the same house. Because we feel that that's the way we need to do. We need to be.

Because that's what society has developed for us. Standing out is something that we need to set ourselves apart in regard to allowing the uniqueness of ourselves to come through. So I appreciate that.

You do that. I appreciate that you were able to, to kind of get people to present themselves that way.

Do you believe that anybody that is in the business world, anybody that's an entrepreneur that's trying to make a name for themselves, are doing it for the primary purpose of doing what we just spoke with earlier. I need a pat on the back. I need to tell me I'm doing a good job. I need recognition for this and this.

Or are they actually there as a benefit to the society that they're trying to serve?

I think, Michael, that's what we're talking about. And we kind of hit, hit the nail on the hammer.

The hammer when this idea that most of us are doing things from a place of fear, anxiety, shame, guilt and people pleasing. Because if we don't say the right things, we're not going to get the proverbial cookie. We're not going to get the pat on the back.

And when you think about it, we're trying to seek approval who are also riddled with fear and anxiety because they feel like they're not doing their job as mentors by not having them assimilate to what they couldn't do. So then we're perpetuating another layer of trauma because nobody is actually sitting down and sitting and being honest with themselves.

Like, you know what? Maybe Jimmy, maybe Jimmy shouldn't be a firefighter. Maybe he actually is a better accountant. Maybe Mary shouldn't really be a doctor.

Maybe she's an artist like I was. Oh my gosh, Michael. I was reading an article the other day.

It was in the Wall Street Journal and it was talking about this doctor who was, who was renovating his house for charity and give the proceeds. And she said, well, my mother always said that I wasn't. Our people in our family, we're not. We're not engineers, we're doctors.

And so she, in her free time, in her 50s, is renovating house after house after house. And she's not even a doctor. Like by training she's a doctor. But you could tell her eyes light up every time she tumbled.

Renovating and fixing up and buying houses, that's where her passion is. Mom has been dead 15 plus years, but she's still trying to carry the torch for things that never was designed for her to hold up.

And that's what we see in so many people living their lives, holding up legacies that don't even belong with them and busting their back and they're wondering why they're exhausted, they're wondering why they feel Insecure, and they're wondering why they don't feel fulfilled.

Yep.

It's that expectation, both familial and societal expectations, I think, that kind of define us sometimes and put us in a lane that we not necessarily want to be in. And it's kind of. It is just sad.

I mean, it's just sad because you get individuals that really should be doing something else instead of what they're doing and looking for their passion in life.

We were talking about before we got on here, you know, I love teaching my classes, podcasting with a purpose, because I feel that everybody, everyone seeks out a purpose. We all seek. We want purpose. We want. Why are we here? What are we here for? Why are we doing it? That gives us purpose.

And I think purpose allows us to be happy, especially when we combine our passion with our purpose. When you combine. You can't see me. Our passion with our purpose, it allows us to be the true self as to who we are.

So I appreciate what you do and what you bring to these individuals because I think that you unlock that opportunity for them to connect their passion with their purpose and define themselves not from somebody else's expectations, but from their own expectations and what they see within themselves.

You know, Michael, I'm sorry. I apologize. There's like an idea bubble that just popped up. May I share before.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So I want to talk about Taylor Swift. She's not my client, okay. I don't know nothing about her. Okay. I just want. For all the Swifties, you know, I want everybody to get giddy and excited.

I want to talk about it because in relation to what we're talking about, like, purpose and driven. Right. Everyone thinks that, for example, Taylor Swift is a musician and entertainer. No, she's a businesswoman. She's a marketer.

Absolutely.

And let me tell you something. Like, I was reading an article that she wrote, like, freaking 10, 10, 12 years ago. Think about it, right? She's what now, 38, 37? Something like that?

I think so, yeah.

Yeah. She was already talking about how she was making sure she was doing her distribution deals. How should she. How she should be compensated for her.

Her albums, how she, like. And then later, I found out that she re recorded masters. Yeah, her masters. Like, that's a businesswoman.

You think she's just throwing on, like, stiletto inch hills and sparkles and singing to y'all sad love songs? No, that's how she gets her people involved in getting her ideas spread out. And so what?

A lot of people misunderstand when they say oh, I'm finding my purpose. They're like, okay, well, I'm looking to all these people, but you're not understanding what they're really trying to do and who they really are.

So when you're trying to get inspiration, you need to be understanding the intent behind the action.

Oh, absolutely. And on a side note, we saw Taylor Swift when she was 15 or. Yeah, 15 years old. And she was at.

We have a little city north of us where we first moved to, when we moved to Arizona called Anthem. And it's a part of Phoenix, but it's not. It's like a, like a township, I guess, Very small community and they have the outlets there.

Taylor Swift showed up there for Christmas and she was on an extremely tiny stage. This stage was maybe 30ft wide.

It was a portable stage that they put up and she had people that brought like banners and were holding the banners around and she sang during that. That, you know, for the Crips special.

She had an agenda that she sang with and her parents were there or her mother at least was there and she had other people that were working with her. And you could see the drive in this 15 year old and see what she was doing. Because when she was there before she went up on I'm a Cop.

I was a cop at the time. I was a cop. So I have observation skills. So I watch people. So I'm watching her before she gets up on stage and we were right next to the stage.

I'm watching her and she's looking at the people and she's analyzing the people and she's kind of checking them out and kind of, you know, seeing where she's going to look when she gets up there. How many people were there? So, yes, it's a brilliant analogy that you're using, I think, because she, you could see it in her face.

You can see that she had an agenda. And that agenda was not only to entertain, but was to take that entertainment, make a name for herself and start building upon that.

And look where she's at now.

Yeah, I mean, she's getting like exclusive deals with like what, the, the what movie, what movie theater chain for her Heiress tour. She making exclusive books. Look, look, that's next level thinking. And I think a lot of people think, well, I want to be entrepreneur.

I'm like, it doesn't. Everybody wants to get paid, but few people understand how to capture the soul of a human being and monetize that. That's a unique brand.

And you either got it, you don't.

Well, she absolutely has it because she's a billionaire. I mean, she's a billionaire, but she also spreads her wealth around because she also does good things with her money.

And I think that's part of her business plan as well. She doesn't just be a billionaire.

She is also humanitarian and she has compassion, and she's, you know, she gives back and she expresses that through her brand. So she created. It all boils down to she created herself a brand that everybody resonates with, but they know it's Taylor Swift.

They know she's a good person as well as an entertainer. So, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for interjecting that. I think that's a good. I can only.

I can only hope that we have Swifties watching this and listening.

I mean, like you, Michael, you mentioned something that's really important that I think a lot of people don't understand about not just being a podcaster or a business owner. It's like being a good person.

Yeah.

Being a good person. And I think it is. Everyone says, oh, the nice guy finishes last. Like, the nice guy is the one who has enough stamina to laugh at.

The people who burnt themselves out trying to snake their way to success quickly are trying to be run roughshodle on everybody. I think it's really not understood the importance about caring and understanding about the people that you want to reach.

They're not posters with credit cards. There's someone that took their time out of their valuable schedule to hear what you have this week.

They could be watching Catch chasing lasers on YouTube or TikTok reams, but they chose to spend their time listening to you honor that.

Absolutely. I think.

And we should do that with any business that I think we start, whatever we have to be, whatever endeavor that we're doing, and from an entrepreneurial perspective, that we are here to serve other people. We have to be a good person about doing so and recognize that this is. I don't call my audience audience, like, specific. It's my community.

This is my community. One more thing before you go. All of my listeners, my viewers, the people I connect with, the people I interview, this is all part of my community.

One more thing before you go. Community.

And I think we as individuals, we as business, business entrepreneurs need to understand that it is not just a business, it's a community that you need to have respect for.

Yeah. I mean, like, think about it, right? I could be sitting there, like, how many. How many podcasts are out there?

Right?

Like, there's a zillion stuff out there, right.

4.5 million.

And they're all screaming, listen to me. Buy my stuff. Listen to me.

And like, through all the shrill voices and the demands and endless echoes, nobody's actually saying, wow, you're the housewife who lives in Boise, you're the beat cop that lives in Newark, you're the single mother that lives in Jacksonville. Like, they are real people.

And, like, think about how most of us come from crazy families, crazy upbringing, and we're just trying to find someone who just freaking guess us.

Yeah.

Who are not afraid about sharing their issues.

I agree with that. And I think that through, I mean, everything that you've done so within your life, you've.

You have created an environment for people to have a voice and for people have opportunity.

And I think that that's a wonderful thing because it allows you to do the same thing and express that upon others and allow them to understand that bringing something to the. It's. It's not. What are you going to. What are you going to provide? Let me see. It is more along of what can I do for you?

What can I do for you that you're going to benefit and walk away with in a positive way? You know, and I think that through your podcast and through what you do for your coaching.

I've not attended your coaching sessions, but I did, you know, read your everything, you know, your blogs and your, Your website and everything. And I think that you present an opportunity for people to better themselves in a positive way and do it through a business perspective.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. I mean, one of the things that I've been really intent on with my. My blog and my website.

My blog and my website is can I sit and write the things that really represent me? Like, can I really inject myself? Like, I will talk about my childhood trauma.

I will talk about the sloppy, nasty things that had happened to me, what I've experienced. And I'm not just doing it as a tell all.

I'm doing it because we live in a world that's always trying to portray themselves as sexy, wealthy, insecure, that there is a safe place for them to really feel understood.

And how desperate do we really need that in this world, Michael, where we actually can find someone who says, I'm not just someone who's putting themselves out there for the sake of. For attention, but I'm doing it from a place of sharing experience, strength and hope. And Lord knows we need it now more than ever.

That's a fact. This day and age and this turmoil and chaos that's happening around us currently.

I think, you know, there's a lot of noise that's happening, and that noise sometimes inhibits our ability to move forward in a very positive way. So I think we all have those challenges in regard to having to try to overcome and especially in a business perspective over the next few years.

What kind of challenges do you. Do your clients face? Anything like what you've gone through or what I've gone through or what we're about to go through?

Well, I mean, it's an interesting question, Michael, because, like, all of us, like we talked about earlier, have gone through issues, right?

Yeah.

And then depending on the emotional maturity level of the people around them, right. We. We rise as far as how low the other people we're dealing with or have struggled with. We can only grow up to that point. Right.

So we're talking about your emotional maturity. Right. Then we're talking about the competitiveness of the industry. Each industry has its own challenges. Like, for example, the things that.

I mean, we're all human, right? But the things that I talk with other coaches or consultants is not the same thing as someone who creates products. Right. A widget maker as example.

So it's the issue of, okay, can we marry your emotional maturity with your subject matter expertise and your acknowledgement and interacting with the people, your community right around you and having them all marry together? Because what I often find is that when clients come with me, they've got their subject matter expertise down pack.

Like, they know how to sell their widgets. Right. They know how to write a sales page or, you know, but they lack marketing themselves and they lack connecting with their community.

So I just feel like I'm like, you know, think about the. The peanut butter and the PBJ and, like, kind of making sure it all sticks together so otherwise it won't flop off and go off to the side.

But I can't teach anyone who's not willing to get a little dirty and open the jar and stir some stuff around and slather that thing all out in order for them to really, like, just get real and get honest.

Now, I have this whole different view of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I'm gonna walk away with that today. You made me hungry. You made me hungry, Denise.

For knowledge. For knowledge.

For knowledge. For knowledge. And a little peanut butter and jelly, too.

But I mean, seriously, Michael, when you think about it, right, most entrepreneurs, they spend all their time accumulating technical knowledge, okay? Oh, like, I know I had them. These are the margins. And I need to make sure I hit these corners, quotas. I need to. Whatever, whatever.

But then, like, I asked them, like, so how are you going to share your story in a way that makes people feel like, wow and studs up and notice the saying, like, you're different from everybody else. Think about it, Michael, like when you go to a grocery store, right, and you flip the back of chips or whatever, there's always our story.

Yep. Every time.

Reason why it's all our story. And because I can't connect with you if you can't be willing to put yourself out there and show the passion behind the product.

We are the products and we're selling ourselves to people who can resonate with it. Not everybody.

Right? Well.

And I think that integrating emotional intelligence into our lives, personally as well as professionally, allows us a better connection with the audience or when I say audience, the individuals that we're trying to make a connection with. Because we bring ourselves. You bring ourselves.

Then even when I go on other people's podcasts, for example, and I'm trying to sell this podcast, I started with my story. I tell them my story.

I think I give them my story because it gives me an opportunity to relate to other individuals out there that have experienced or gone through the same thing that I went through. The same journey I went through are similar to my journey that allows me to be able to make a connection with them enough to engage with them.

So integrating that emotional intelligence into our methodology brings the game forward, I think, a little bit. And you, I mean, you have, you do that in your coaching, in courses, don't you? You show how somebody how to do that.

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.

Talk a little bit. A little bit. He said, Robert De Niro, little seasoning here or there.

I mean, because here's the thing, right? I think for a lot of people, like, well, if I say the wrong thing, I'm going to lose them. But sweetheart, you've already lost yourself.

That's why we're sitting here talking, you know?

Exactly. I mean, look, I, I have a bachelor's degree in business management and I, when I came out of that. Now let me compare it this way.

When I became a sergeant with a police department, I had to go through a school for training, for being a supervisor. I had been a one striper before that, kind of a corporal.

And you get a little bit of, A little bit of introduction into being a sergeant, but not the full scope of being a sergeant. Right. So it kind of a stepping stone.

So when I became a sergeant, I Went to school, become a sergeant, and then they teach you supervisory roles and how to manage people in a team.

Because I got a team of 13 people, and you have to manage schedules and time and everything involved in those team members to make that team work effectively and efficiently. So I learned the basics of that, and then I learned how to do that practically when I became.

When I went out on the street, okay, that was my stepping stone of becoming a lieutenant. I was on my way to lieutenant before I got interrupted. But same principle. I had to go and learn.

I would have had to go to school again, I would have had to go to classes again, get certified so I could teach as a lieutenant.

Well, when I went to business management school, and not school, but university to get my business management degree, they threw all that kind of stuff out the window. And it was more numbers and cost and reaching numbers and making sure that everything balanced the way it was supposed to be balanced.

Not many of my instructors brought in the emotional intelligence of connecting with an audience.

They brought the analytical aspects of whether or not you could sell a product or whether or not you can manage a team or whether or not how to manage your company. It wasn't from a personal perspective. It was from more of a business analytical perspective. Why isn't this working? Why should that work?

And should we implement this and that? I didn't realize until after I came out of that that I needed to go back to, especially when I did this podcast we talked about in the beginning.

I went from, Denny, sit down, empty your pockets, tell me where you're on Monday, to having a conversation, because we're here to connect with individuals, to engage with individuals. And I think incorporating that into a business modality is much better in creating and growing your community than from an analytical perspective.

You know, it's funny, when you were talking, Michael, I was just thinking a couple of things. First and foremost, those instructors were probably just as stale as day old bread, right?

Talking all analytical about stuff they don't even understand because they haven't had boots on the grounds. Because if they knew of a straight face, they couldn't even smear that garbage out, because they know that how has worked on the real world. Remember?

Oh, gosh, remember Ronnie Dangerfield?

I do. Okay, Because I get no respect. No respect.

I get. I get no respect. Remember? I forgot what, what show. He was like, what movie it was, but he was like, somehow he was in a student Back to school.

It's called Back to School. He went back to school and he bought. He bought the Whole, whole area to go back to school with this kid.

His kid was going to university and so he bought the whole floor or something and built a library, you know, and people.

Yeah, Remember there was this one scene, I'm, I'm, I'm going to garble it where he, that the professor was like, okay, let's. How do you, how do you buy this project? He was like, well, you got, you got to pay off the foreman. You got to do all. You gotta shake hands too, like.

And I'm like, no, no, you have to be perfect. Look, I'm telling you how it's done in the real world, buddy. Yeah, we need that. We need, like this is how it's done in the real world.

But academia is not real world.

Exactly, exactly. That's why you need an arch degree.

I mean, when you think about it too, like, I remember my husband told me that he's like, not that he's bitter. Actually, he is super bitter about this. He has, he went to Columbia, got himself a nice Ivy League degree. He was learning all these languages.

Come to find out the year that he graduated there, they switched up all the languages and they have a new language that was. Nor. That was more marketable. He was like, wait a minute, I spent four years learning a language that's not even marketable right now.

And when you think about it, like, I paid for that. Yeah, I pay to be indoctrinated in something that was antiquated. Think about even in a military. Like, I shouldn't say military.

I'm thinking about corporate America, the command and control model that is built on the industrial age where everyone was working on the factory line. That is an antiquated. But we keep repeating it all this stuff over and over and over again.

Well, and I think, unfortunately, I think we are indoctrinated, you know, if we go back to Covid, not to bring up that subject, but when you go back to Covid, you, you, all the business people, all the corporations, all the agencies, all the companies were all going, we got to get back to normal. We got to get back to normal. We got to get back to normal.

And during that time period, what we as a society started understanding was what they called normal really wasn't normal. It was their normal. It wasn't our normal. My wife got to work from home, work from home for two years. Work from home.

It changed the dynamics of our family in such a way that we got to spend lunchtime every day sitting there eating lunch and enjoying lunch.

She didn't Drive to work 45 US to an hour to get to work or longer sometimes here in the Phoenix traffic and then spend eight and a half hours at work, shove a 30 minute lunch down her throat and then, you know, come back home in the same hour traffic, crappy traffic. And then by the time she got home, she was too tired to do anything else.

And she went from that to being able to have lunch, get up in the morning, go out, watch the sunrise, have a cup of tea on the back porch. We had a balance. Well, luckily she works for the government here.

Luckily they recognized that and the productivity became out better with people who were working hybrid or working from home. So they created a hybrid schedule so that it works. So the majority of her department work on a hybrid schedule.

So she works home three days a week or excuse me, two days a week and she works in the office three days a week. But it allows that mind, or excuse me, that, that work life balance. And we thought, you know, maybe this is more normal.

Europeans have it, Europeans have it, right? They, you have a nice breakfast.

You, when you go to lunch, you know, in France, if you go to lunch, your boss is not allowed to call you while you're at lunch. You get like an hour, hour and a half to go have lunch and you can't do any work. You're not supposed to do work.

You're supposed to just go and relax and have your lunch and then come back to work, do your thing. That could be much more. I think that brings us to mindset.

I think that mindset allows us to understand that there's a balance in life no matter how we play in life, and that we need a balance between work life and a balance between work life and home life and a balance in whether or not we are approaching our business life, whether we're an entrepreneur or whether we're working for a company that we don't want to be working for. How to evolve from that? We have to have the correct mindset in healing and growing. Correct.

You know, every time everyone talks about mindset, right? What is your mind set on? Everybody has mindset. Everybody talks about mindset. I'm laughing at like they have their minds on drinking and drugging.

They have their minds on overworking, they have their minds on procrastinating. So everybody's focused on something.

It's the issue is, is your mind focused on things that are geared toward emotional, physical and spiritual growth? Because if it's not, then the next question is, are you good with that? Like, I'm thinking about the shows like my 600 pound life, right? And they.

You think, oh, that's so embarrassing, right? All these people, they can't even. They can't wipe themselves out with a stick on the end and a cloth the other end.

Like, they can't get the assistant helping them.

But when you think about it, they're actually kind of happy because they're getting attention, they're getting the audience, they're getting their 15 minutes of fame. And the only thing they had to do was to eat two buckets of KFC a day.

And so when people are talking about, like, intentionality and mindset, I have to really ask you the question, what's your payout on what you're having now? And what's your payout on what you want to give up?

And that's why so many people struggle with their weight and so many people struggle with anxiety because they're so addicted to things that are comfortable and familiar with them.

I agree with that. I think that, you know, it's interesting. I, you know, I'm going to. I love all the movie and the TV analogies. Thank you. I appreciate that very much.

Because that's the way. I love that. The. The. Which will bring me to this analogy. You know, I. One of my favorite.

I studied martial arts when I was young and all the way through most of my life, up until I got injured. And one of my heroes, and yes, this is cliche, was Bruce Lee.

But the methodologies that Bruce Lee gave me and the mindset that he allowed me to understand how I could control my own mindset, my own destiny, my own ability to be able to take myself, for example, out of a wheelchair that I was told by five doctors I'd be in for the rest of my life so that I could walk my daughter down the aisle. His thing is being able to say, you have the power to put in your mind and connect your mind, your body and your soul to what you want to achieve.

And you have the ability to combine those together to create and develop your own mindset and take you out of the arena that you feel that you're in or where you're locked into and what you feel is a prison and. And then break that open and create what you want to create. And that allowed me to get out of a wheelchair.

That allowed me to go from not walking, having my wife carry me to the toilet, having my wife to get me dressed and comb my hair, to walking 2, 3, 4, 5 miles a day.

So I think that from my perspective, I think that we have the ability to create the mindset that we want to do, to break free from what we maybe perceive as a prison and redefine ourselves into something that we want to be. Would you agree?

No, I totally agree with you. And remember in the beginning of our conversation you asked me, do you have a book? And I was like, no, I have a book. I don't have a book yet.

But what I do have, I do have in my, my course, amazing attitude is this 21 day program to help you like uncrap all your mind of nonsense is like the idea of asking yourself the right question about like, so what are you really wanting from your situation? Do you really want attention in a positive or negative way?

Right.

Do you really want to have the ability to be autonomous? What does that really look like to you? Because I think for a lot of people the reason why they're stuck is they never really ask themselves the why.

I love, I love, Michael, how you talked about your journey of like getting out of the wheelchair despite what medical experts talked about and understanding like, wait a minute, it's a science, right? Meaning that they always have to test and disprove things. It's not for certain. Right.

And so if they're not completely sure because they're scientists and, and lab coat, why am I betting my livelihood, my health, my mental like, overview of life based on finite fickle people who can't even guarantee what can happen to me. Right.

And so when you realize that I need to stop operating from a part of helplessness, a part of pity, right into a part of empowering myself, what can I do? This incremental that gets me from where I am to where I want to go. And I freaking love Bruce Lee and I freaking love watching those martial arts.

They're taking their hands and they're chopping their breaking two by fours with their bare of knuckles. And then they're screaming like, and like, yeah. And like there's nothing like hitting them and damaging them. And you're like, how do they do it?

How are people walking on coals and they're not getting sweet escape. It's their mindset. They've already envisioned being victorious. They already envisioned crossing the finish line.

They already envisioned winning their obstacles for you. You're getting out that witcher. I envision walking my baby girl down the aisle. I'm. I want to stick to that no matter what.

And that's what really makes people win in life. Not the obstacles, but how they work and overcome them.

Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant what you just said. I Think that we have the opportunity to make a choice in life in regard to that. And, you know, in. In. In.

I think with your courses and your coaching, I think you give people the opportunity to get some clarity and.

And kind of have a better understanding of their personal, professional life and how to take those steps to move forward and into what they feel they want to be. You know, we're all afraid. We're all afraid. You know, when you first start something, we as human beings are going to be afraid.

When I first started this podcast, you know, I thought, am I going to listen? Am I going to watch it? Am I going to see it?

Well, and originally, we didn't start off as video, but, you know, when I got five people that listened, I was kind of going, wow, it's only five people. But then I got, wow, my wife said, but you had five people.

And that five people then grew to 10, and that 10 people grew to 20, and they kept going up. But then my fear was, can I hold onto this? And my fear was, can I continue to build this the way it needs to be built?

And I think that's where I had to step out of my own zone and understand, because we're all afraid of failure. I think, you know, we're given that expectation. You can't fail. You shouldn't fail. You. You can't reach out.

And if you try to start a business and it fails, then you're a failure. But you're not really a failure, because what you've done is learn something. You learn what not to do the next time you start a business.

You know, what mistakes that you made when you did this. You know what to change when you go forward with something. That's when I took Bruce Lee's advice with be water. You got to be flexible and fluid.

Be water. And in doing so, it allows you the ability to be able to be flexible and understand that your opportunity is still in front of you.

You just have to be flexible enough, observant enough to walk into that opportunity. What advice would you give to someone who's struggling with defined clarity?

When I think about my life, right, and I think about the things that kept me stuck, I always think about this idea of whose message are you really listening to? For the vast majority of us, we have been listening to messages from our teachers, figuratively and literally.

Our parents, like those from academia, and they only wanted to test us out so that they could feel good about themselves and about their work. Like, let's just be real about that. I mean, let's just be real. And so if I'm only doing things from a mindset of testing, right, I need to get an A.

I need to have this margin. And I'm not doing it from a place of like, is this really representative of me? If I'm going to die today, am I going to be good about what happened?

Right. If I'm really going to be honest with myself, that clarity comes from, like, where am I getting my motivation from?

Am I coming from a place of fear and worry, anxiety, people pleasing, or am I coming from a place of richness, honor, authenticity? If I die today, am I good with how I left everything? Like, that's how you should wake up and live your life. You should.

Like I'm going to quote James Dean. Like, you should live as if I'm going to quote James Dean. You should live as if you're gonna live forever. Like, sorry, I. Pardon me.

You should live as if you're going to die today and then dream as if you're gonna live forever. Meaning that a lot of us are always fearful of things and that prevents them from actually carrying out their dreams.

And clarity comes from like, I know my life is finite. How in the world can I be able to live my life to the full fullest? Because they're going to judge me regardless. That's a given.

But can you judge yourself on how honest you were? That's the question.

And I love James Dean. See, we. See we. We could have a whole. Another show where we can just talk about different, you know, and add all of those in to the mix.

That, that I think is a. That's a profound, not just an observation, but it's a profound way to understand ourselves too.

Not just from a business perspective, but from a personal perspective. You know, we need to look within our side, ourselves. You know, again, I said earlier, I. I'm going to make a confession here.

Go for it.

Go. I didn't kill anybody or anything. So it's not that bad. You know, bury the body and drop it down a mine.

Or, you know, you know, realistically, I think we're all afraid of failure. Every time we try to embark on something, we have to wonder whether or not.

And I'm just reiterating what you said earlier, whether or not my father would approve, my mother would approve, my wife would approve, my kids would approve, my grandparents would approve. And I think from what I gained from our conversation today, I.

I shouldn't really look at whether or not I'm getting approval from all of these individuals. I should look within myself and see if I approve of myself.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's so funny, Michael. Like I was walking my kid to the school bus today and I was telling him that, you see this house?

You see this house right there? It's. Recently they have new. We have new neighbors.

I said, did you know that last year they brought a big old dump truck before the new neighbors came and they just filled it with furniture and artwork and like they cleared the whole house out. It was like 3,000 square foot house. They cleared out. You could just tell someone just died, right?

And I knew the new neighbor came in and renovated the. The bathtub. Probably bad juju. That's probably the person died. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that they.

They renovated, they gutted, they gutted the whole house, Everything thrown out. Right? Think about your mind, Michael. How are we carrying stuff that's going to be wasted and thrown in the trash, never to be seen again?

But we're holding it precious, even though the mess didn't serve them, obviously is not serving other people. Are you willing to excavate before death excavates everything?

What a profound way of saying that. Yeah, this is brilliant. Actually, I could talk to you for another hour. Our time went by so fast. It went by way too fast.

Let's tell everybody how they can get on a pathway to excavating their stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael, it's been such a pleasure talking with you, such a pleasure talking with all my peeps, my newfound peeps who are listening, watching, consuming this information. The best place for people to find me is on my website, deniseglee.com just take my name, remove the spaces, add a comm, and you're there. Boom, there.

You'll be able to obviously listen to my podcast, introvert Entrepreneur and read my articles, all that fun stuff and take one of my courses. Amazing attitude.

But the point I'm really trying to get at through like our conversation and I'm hoping everyone our, our family that's listening, is that your journey doesn't start with clicking and. And scrolling. It's about tuning into you. Because at the end of the day, you put your head on that pillow at night.

You're the one who makes the decisions that navigate not just how you impact yourself, but other people. People. And if you are comfortable with that, go forth, my friend. But if not, time to do the work and dig up stuff and clean house.

Because this is the only one life make it count.

Brilliant. I usually say this is one more thing before we go you have any words of wisdom? But I think you just said it.

I'm on it, Michael.

You're on it. You're reading my mind. You're reading my mind.

Well, you got that Joe Pesci vibe, so I felt, you know, talk like wise God, that's funny.

I met Joe Pesci once, and maybe that's where I picked it up from.

Yeah.

Well, Denise, thank you very much for. For being here. I say. I usually say one more thing before you go. Do you have any words of wisdom? But. And. And I'll ask any. Because maybe you have more.

This is one more thing before you go. Do you have any words of wisdom?

You know, if I died today, I would be at ease because I knew that I came from a place of love, honesty, authenticity, and caring. And if that is not where you're at, there is the time right now. Not next week, not next year. Now go for it. You got this.

Brilliant words of wisdom. Denise. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure to meet you. It's been a wonderful conversation.

I can't wait to have another one with you down the road. Maybe next year. And thank you for your wisdom, your experiences in sharing your journey, and just everything about you. Thank you.

Thank you, love. I'm so glad I was here. I think we had a great conversation.

Me too. Me too. For everyone out there in the community, I will have everything in the show notes in order to connect with Denise.

And so you just click that button and it'll take you right to her website. Consider, browse it, read the articles. They're great. And, you know, take a coaching class and all that good stuff.

And one more thing before you all go. Have a great day. Have a great week, and thank you for being here. Thanks for listening to this episode of.

One more Thing before you go.

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