Action's Antidotes

Loneliness and feeling disconnected are common experiences today, affecting how we feel about life. The longing for real connection is stronger than ever. But it's not just about having lots of friends; it's about having meaningful connections that make us feel understood and valued. How do we close this gap and build relationships that truly matter?

In this episode, I have the pleasure to chat with Coach Lee Hopkins, the founder of Patterns of Possibility. Coach Lee Hopkins is an expert in helping people build more meaningful connections in both their personal and professional lives.

Throughout the episode, Coach Lee guides us through understanding the nuances of genuine connections, both online and offline. He talks about the complexities of modern-day interactions, offering actionable strategies to enhance the depth and authenticity of our relationships. Learn how small, intentional steps can lead to profound shifts in our relationships, bringing us closer to a life filled with genuine connection and fulfillment.

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Building Real and Meaningful Connections with Coach Lee Hopkins

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you selling for less. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about loneliness, lack of connection. Now, you probably heard a lot of talk about the loneliness epidemic. One of the decisions I often cite in some of my presentations is that a survey was conducted around how many close friends people have, because loneliness is not just about how many people you’re around, it’s not just about isolation, it’s also about the meaningfulness, the depth of the connection. A survey conducted in 1990 showed that over 60 percent of all people said they had five or more close friends, how they would define as close friends. That same survey conducted in 2021 put 48 percent of all people in the one to four category for how many close friends they had and an alarming 12 percent actually reported having zero close friends and this is impacting just our quality of life in general so it’s good for us to kind of regroup and think a bit more about how we actually form meaningful relationships with other human beings. And to that topic, I bring you my guest today, Coach Lee Hopkins. Coach Lee Hopkins is a social connections coach, founder of a company called Patterns of Possibility. With this company, he uses a simple three-step process to help his clients find and maintain closeness in their friendships.

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Coach Lee Hopkins, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you so much for having me here. I’m so glad to talk about this topic because it affects so many people. 

 

Let’s start with what’s affecting people. What are you observing in the world today, like right now, regarding the quality of our connections we’re making between human beings?

 

The quality of our connections. What I observe is there’s all kinds of statistics out there. As you pointed out, there’s some statistics about the relationships that my own observations is searching through TikTok and being on social media, listening to what other people are experiencing as well as watching and seeing my own experiences is that we’re not as connected as we were before and I would love to just tackle that and look at it from a different angle because what I define as connection is a little bit different than what most people do.

They think simply because we are focused on being online so much that we’re disconnected.Share on X

Of course, that keeps us separated but even when we’re in person, we’re also not making the intentional kind of connections there too. We’re just like in spaces with people and not being connected. The phenomenon that I’ve noticed is we’re disconnected online and then we’re so unattached to people that when we get into spaces with people, we don’t know how to be either. And so disconnection is just pretty rampant.

Chronic diseases are on the rise, affecting millions globally. How can we handle and even reverse the progression of these chronic conditions?

Our guest, Oliver Eehn is the Founder of Optimum Fitness Systems and brings over 40 years of expertise in health and fitness, specializing in diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and stroke recovery. He holds several certifications, specializing in athletic/sports conditioning, injury/post-rehabilitation, bodybuilding, powerlifting, senior fitness, and other areas. 

Throughout the episode, Oliver discuss the ways of managing various chronic diseases, from physical injuries to mental conditions like Parkinson's and dementia. He also shares his plans to expand his impact on public health, reaching out to both the general public and fitness professionals. His goal is to raise awareness, educate, and empower individuals and businesses to prioritize health and wellness. Tune in to learn how small lifestyle changes can make a big difference in your health journey.

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Reversing Chronic Disease & Recovery Strategies with Oliver Eehn

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. One of the problems that we’ve observed quite a bit today and had a really big uptick over the past, say, half a century is the prevalence of chronic diseases. This is something we haven’t talked about quite yet on this podcast but we have talked generally about health, both mental and physical health, and health can definitely get in the way of you being able to follow whatever dream, whatever passion that you’re trying to pursue. Today, my guest, Oliver Eehn, who is the founder of Optimum Fitness Systems, is going to talk a little bit about what we can do about chronic diseases, both from the recovery and prevention side.

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Oliver, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you, Stephen. It’s a pleasure to be here.

 

Well, thanks for joining and thanks for talking to us about a topic that we have yet to really talk about these chronic diseases. So, obviously, you’ve seen this, you have a passionate about it. What is making some of these chronic diseases so prevalent today?

 

Unfortunately, it’s just lack of activity, poor food planning, dieting, and everything that ties along with that, and it’s just, of course, not to mention just the quality of the foods that are available today, along with all the added preservatives and processing that goes into it. And so you put all that together, yes, that is definitely an equation for disaster down the road.

My quest, if you want to call it that, is to now help educate the public about this as well as to encourage them to just better lifestyle and healthy living.Click To Tweet

 

Yeah, it is disturbing to see how many people are living with some kind of chronic disease. What brought you into this particular pursuit? What did you observe that made you decide that Optimum Fitness System is what you wanted to do? 

 

It wasn’t planned that way, it’s just kind of as a lot of your other fellow business people, some of your other guests have talked about, this is kind of how life --- as life just kind of flows along, we just move along and then it’s --- some of it...

Despite being underrepresented, the truth is, women can thrive, excel, and lead. Their resilience, creativity, and determination often outshine the barriers they face. 

In this empowering episode, our guest, Rhonda Skallan founder of Spark Alchemy, is here to prove just that. She shares valuable insights and strategies on how women can not only survive but thrive in these challenging environments. Rhonda's passion lies in empowering women to not just join the conversation but to lead it with confidence and authority. Through her work, she ensures that women have a seat at the table and are equipped to make impactful contributions.

Listen in as we discuss typical male-dominated industries, the experience of women in these fields, leadership barriers, and the power of building supportive networks. Tune in now and empower yourself to rise above limitations!

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Taking Their Seat: Women Leading in Male-Dominated Industry with Rhonda Skallan

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Now, we all have our dreams, we all have our passions, we all have what we want out of life, and, hopefully, some of the episodes you’ve already listened to is giving you a good idea of how to figure out what it is that you actually want. But once you figure out what it is you actually want, there’s many different barriers that can get in our way. Nothing is really that easy, especially developing a life that’s a little bit outside the box or outside of what’s expected. Some of these barriers could take the form of feeling like you don’t belong, feeling like you don’t really have the right to communicate. So, today, my guest is Rhonda Skallan. She is the founder of Spark Alchemy and she helps women in male-dominated industries.

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Rhonda, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you, thank you, and thank you so much for having me here today. I really appreciate it, Stephen.

 

Well, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me and my audience today. So, first of all, I want to start off by asking what is a typical male-dominated industry and what does that feel like for some of your clients?

 

That’s a great question because most industries are male dominated. My background tends to specifically be in construction, technology, finance as well as education, healthcare, and entertainment, and I would say all of those have a healthy dose of male dominance, especially when you think about combining them. So doing healthcare construction and technology construction. I decided I could go ahead and double down on that male dominance in a couple of those industries.

 

Now, are there industries that are female dominant or are there industries that are balanced, that have found a way to kind of work through some of this?

 

I really haven’t seen a balanced industry as much as maybe some female-dominated industries, maybe in the younger children, preschool, elementary-type education spaces, some of the service spaces of retail, sales, things like that, but I really haven’t seen a balance as much as I’ve seen one or the other. I will say what I know from some of the research that I’ve done with the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Women, the only industries where women make more money than men tend to be in childcare or those type of service-oriented businesses, which are also some of the lowest paying businesses.

 

Now, you also talk a lot about how a woman feels in a male-dominated industry. Are there any industries out there that just the percentages work out one way but do a better job of preventing making people feel like outsiders, like a woman in construction versus technology versus a finance industry?

 

Maybe healthcare, where you’re dealing with a lot of more traditional nurses, especially pediatric healthcare, which I have a pretty strong exposure to. I think, at some point,

Ever struggled to decide between doing what you love and finding the right way to do it? Do you wonder about the differences between a standard company and a nonprofit journey? These questions lie at the heart of our discussion today as we talk about the nuanced decisions that shape career trajectory, and influence our creative endeavors, and aspirations.

In this episode, I sit down with Hanna Yaritz, a passionate advocate for philanthropy and impact-driven work. Hanna shares insights into the unique aspects of choosing to work in nonprofit versus for-profit entities, emphasizing the role of mission alignment and personal connection to a cause. We touch base into the concept of conscious capitalism and conscious business, where organizations focus on both profitability and social impact. She emphasizes the importance of finding alignment between personal values, career goals, and the organization's mission.

Listen in for insights that inspire change!

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Deciding Between Non-Profit and Standard Company with Hanna Yaritz

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. So, perhaps you have your idea or you have your passion, you figured out what you want to bring into the world, and then you get asked a couple of other questions come in, what kind of venue you want to pursue your idea in, and one of the key questions a lot of people ask that has yet to be covered on this particular podcast is the whole standard company versus nonprofit path. A lot of people, whether it is what kind of job you want or what kind of business you want to build, there is a big question, do I want to build it in one format, a standard LLC to start out, or do I want to build a nonprofit? So, here to talk a little bit about the nonprofit space and what that could potentially mean for you, your career, your business, your ideas, your passions, we have Hannah Yaritz, a nonprofit fundraising consultant.

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Hannah, welcome to the program.

 

Thanks, Stephen. I’m really happy to be here. 

 

Well, it’s wonderful to have you, it’s wonderful to finally cover this topic as we haven’t covered it quite yet on this particular podcast. Let’s start with your passions, what made you decide that the nonprofit route was the space that you wanted to be in this world? 

 

Yeah, thanks. This is one of my favorite questions to answer because, for me, it really is about one of my strongest values, which is being of service to others and I really was inspired, I had the privilege and honor of going to college. I think that that truly is a privilege in our country and I was the first person in my family to do so so there was a lot of weight on my shoulders to be able to --- yeah, to pursue something that was bigger, would provide more opportunities to me and my family. And while I was in college, I volunteered a lot. I got really connected with a number of volunteer groups, learning about social justice, being exposed to different communities, different ways of living, different ways that people are trying to make a difference in our community and uplift others, and so it was through my volunteerism and activism while I was at college that I really started to hone in on what I wanted to pursue as a career. During school, I actually studied television broadcasting and while I loved that, I wanted to do something that really aligned my skill set in broadcasting and media and communications and marketing with volunteerism, with nonprofits, with making a difference so I started to pursue communication opportunities at nonprofit organizations. I thought that would be a really great alignment with my skill set and with my passion. So that’s for me where it really started.

 

So then what brought you to fundraising for nonprofits as opposed to, say, becoming the leader or CEO of a specific nonprofit?

 

Yeah, so fundraising was something I always did on the pe...

Perhaps you've heard of spirituality but aren't sure what it means. Spirituality is a broad concept that provides meaning, purpose and connection to something greater than ourselves. It cultivates a deeper sense of self-awareness and can serve as guiding light during the storms. But have you ever wondered how spirituality shapes our relationship and perception of the world?

In this episode, I have Wendy Watson, CEO and Founder of TBR Spiritual Health. We discuss how spiritual therapy works that helps clients tap into their spirituality. Wendy discusses several self-care practices, meditation, energy communication and how peoples’ spiritual practices can change over the course of time. Tune in and connect with your spirituality today!

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Connecting with Your Spirituality with Wendy Watson

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. In the last episode, we briefly touched a bit on spirituality and on how we’re at a time period where things may be changing, may be evolving, we may be changing the way we’re even thinking about spirituality and how it relates to everything else that we’re doing in life. Today, I would like to bring on Wendy Watson, who is the CEO and founder of TBR Spiritual Health, to talk a little bit more specifically spiritual therapy. 

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Wendy, welcome to the program.

 

Hi. Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it. 

 

Beginning with what you do with your spiritual therapy, I know you have a few different offerings with your business and a few different manners in which you work with your clients, but tell us about what it means to go into spiritual therapy and how it relates to any of the endeavors that we all have in our minds. 

 

Yeah, so I really focus on getting the individual person in touch with their spirit, their higher self, their intuition, and whatever is above and beyond that for them

I have no judgment on whether or not you call it God or Vishnu or Freya or whatever vocabulary, whatever name you use, I just want to get you in touch with it so that you can communicate and develop your individual relationship with yourself and whatever is above and beyond for you rather than what people tell you your relationship with God should look like.

And so your clients, when they come to you, are most of them in a place where they already have some sort of a spiritual tradition or do you commonly get people who come with absolutely no, purely like everything’s just logic, science, and how atoms come together, blah, blah, blah?

 

No, I get more --- I get people that already have some sort of relationship already established, whether they grew up Catholic or Christian or very much into the spiritual world, more on what people call the woo-woo side. I get all walks of life. Really, all I do is I try and build on what they’ve already cultivated for themselves and get them to look at that more on their own, helping them to define it for themselves. Like, okay, what does that mean to you versus what has somebody else told you that it means and how can you use that in alignment with yourself and how can we set up a self-care routine in order to keep your spirit clean, in order to keep you in connection with spirit, with God, with whatever you want to call it?

 

We can get really caught up in our day-to-day lives and get really busy so most people that come to you, are they people who just generally have the time, are they generally too distracted, are they generally constantly busy? I’m from New York where everyone’s constantly busy all the time and that’s a code of honor, what state is that relationship with the spiritual usually in when people come to you?

 

So, I get a lot of people with high anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies or suicidal thoughts. They’re so focused on the right here and the right now that they’re in fear of the future or they just f...

Pivoting in life and business can result in growth. The thing is, making decisions on it is challenging. Moreover, knowing the right time to make changes in our path is quite difficult. How can we be able to confront these uncertainties that lie ahead when we decide to pivot our directions to change?

In this episode, I talk with Mike Laezer, Founder of Astrology Wolf. We discuss how pivoting in business and life can lead to new paths and growth. With Mike's experience, he highlights the importance of trusting your guts, intuition, and facing your fears to overcome problems ahead. Additionally, he points out to follow our intuition for career pivots, even if the path is unclear. Join us to learn how to pivot with the expert!

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Thriving Through Change in Business and Life Through Pivoting With Mike Lazear

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I want to talk to you all about pivoting, because what we all know about really building anything, whether it be founding a business or starting something else on your own, is that you need a little bit of stick-to-itiveness. You need to stick to it, you need to not give up right away, because it is not an issue of instant gratification as so and so our culture is right now. However, there are times when it does become time to pivot, whether you need to find a new way to promote your business, try a new business, or just try something new in general because the time has come to move on. And one of the challenges that we all have is when is it time to move on and when is it that you're giving up too soon? Today, my guest is Mike Lazear. He is the founder of Astrology Wolf and also the founder of a business he recently sold, 515 Media, to talk a little bit about all the pivots he has made in life.

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Mike, welcome to the program.

 

Hi, thanks, Stephen. It's good to be here.

 

It's good to have you as well. Now, obviously, you've done a lot of pivoting in your life so let's just start with your story from the beginning. When did you first decide that you wanted to found your own businesses as opposed to what I usually describe as living by the script?

 

Yeah, thanks, and it's so funny because when I actually did start my first real legitimate business, I wasn't even necessarily trying to do it. I had always wanted to before I went that direction in my life sort of live more independently and I had this whole thing of like if I could find a way to just have enough time to do as many creative projects as I could and not have to spend all my time earning a living and it felt like it was almost an obstacle or a problem to solve so that's kind of what got me first into it. When I graduated from the University of Minnesota, I had a degree that didn't really have a lot of translatable skills with the bachelor's, I was a psychology graduate. So, I was always interested in programming, computer stuff, got into that. I took some courses at Portland State, mainly HTML, CSS, and I got a job out there working for a really great company called One Economy. They're wonderful, but I don't think they exist anymore. 

 

Oh, that’s too bad. 

 

The area where I worked, I don't even remember exactly what happened but a bunch of us got laid off kind of at once and I had started kind of getting my own clients doing web development, doing frontend coding, CSS, HTML. This was back in the days too where CSS was kind of a newer thing and I was learning — when dev is a lot more complicated today. It certainly became that way. So it was sort of by accident. I just was getting so many clients that I was kind of frantically looking for another job and I'm like I'm actually making enough now where I can almost see this just continuing. Then I started thinking about my dream of not having to go to a nine-to-five and just do what everyone else is doing.

In the past, the process of finding a job was often laborious and time-consuming, especially in the tech industry where specific skills were in high demand. However, with the rapid advancements in technology, the landscape has shifted dramatically. Today, job seekers have access to a plethora of online platforms and tools that streamline the search process. But how can we easily navigate or get a job with the use of AI?

In today’s episode, I have Vilas Tulachan, Founder of JobsGuru AI. We talked about the challenges of the current job search process and how Jobs Guru AI aims to help address these challenges using artificial intelligence. Moreover, we discussed how the application tracking systems, cognitive biases and how Jobs Guru AI analyzes resumes and job descriptions to determine good job matches, generates customized cover letters and interview questions, to help streamline the job search process and reduce frustration for job seekers.

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Streamlining Job Applications Using Generative AI  With Vilas Tulachan

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. How many of you out there listening has searched for a job lately? And, lately, I mean, since the pandemic, it’s gotten even crazier than it was before. It’s a really tough process and a process that I’ve seen frustrate a lot of people, myself included, as you may have heard about in one of my past episodes. My guest today, Vilas Tulachan, started a company called JobsGuru.ai to help with this process that’s really become frustrating for so many people.

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Vilas, welcome to the program. 

 

Thank you, Stephen. Great to be in your podcast. I’m excited to share some of the ideas I have on how to help people get jobs faster with you today. 

 

Yeah, so let’s start with where the process is right now. Right now, a lot of people are frustrated by the job search process. What do you think is going on that’s making it so cumbersome, such a hard process when all people really want to do is find a job and then work it? 

 

Stephen, great question. It’s amazing. We are living in an amazing time. As Charles Dickens said, the best of times, the worst of times. The best of times, because unemployment rate in the US is the second lowest in the history of 3.7 as of end of last year. 

 

Wow. 

 

It’s amazing, right? So there’s 1.7 jobs opening for every job seeker. That’s the stats, that’s the economic news. But on the ground level is a different ballgame for job seekers. I’ve talked to job seekers that have applied at 50, 100, 200, 500 job application, they hardly hear anything back. Or they get a good thank kind of response from email back and maybe they’ve gotten maybe two or three interviews and they get ghosted by the employer. It’s been a really weird kind of job market. 

 

Yeah, for sure. 

 

Yeah. And there are a couple of things I see, and the reason I got into this whole idea was as — I met you when you did the startup at Denver a year and a half ago and then I was looking to applying the AI and the ML into helping smaller businesses implement an AI in their businesses. And then I talked to a lot of people who were having issues with jobs, I’m wondering this sounds like a crazy idea, when there are so many jobs and I really did some research and found that a lot of people have a couple of challenges. Number one is called, it’s a cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger effect. So you must have heard about this where people either overestimate or underestimate their skill sets. 

 

Oh, yeah. 

 

Yeah. And it’s strange. So, if you look at the industry stats, about 73 percent of the job application, according to LinkedIn, are rejected right away before even a human sees the resume, and mainly because the resume doesn’t match fully the job requirements. So that’s the first thing. So you only get 30 percent chance of ever getting a resume ...

The subconscious mind is like a hidden library in our brains, quietly influencing our thoughts and actions. When ideas are consistently reinforced, they sink into the subconscious, becoming automatic responses. Positive or negative, these beliefs influence our decisions and behaviors without our conscious awareness. Have you ever wondered how your subconscious beliefs might be guiding your choices without you even realizing it?

In this week's episode, I have Austin Tani, Founder of Bringing Balance Back. Today, we discussed how negative beliefs are often formed in childhood based on experiences, and how those beliefs can then impact our lives unconsciously. He also shared transformative techniques for clearing subconscious beliefs, including breathwork and somatic therapies to release emotional charges from the body. Ready to transform your beliefs? Tune in now!

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The Power of the Subconscious Mind With Austin Tani

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. I am confident. I am competent. I am smart. I am good enough. I will make things happen. How many of you out there have said things like this to yourself in the mirror? How many of you wake up every day or have some sort of regular ritual around saying things like that? And what kind of results have you gotten from these affirmative messages that you said to yourself? Now, chances are, those results are kind of mixed. Maybe some of you start to notice a difference as you repeat these mantras to yourself, but maybe some of you did not get the results that you desired. Maybe some of you, for some reason, one reason or another, tried it for a while and still kept falling back into some of the same patterns and some of the same beliefs. My guest today, Austin Tani, of Bringing Balance Back, has a different approach to some of these instances in which this set of affirmations may not have particularly worked.

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Austin, welcome to the program. 

 

Thanks. Thanks, Stephen.

 

Thank you. How are you doing today?

 

I’m doing good. Doing good. Had a slight headache this morning but it’s starting to go away.

 

Well, not bad. Now, Austin, have you ever initially before starting a business tried this set of affirmations, kind of those repeated mantras, whether they be in the mirror or meditation or anything like that?

 

Yeah, I’ve tried some affirmation stuff but it didn’t really help me too much, but, yeah, I’ve given them a try.

 

And what kind of experience that you have with these affirmations?

 

Kind of just scratching the surface, you’re using your conscious mind and you’re hoping that you impregnate the subconscious mind with that affirmation and it becomes your belief. But with what I’ve learned and what I’ve seen through experience, a lot of times when we’re trying to drop an affirmation in, that usually means we’re carrying the opposite belief in our subconscious mind. If you’re trying to say, “I’m worthy, I’m worthy, I’m worthy,” probably means you’re carrying the belief of unworthiness in your subconscious mind. That’s why you’re trying to drop that information in and that’s why that worthiness came up as an affirmation for yourself. So I’ll explain it like this. So if you’re trying to drop in, “I am worthy,” into your subconscious mind, which is actually your body, the body is your subconscious mind, so if you’re trying to drop in, “I’m worthy,” in your subconscious mind but you have a big bubble of unworthiness stuck in your body, it’s just going to bounce right off you and you’re going to still feel unworthy, until you remove that feeling of unworthiness out of your nervous system and then you can drop in, “I’m worthy.” 

 

So let’s talk a bit about this feeling of unworthiness and talk about a little bit from the standpoint of a personal journey. A person you encounter that has this feeling of unworthiness in their subconsci...

Living a scripted life is like going through the motions, you know? It's when you're not really calling the shots in your own life. Everything's laid out in this script, and the main goal is to make things super comfy and easy, not necessarily exciting or purposeful. It's like we're all on autopilot, just doing what's expected rather than what we really want. So, are you cool with sticking to the script, or are you itching for a life with a bit more personal flair and purpose?

In this week's episode, I have Daniel Aaron, the visionary Founder of The Art of Vibrant Living. As a transformational coach, Daniel guides people in elevating their vibration and embracing empowered actions across mindset, health, and emotions. We explored the essence of vibrant living and delved into practical strategies for transitioning from a routine existence to a life filled with genuine vitality. Daniel shared his concept of an 'invincible mindset' and shared valuable insights on breaking free from limiting beliefs. Tune in and unlock your vibrant life now!

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Breaking Limits and Living Vibrantly With Daniel Aaron

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote mindset that keeps you settling for less. One thing I talk about quite a bit is living by the script, and what I mean by living by the script is being in a state where you’re not really creating your own life, you’re not really creating anything that you actually personally decided on because the script itself, as of the beginning part of 2024, the script is really created to maximize comfort and convenience as opposed to maximizing, say, enjoyment, maximizing purpose, maximizing excitement. And that’s where my guest today comes in. Daniel Aaron is a transformational life coach and the founder of The Art of Vibrant Living.

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Daniel, welcome to the program.

 

Cool, Stephen. Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here.

 

It’s an honor to have you here, Daniel, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me and talk to my audience. Let’s first by starting a basis. Now, when you talk about vibrant living, what does that look like in your view?

Okay. Well, let’s start with what it doesn’t look like and what it doesn’t look like is it’s kind of like Emerson said that the masses of people are living lives of quiet desperation, or what I call sometimes the cult of meh, it’s mediocre, monotony. It’s people just going through the motions of life. And I came to this as a little boy, I remember being three years old in the front yard of my family home and back behind me inside the home, it was like just chaos and pain and drama. My family was all kinds of dysfunctional. That’s why I was hanging out in the front yard as much as I could. Across the street, I saw my neighbors and they were slump shouldered and just going through the motions and I thought there’s got to be more to life than this, and so that awareness just stayed with me.

So what is vibrant living? It’s living with passion and joy and excitement and taking ownership for one’s life.

So I’ve thought about the cult of meh quite a bit. One we’re just like crazy, living by the script is meh or the idea of escaping of meh and my story behind that is when I talk about 7:15 a.m. on a Tuesday at a train station and you see everybody commuting to work, the same way you observed it as a kid, you don’t see that excitement from that many people. Maybe you see one person, somewhere here and there but the vast majority of people, you don’t see life, in a way, you don’t see that excitement about living life. How do you think it came to be that state? Do you think that’s a natural state of humanity or do you think something happened in our culture to bring us into a world where so many people are living by the script and living by what you would call the opposite or what vibrant living is not?

 

The question is how did we get into this predicament? 

 

Yeah.

Everyone possesses a personal brand, often unconsciously, and authenticity is the cornerstone of its development. To construct a compelling brand, delve into understanding your target audience, studying competitors, and identifying the unique aspects that set you apart. But the question remains: how can we embark on this journey?

In this week's episode, I sit down with Kim Russo, Founder of On Brand Designs. We explored her journey, starting with packaging design and transitioning to a full focus on branding. We discuss the lessons she learned along the way about establishing systems and processes to run a successful business. Additionally, we delved into the importance of connecting with people and joining a mastermind group that can help take the business to the next level. Tune in for insights that will elevate your branding designs!

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Taking Your Brand to The Next Level With Kim Russo

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, we’re going to generally talk about branding. I think we’ve all heard the phrase, “You are your own brand,” or some kind of iteration on that. My guest today, Kim Russo, is founder of On Brand Designs and also an expert in transitioning people from one level to another in general.

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Kim, welcome to the program.

 

Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

 

And thank you for taking time out. So what is that phrase, I know I didn’t probably say it right, the idea that each one of us is a brand of some capacity?

 

Basically, what we’re saying is we’re all our personal brand so when you’re talking about small business, especially when you’re growing a business, building a business, and being the face of your business, your brand is your personal brand as well, and that’s something that I do strive to bring into account with my clients. So I do a whole strategy process. And, in that, I’m looking at target audience, I’m looking at competitors, but I’m also looking at you, what are your likes, what do you love, who as you as a persona, that shows up in your brand.

 

So, does it ever work out that someone is trying to be a brand that just isn’t them? So, for example, someone might say, “I wanna do this,” but if it’s too much in conflict with their natural personality, you kind of have to tell them, “Hey, wait a second, I know this is the brand that’s gonna sell this product but, sorry, that ain’t you. That’s not who you are. You might wanna go back to the drawing board and think it through again.”

 

Yeah, and I think it goes both ways. There’s that and there’s also pushing too hard to be like somebody else. 

 

Yeah. 

 

So it’s maybe not following your own brand but it’s also trying to mimic somebody else without pulling in your own self to it is sometimes something I come across, because, at the end of the day, you have to love it and you have to feel it and you have to live it. It definitely helps with the cliché, like know and trust.

They’re going to get to know you and know and trust you with how you’re showing up in your brand.Share on X

I do often work with a lot of uplevels so when people are kind of stagnant in where they are with their brand and need kind of a refresh or there’s too many things going on with it that’s confusing, too many fonts, too many colors, and you’re just confusing who you’re trying to attract and who you are, is a lot of times, I am going to have to come and kind of simplify and really hone in on who they are but also I like to keep an essence of their original brand. So I always say to people who are starting out there’s going to be something in your brand that is going to hold true to you, to be cohesive and give you longevity, but you can always uplevel it, you can always change it. So, if I’m redesigning something that is just not working for somebody, it’s not who they are,