“My passion is to help people on a level beyond what they can physically touch. To get them to connect to their true self within.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Dr. Dravon James who is also an actress, mother, and founder of the Next Step Leadership Academy, to discuss life transformation.
About Dr. Dravon James
Dr. Dravon James is the Founder of the Next Step Leadership Academy, a company that empowers women to use everything that shows up in their lives- good, bad, or otherwise to reach their next level of greatness. Dr. Dravon is a Transformation Specialist using her Everyday Peace philosophy to coach women on how to master goal attainment. She is the author of Freedom is Your Birthright.
As a leader in the healthcare industry for more than three decades, she is the recipient of the Secretary McDonough Coin of Recognition for her leadership efforts to combat the COVID pandemic, Radio Host of the “Dr. Dravon James Everyday Peace” live, weekly show on Unity Online Radio, coach on the SiriusXM “Road Dog Trucking” show, and an actress whose career credits include a recurring role on HBO’s acclaimed “The Wire”.
Dr. Dravon uses this training and experience to lead women to their victory, using the power of Everyday Peace to achieve their Next Level of Greatness in life and business.
Dr. Dravon’s journey began in poverty on the South Side of Chicago. Though she had always dreamt of a career on the stage, Dravon went on to earn a doctorate in pharmacy from Creighton University and has worked as a pharmacist all of her adult life. Along with her medical career and theatrical aspirations, Dr. Dravon has also always had a keen interest in personal development. After reading Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking in college, she went on to make a lifelong study of the power we all have to create the life we want.
http://www.drdravonjames.com/
https://www.instagram.com/drdravonjames/
www.facebook.com/everydaypeacewithdrdravonjames/
Resources:
Check out Episode #43 with Dawn Campbell and her story about managing life when everything is falling apart.
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Click Here To View The Episode Transcript
Nick McGowan (00:00.909)
Hello, and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I'm your host, Nick McGowan, and today on the show I have Dr. Dravon James. How are you doing today? Good, good, I know we were just dealing with some.
Dr. Dravon James (00:13.407)
Great. How are you today?
Nick McGowan (00:17.781)
technical issues in a sense and we're a little cut for time. I know you have episodes that are coming up that you need to get into but I'm really looking forward to the conversation. There are certain things that I know we're gonna touch base on but hey why don't you just start us off by telling us what you do for a living and what's one thing that most people don't know about you that's maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Dr. Dravon James (00:38.222)
Okay, that's great. So what I like to say I do for a living is I'm an actress and a life coach. How I make my money and pay my bills right now is I have a doctorate degree in pharmacy and I run hospital pharmacies. One thing that people probably don't know about me, especially in my full-time nine to five gig, is that I never aspired to be a professional in the true sense of the word professional. I thought I would go on.
and be an actress and live out my days acting, whether it be on film or on the stage.
Nick McGowan (01:12.749)
Well, most people can't say, I'm an actress and a doctor. So are you kind of an overachiever? Is that an easy way to put that?
Dr. Dravon James (01:23.382)
I'm a person who believes that when I finish this journey called life, it will owe me nothing. If I want to do it, I'm going to put forth the effort to do it. And I coach that way too. I tell people that you can transform your life into anything you want it to be if you're willing to do the work.
Nick McGowan (01:41.081)
Yeah, I'm sure you get into some of that within the book that you have. But what led you to the point to where you're at now, especially being a doctor and an actress? Like, was there something that happened when you were younger that you said, look, I want to do both of these things? And you set out and you did it.
Dr. Dravon James (01:58.05)
Well, I really only wanted to do one thing, right? But my mom encouraged me as mothers do. And she said to me, she said, you know, you need to get a real degree so you can get a real job. And I happened to be really good at math and science. So it was no brainer for my family that I should go to medical school. And so I have been just by happen chance, but there's no such thing as happen chance, is there, right? But.
Nick McGowan (02:00.994)
Okay.
Dr. Dravon James (02:23.198)
It seemed like half a chance. I was in the 12th grade, sitting in Latin class, and my counselor called and said, hey, there's some people here who want to talk to you about coming to their college. And so I did, I went down to the counselor's office, I met with one recruiter, and he sold me on going to pharmacy school and told me from there, I would have an easier pathway into medical school. You know, I was like, okay, so I did it, and luckily I did, because I realized while I was there,
that yeah, that was gonna be my stop. I was gonna stop after pharmacy school and I wasn't gonna go on to medical school. And it allowed me to have more freedom in my life. I thought, you know, more work-life balance. That's how I did that. So, and I actually just did that, just did pharmacy for a long time and worked on my everyday piece until I had my daughter who's now 23 years old. And when I had her, I said,
Nick McGowan (03:06.337)
Yeah.
Dr. Dravon James (03:21.538)
follow her dreams if I don't follow mine, so I return to acting.
Nick McGowan (03:27.094)
So do you feel that you following your dreams is sort of the main purpose in your life? Is there something within medical or even just acting?
Dr. Dravon James (03:36.51)
I think, yeah, my passion is that I want to help people on a level beyond what they can physically touch. Like to get them to connect to themselves, their true self within. And I think there's a little bit of that in everything that I do. Definitely in my life coaching and motivational speaking for sure, but in acting too, if you've ever sat down and you've been engrossed in some creative art, whatever it is for you, you realize that you sort of separate.
And you go into this part of yourself that is your real true self where, you know, all of your fears and, you know, people pleasing, whatever it is for you, sort of take a backseat for a moment. And I like having people to connect with themselves like that. And healthcare does that too. You know, if you have a moment and someone takes a problem away from you, whether it be pain or concern about something that's bothering you emotionally, it gives you a moment to step back and be part, and connect with your real self.
Nick McGowan (04:03.507)
Yeah.
Dr. Dravon James (04:31.934)
Everything I do, I try to be that part of myself, to give from that space of my desire to help people connect with their true self.
Nick McGowan (04:39.941)
interesting to think about the true self, especially from an acting perspective because you are acting as a character. So I've always wondered how people can get into that and be able to pull themselves out. I often think of a Heath Ledger situation where he was so in-depth in that role that he had as the Joker that it basically ended his life. But how do you actually step in and out of those different roles while staying true to yourself without
peppering as much as you probably want to of yourself into those different situations.
Dr. Dravon James (05:15.95)
That is a great question. So I always tell people this is that we step in and out of roles all day long, whether it be parent to being a child, you know, somebody else's, your child to being a nurse, to being a wife, we step in and out of roles all day long. It's just that when you, when you embrace acting, and to me it's all authentic, right? I don't care what you're doing, there's some part of that character that you can connect to some part of you.
Nick McGowan (05:40.121)
Yeah.
Dr. Dravon James (05:45.638)
And so it's just being consciously aware of that, oh, this is another part of me. And you get to like an onion, keep peeling these layers and start to become more and more self-aware. And it really, to me, bridges worlds. You see no difference between you and somebody who you thought or the media tells you is totally different than you. You realize, oh my gosh, yeah, I could see some parts of that in myself. I could see some parts of that character in me. It's really a...
Nick McGowan (06:10.509)
Yeah.
Dr. Dravon James (06:11.234)
So it really is your true authentic self. You're taking away all the judgment, all the shame that caused you to want to bury that part of yourself. And give the world your, give yourself your true self. Introduce you to you.
Nick McGowan (06:22.934)
I'm glad you bring that up.
You know, the judgment, the shame, it's like the trauma and the traumatic experiences that people have had that have told them you can't do this or you shouldn't say that or you can't speak up in that sort of way....
