Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
You’ve heard the term “trying on different hats”, well Diane Lutz took that saying to heart and boy, has she run with it.
Julie Holton:
The climb to the top feels so good when you get there.
Audrea Fink:
Is it just us or can it feel lonely sometimes. Even when you’re successful?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Who defines success anyway? What about life’s twists and turns?
Julie Holton:
We’ve learned a few things along the way, and we’re ditching the culture of competitiveness.
Audrea Fink:
Bringing together women from different backgrounds to share their stories.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s do this together. Welcome Think Tank of Three podcast. Hi, I’m Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris along with Julie Holton and Audrea Fink. We are your Think Tank of Three.
Audrea Fink:
Today’s guest is truly a woman of many talents, but unlike so many of us, she hasn’t shied away from testing them all out.
Julie Holton:
What gives Diane Lutz the ability to not only lean in to what calls to her, but to recognize that there’s a reason behind her forward momentum. I’m so excited to dive into this conversation.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Diane, thank you so much for joining Think Tank of Three.
Diane Lutz:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the very warm and humbling introduction. Thank you.
RCK:
Well, we appreciate your time and this is going to be very fun. Teaching yoga, music, opthalmic sales, city council, mom, wife, and wait, there’s more because I’m doing an infomercial. If I did anymore, it would take up this entire podcast. So, here’s the $100,000 question. Diane, who are you?
DL:
So who am I? Yeah, that’s a good question, Reischea. Thank you. That’s a question I guess of beliefs and values. I would just say, I am a woman who recognizes that tomorrow is not promised. I believe in experiencing life to its absolute fullest. I really want to be on my death bed with no regrets.
What that means for me is making deep and meaningful human connections. It means exploring my talents. It means discovering new things. It means adventuring. These are things for me that are paramount to me having a fulfilling life while I’m on this planet. So, that’s who I am.
AF:
Diane, you have this grab bag of talents and career tracks. How did you maneuver from teaching to guiding the eye surgeon. Yep, that’s right eye surgery, to breaking down how to live your best life, and now trying to help other people live their best life?
DL:
I know for some reason it all makes sense to me, but I guess because I lived it. It does sound pretty wacky when you see it all listed out surgical rep, teacher, lead singer, yoga instructor. I’ve had a challenging time with my resume at times, making it sound fluid.
It almost seems as if someone merged three different people’s resumes together by accident and you know, submitted that. I liked my buffet style type of life. It’s really authentic to who I am. I think maybe to answer your question, I just really don’t truly fear trying new things out and trying on those new hats.
I was going to wear a fedora today, but I realized that would fall flat on a podcast because nobody can see it, but I’ve learn really well through experiencing things. It’s very hard for me to say like, “Oh, I’m really going to enjoy this career or I’m really going to like this without actually being there.”
DL:
Case in point I had a picture in my head. I had always planned. It was a goal and a dream of mine to stay at home with my kids when they were really little. This was something that I really wanted to do. I planned for that, we saved money, so it could happen that way. We made it possible for our lifestyle.
In my mind, this stay at home mom gig was going to be something fantastic and special. It was going to be magic. I was going to be cutting out cookies and they were going to sparkle, and my kids were going to be beautifully dressed and clean. I was going to have a warm cooked dinner on the table every night when my husband came home from work. My hair was going to be perfect by the way, I don’t know if I mentioned that.
I had this really amazing picture of what I envisioned being a stay-at-home mom was. I tortured myself for a little while trying to attain that very unrealistic expectation of myself. I also realized so this is where I came to realize that I am a very experiential type of person. It’s very hard for me to be outside of something and know whether I’m going to like it or not.
DL:
When I was staying home, I found that I was constantly getting involved in other things outside of the home. I sat on every board that I could possibly sit on. I got involved in all different projects. People asked me to come and do talks for their groups. I was like, “Yeah.” I was constantly finding babysitters and sneaking out to do these things.
I found it really difficult to just stay home with the kids and be fully present with them. I just found it, it just didn’t suit my personality. I came to terms with that and I was like, “That’s okay.” I stayed home with one child and went back to work and stayed home with the second child because that beginning time was really important to me again.
I approached it very differently with my second child and I gave myself a break. I enjoyed being present with my child while doing other things and making sure I did have access to babysitting and not feeling guilty about that, or not worrying that I wasn’t living up to this expectation. Long story short, the reason why I’ve done so many things in my life is because I really liked to try them out.
I really like to try things on for size. I can’t look at an outfit in a store and know that’s going to look good on me. I need to try it on. I truly just don’t fear trying things out. What is there to fear? Why do we fear all the time.
RCK:
Failure. That’s probably the biggest….
That’s probably going to be the biggest one is that you get into a comfort zone and you know that comfort zone is working. Then the minute you consider doing something else, you don’t know what the results going to be of that next thing. I think that’s probably the biggest thing is, “Well, I don’t know if it’s going to succeed. That lack of knowing that’s a hmm.”
AF:
The fear of the unknown is almost worse than the fear, which is, I think where the fear of failure comes from, right? It’s not that you’re fearing that you fall flat on your face and then X will happen. It’s the fear that you don’t know what’s going to happen.
If I leave my job and I take a new one, what if I don’t like it? What if they don’t like me? What if I don’t get paid enough? What if I get hit by a bus? What if I get fired? All of those unknowns are the things that holds you back and keep you where you’re at and your comfort zone versus being brave enough to take those risks and say, “Well, you know, done fine so far.”
JH:
Something also happens to fear when I think when we’re being led by purpose and that theme continues. I hear that coming up as you’re talking and you’re laughing and telling these stories that I’m sure at the time were not so funny when you were finding out that this picture you had painted about being a stay at home mom was not quite coming together the way you had envisioned at first.
I don’t think it’s ironic at all that in each of these different career paths, if you will, that you’ve taken, whether it be the actual careers you’ve had, I count staying at home as also one of those teaching has always been a consistent thread for you. Teaching in the classroom.
Teaching the eye surgeon, teaching your children, teaching yourself how to focus on what you need and to hire those babysitters so you can get out of the house for those speaking engagements, where again, you are teaching yet again. So how purposeful has that been for you to come back to this idea of teaching?
DL:
I have actually not pursued many of the teaching roles in my life. I was a Teach For America teacher, and that is the only role, the only true teaching role that I actually pursued myself. Outside of that, my very humble beginnings, working for an ophthalmologist answering phones within three months, they put me in charge of teaching people how to instill and remove their contact lenses and how to take care of their contacts.
That was my exclusive job. I was in charge of teaching patients, how to do that. When I was working for outcome laboratories, I was brand new in sales. Within a year of being there, they put me into a trainer role. They had me, I got promoted a year later in as a sales trainer and next sales job, also a sales job at Aerie. I also became a sales trainer within a year of being there.
People ask me, “Would you like to go for this job? Are you?” I’m like, “Okay, sure.” What I found is that I am most present when I’m doing these things, when I’m helping other people get to their goals, that’s where I feel most authentic. That’s where like more so than any of the other work that I’ve done, it’s the work that energizes me. It’s the work that excites me.
DL:
Since I am the self-improvement enthusiast for the past, I guess about 20 years, I have been looking at ways that I can embrace my passions. How can I be happier? How can I feel more satisfied in my life? And as time has gone on, I’ve realized that I’ve gained so many skills over the past few decades. I’m excited now because I can share those skills with other people.
So, this will be the next stage of my life. Next and only time I’m getting back to answering your question, Julie, this is the next and only time in my life where I’m being intentional, intentional about teaching, because now I do have something that I feel like is really worthy of sharing.
When I was a Teach For America teacher, I felt like that was a very worthy time for me and a really worthy time. I was doing really good work and I was really happy to share. This is that next stage of my life to where I feel like I’m really living in my authenticity and what I’m supposed to be doing.
AF:
When you talk about living your passion and living in your authenticity, that that is a learned behavior, correct?
DL:
Yeah, I would say so.
AF:
Is there tips, tricks, suggestions for how other people would learn how to live in that space?
DL:
Yeah, definitely. This is the work that I’m looking to do in my life right now. This is what I’m very excited to share. I think one of the very first thing that someone should do in order to live in their authenticity and to find their greatest satisfaction is to identify their values.
Generally, everyone knows what they value in life. Like family, they have this vague understanding, but have you actually sat down and journaled about it? Have you looked at a list of values and said, “What are my top five or 10 values in life? The things that I really couldn’t live without, or that would feel so inauthentic if I were not involved or embracing those things?”
That would be the number one thing to do. Identify values. Write them down. How many people can say like, “Ugh, I just don’t. I just don’t feel great in life. I’m not happy right now.” They don’t really have a general idea. They don’t really know exactly why they’re not happy. You could probably pinpoint a couple of things, but there’s actual exercises that you can do once you identify what your values are.
DL:
Then you look at the eight or 10 categories in your life that make up your greatest satisfaction. Maybe that’s career finances, your significant other, maybe that’s family. Maybe it is, there’s so many areas, but everyone has about eight or 10 areas in life that make up their satisfaction.
Well, how often do you just sit down and reflect, “How am I doing in these areas? How am I doing in health and wellness right now?” Journal about it or write about it, think about it, talk to someone about it. How am I doing in my career right now? Am I happy where I am right now? What needs to change?
Then you sit down, so identify your values and then assess those areas in your life. I assess those areas in my life, it may sound like a lot, but about once a month, I sit down and I go through the eight areas that are most important to my life. I rate basically on a scale of one to 10, how satisfied I am in those areas.
Once I do that, then I can start making a plan of action to create satisfaction. This is what I’m doing in my workshops that I’m starting to launch here in 2021.
AF:
That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. If you want to live authentically, number one, identify what your values are. Number two, assess how you’re doing in those areas that bring you the most satisfaction. Then number three is create a plan to adjust if you’re not satisfied.
DL:
Exactly.
AF:
Awesome.
JH:
Diane, I love that you are in a position where you are now going to help others to figure this out, because it sounds so simple. When we say, “Identify areas where you’re not quite satisfied.”
That sounds great in theory, but then it’s like, “Okay, now what do I do about it?” Having someone and I have a friend in my life, we call each other accountabuddies, because we’re accountability partners and whatever we’re focusing on in that given season. It’s great.
We hold each other accountable. We have weekly phone calls where whether we like it or not, we’re going to talk about where we are on things. It sounds like you’re creating an entire purposeful business around how to help guide people through this.
DL:
Yes, absolutely. It’s funny you say that too, because for me, I’ve been doing this for 20 years on my own, 15 to 20 years on my own different variations of this. For me, it’s easy. I can do this and like I say, I do this monthly and I can sit down and do a session in about 30 minutes and I’m done.
I recognize that when I’ve run these workshops, it’s like I take for granted that how easy it is for me, but how this really is truly a learned skill and how difficult it is sometimes for people to assess how satisfied they are in these different areas of life.
What I do in the workshops is I come up with journal prompts, different questions, questions for discussion that people can break out and talk about because gosh, we just go day to day. Do the job home, do the laundry, do the dinner. Next thing. Maybe we have a hobby or we go to the gym or we do any all the things that we have to do.
DL:
We’re not taking that time to just like step back and say, “What do I need to do to feel a little bit more satisfied in life?” Because like you said, Julie, it can be overwhelming. That sounds like a daunting task to look at the eight areas of your life.
That’s why I’m so excited to share this because it’s been so incredibly helpful to me in my life. To be able to share that with other people, I mean, that to me would feel like a life fulfilled that I am living in my purpose.
RCK:
Living your purpose, which is awesome. It’s awesome that you have been able to identify that. I’ve been in a couple of sessions of different areas that you’ve done this. You’ve done these types of settings in different settings and have fully loved them for yourself.
You’re talking from experience when you lay these things out. Then what then finally unlocked that willingness in you to say, “You know what? I need to share this. I need to do this more. I need to make sure other people have this understanding of how to find a better self.”?
DL:
Let’s just say you want to make cookies and all you need is a cup of sugar. How can I turn away? When I have a pantry of pounds of sugar behind me that I could easily hand you a cup. Maybe you want to make cookies, but you don’t have a recipe, but I could give you a sample recipe or better yet, I can show you the principles of cookie making so you can create your own recipe?
I feel like I’ve become the expert cookie maker, or that would be a baker, which I am not obviously, because I said cookie maker. I’ve become an expert baker and I’m ready to share with other people how to do it. Believe me, I’m not an expert in life. I think you’re never an expert in life.
I think you’re continually growing, but I feel like I have the tools now that I can help others. Most of this has been like people have asked me, “Would you come and talk to my group? Would you participate in this? Would you lead a workshop?”
DL:
I’ve gotten feedback from people from these workshops about how inspirational they were or how much it changed the way they were operating in their life. This is where I was like, “All right, there are all my bags of sugar. I need to share a cup and it’s time.” I think the timing is right now.
I’ve always talked about this. My husband mentioned this to me when he was like, “What is the podcast you’re doing? What is this?” He said to me, “You’ve talked about this, doing this for years. It’s not surprising to me that you’re doing it now.” He’s like, “I’m just surprised it took you so long.” He’s like, “When I met you had a vision board on your wall.”
I’m like, “Yeah, I did.” That’s the better part of a decade, but the timing is right now. I feel like there are a lot of people out there who feel sad. A lot of out there who just could feel better. There are people with anxiety. I always say this with values too. I think one of the key reasons why people aside from chemical imbalances, because people struggle with chemical imbalances, with anxiety, and depression and that’s a different arena.
Sometimes when people have this intermittent anxiety, I really do believe it’s because conflicts are in value with one another, or you’re doing something where one of your values. You either have two values in conflict with one another and you can’t rectify that. Something you’re doing is in conflict with one of your values.
Without knowing your values, it’s very hard to identify why you have anxiety. You just sit there with anxiety and you don’t have to. Knowing these things about yourself can help guide you. I think these are great things to do in conjunction with mental health therapy as well.
RCK:
You have been doing this self-introspection for a very long time, for as long as I’ve known you now, obviously far beyond that. What led you into that aspect? What led you to do this self-introspection in finding that better life and making that better life work for you?
DL:
This started, I would say probably around the time I was 18. I graduated high school. I was a hot mess. When I graduated high school, I had very little guidance and very little structure, and very little direction. I did not know what I was going to do. I graduated high school and it was like August 15th or 18th. Everybody started leaving to go to college.
I was like, “Oh my God, I have nothing to do.” I realized, I turned around and I looked and I’m like, “What am I doing with my life?” I was just about to turn 18. I turned 18 in September and there was something about that magic number. I am 18 and therefore I can not blame my life on anyone else anymore because I am an adult.
This is not my parents’ fault. This is not school’s fault. This is no one’s fault because now life became mine, for some reason. I’m glad I had that magical moment. For me, I started journaling at that time and I started making changes in my life. That’s how I got into eyecare.
DL:
It was so strange. I’ve been in eye care for a couple of decades here. It’s just been the one thing that I’ve done during the day. Sometimes part-time, sometimes full-time, I’ve taken off some time to do other things, but it’s the one constant in my life. How I got into it was my sister was working at the eye doctor and I needed a job.
I said, “Are they hiring?” She said, ‘Sure, they need someone to answer the phones.” Here I am, that was 1994. Here I am many years later, still in the same industry, just in a different part of the industry. I said to her, I was like, “You’re taking classes at community college at night. Can I hitch a ride with you?”
Because of course I had no car. She said, “Yeah.” I said, “I’ll just classes at the same time you are.” I took classes with her. Then fast forward that turned into I was a straight A student. I had 4.0. I was in honors classes. I went from being practically, a high school dropout to that. I started doing these, I am statements.
DL:
Reischea, you were in part of the workshop I did a few weeks ago on vision boards where we were doing I am statements. They’re basically statements of your future self. Who do you envision yourself being? You’re writing about your future self in present tense. “I am well-liked.” “I am smart. I am.”
Writing these very pointed statements about yourself in the future and reading them over and over again, at some point in time, you either have to say to yourself, “Okay, so I’m either lying to myself or these things aren’t possible. These are impossible. I never believed that they weren’t possible for some reason.
I just kept going after my I am statements. That was the first beginning of this. I just started setting goals and achieving them. I became nerdy about it, learning about smart goals, learning about how to be specific, measurable, timely. I got very nerdy about goal setting at some point in time, too I hired on a life coach.
I heard about life coaching. I said, “Let me give this a shot.” I went for it and it was an awesome experience and I ran with it.
AF:
Talk to us a little bit about life coaching, because I think that’s something that sometimes you hear in communities, it’s very woo-woo. There’s no science to it. Do you come in and just put crystals on my body. I don’t really know. Sometimes it’s like counseling.
What is life coaching? How is it different than maybe career coaching or therapy in general, or crystals? Not to shame anyone who likes crystals.
DL:
The crystals are good. Crystals are good.
JH:
All good stuff. There are just differences.
DL:
There’s differences, right. You want to think of life coaching as somebody who is going to ask you all the questions that get you to your answers. I know, life coaching gets this bad rap that it’s all new age-y and weird and whatnot. My experience with life coaching was that it got me very in touch with who I want to be, where I want to go in my life.
One of the questions that a life coach gave me early on that really struck home with me was he asked, “If a child asked you, what is your purpose, or what is the purpose of life? How would you answer?” That really hit home for me. That was one of those moments where I felt I really got a good understanding of what my purpose was here.
For me, it was very obvious that it was to make human connections. For me, that’s usually in the form of helping. I like to help people solve problems. It’s part of my, I don’t know if anyone’s ever taken the strength finders test. It’s my number one strength is problem-solving.
I think life coaching in general, imagine it’s like just a friend that is helping you figure out what you want to do in your life. You have all your answers. They’re just asking you the questions to get you there.
AF:
I want to go back a little bit to the discussion you were having earlier about “I am” statements and goal setting, because I think those are two tools that could be helpful for women as they’re thinking about their career and their lives in general. Talk to us a little bit about what an “I am” statement is.
How you would use it? How you would not use it? How often you would assess it, and then how does that relate to goals?
DL:
Sure. I should restate that. They’re not always “I am” statements there. “I” statements, because it’s not always, “I am” sometimes it’s “I have”, or it’s “I achieve” or “I do”, or “I make”, or “I create” . Again, I think that the very first thing that anyone needs to do is make sure that they’re in touch with their values.
Make sure what you value first, because it’s really easy to say like, “I am fits, I look like a fitness model.” To say like, “All right, do I actually want that? Does that actually align with my top five or 10 values?” Really the things that are in my core that are really going to make me happy.
Yeah, it would be great to look like a fitness model on a magazine, but that is in conflict with so many of my goals because I don’t have time to spend two or three hours a day in the gym and doing meal prep and doing all these things. I just don’t. I think the very first important thing before you make any I-statements is identify what your core values are.
DL:
Your maybe five, I think 10 is a lot, but maybe five to eight values that really drive who you are that are going to give you the most satisfaction in life. Then, like I said before, then assessing those areas of your life. How satisfied are you there? Then taking that moment to stop and step back like, “What do I need? What would be the ideal scenario? What do I need to change?
What would I look like? What would that look like then? Then say, then you can make those statements. “I am successful in my business, or I am the vice president of XYZ company. Knowing that these are coming from a very true and authentic place, because it’s good and great to sit down and just sketch out a list of things you want to be in the future.
If you don’t do it from a place of finding your core value first, that could be potentially dangerous or potentially… what’s the word? What is the word I’m looking for? Almost-
RCK:
Self-destructive?
DL:
Self-destructive, yeah.
AF:
Detrimental.
RCK:
Detrimental, as opposed to what I feel like it is the I statements are that goal, that attainable goal, but practicing, speaking, that attainable goal into existence.
DL:
Yes, because you can’t keep saying,” I am the vice president of the company.” Then roll out of bed at nine o’clock in the morning, a half hour late for work or whatever. You can’t-
AF:
There goes my dream.
DL:
Did you want to be the vice president?
AF:
No, not really.
DL:
That’s it. There you go.
RCK:
When I did the session with you, I was realizing that. That was one of the things that you had made very clear was yes, make it the thing that you truly want, but also be real about what it is that you want to do and how you want to do that.
I’m sitting here, no one can see of course, cause we’re not letting you see, you can only hear us, but I’m holding one of my little value segments in my hand with the “I am” statement in there. I really wanted to make certain that when I wrote that and I told you mine was legacy.
How to address that legacy of what I want and making certain that, that actually fits with who I think I am, who I want to be, who I want to be remembered as. I think when you say those I-statements and repeat those, I-statements, it’s that practicing what you preach into reality. I think it becomes attainable. I think it’s something that becomes more attainable.
DL:
When you speak in the present tense, your brain automatically believes that it’s happening right now to what you were saying Reischea, the brain doesn’t like having incomplete tasks. If there’s anything outstanding, so you’ve seen those things before where it’s a paragraph and it’s missing a bunch of words, but your brain automatically fills in those words, or missing letters and your brain fills in those letters.
Your brain likes to complete things. When you set out with goals or you set out with statements, like I am something, and you’re not that your brain is constantly going to keep putting that in front of you as something that needs to get complete. There’s some studies that have been done on this, that they had a group of people do a bunch of different tasks.
Then they cut them short intentionally on certain tasks. They couldn’t get them complete. When they were asked to recall all the different tasks, they did the ones that were more likely to recall where the incomplete ones, because that is what the brain is tuned into. Give yourself a bunch of incompleted goals, get them front and center in your brain, and your brain is going to constantly remind you.
DL:
Those constant reminders should be that if there are things that are truly in your soul and truly the things you value, they’re going to be constantly in front of you and drive you forward.
AF:
Right now where I work, I’m a business development coach and I am working with my attorneys to set their business development goals for the next year, which is really hard in the time of COVID. And so frequently the recommendation I make is set something small. 15 minutes a day or 15 minutes a week even, intentional working on this thing.
There’s something about writing down your goals that I think is really impactful. There’s something about making them small and attainable, but when I’m looking at that big picture. My life as a whole, who I am, who I want to be, how do I take those big things? Like I want to be the VP of XYZ company, and break it down into small goals, maybe I will get out of bed before 9:00 AM, maybe?
DL:
I mean, I think part of that is just a personal goal setting, what let’s say time someone has available. I’ll give you an example. I just completed my second album and how did I do that? I work full-time. I do these things on the side. I have two kids, just like you said, I set small attainable goals for myself, where I set I’ve put in blocks of time on my calendar.
I would sit down weekly and look and say, “Well, I have to be at work early here this day, so I can’t do that, but I have this evening I can work or I can get up at 5:00 AM in between 5:00 and 7:00 I can write songs or. I don’t have to be up early tomorrow, so I’m going to stay up later and do it tonight.
Just blocking out that time and having a specific commitment really helps in calendaring it. Julie, like you said before, you talked about having an accountability partner. I have like three accountability partners right now for different parts, different areas in my life. I love it.
They know what my goals are. I tell them what my goals are at night and for the next day. Then I check in with them and let them know whether I accomplished those goals or not. What my daily goals are, are the bite size pieces that I need to do to chip away, to get to the big goal.
DL:
Audrea, I think to answer your question, it’s really personal. How much time do you have, how much urgency do you have? Are you able to devote the entire day to it? Do you just have 30 minutes a day that you can devote to your goal?
There’s no reason to rush to get to your goals either. That’s something I’ve had to learn is to just slow down and don’t burn myself out. This has been an issue for me. I want to get to my goal. I want to get to my goal yesterday. So, I am just going to put everything into that. Even if it means it’s at the risk of not spending time with my family. I won’t do that anymore.
Those are things that, that are just non-negotiables, but you know why, because I’m in touch with my values. I know that spending time with my family is really important. When I don’t spend that time with my family, I don’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right and nobody else is happy.
JH:
What a beautiful reminder that none of us are meant to do this alone. You mentioned you have three accountabuddies and you lead these workshops in small groups, so that you’re leading with community. You have a tribe, around people, as they’re pursuing this.
I just wrapped up an amazing experience with an abundance experience, very similar in design, a month-long workshop with Jack Canfield and Lisa Nichols and all of these amazing collaborators and teachers. The whole concept was none of us are meant to do this journey alone.
No matter where we are on the path towards our goals, whether they’re getting out of bed before 9:00 AM in order to get that VP office, or whether it’s a smaller goal, and that’s why this podcast exists, we’re meant to take these steps together and to have that support in that collaboration.
DL:
I’m taking very small steps to get too. Well, actually they feel like, honestly it feels like very big steps because of the amount of progress that they make by doing things, very first thing in the morning, I’ve been reading this book called “Eat That Frog”, and it’s all about getting up first thing and just get getting that thing done. That’s going to move you forward faster.
I mean, even with this, I have a goal and a vision for, for the work that I’m doing right now, and it’s going to be much bigger than it is right now. Right now, what I’m doing is I’m holding vision board workshops and I’m doing them on Sunday nights because that’s an available space for me right now.
I’m just working on this one thing right now. But, the goal is to have a collection of coaches and we’re all working together, providing workshops, providing content, providing one-on-one coaching, providing that space, like you said, to have those accountability partners and have people come together and work together and share their successes with each other.
DL:
One day, I hope to have a foundation. I feel like a lot of people who can’t afford these coaching sessions and these workshops are the people who really could probably benefit from these the most. I mean, if not the same and I want to make this work accessible to everyone.
I hope to also create a foundation at some point, or my goal is to not, I hope to, I will.
RCK:
I-statements. I will start a foundation. Yes, complete the statement.
DL:
I have a successful foundation that helps people who cannot afford, or cannot get access to services like coaching and workshops that help with their self-improvement.
RCK:
And it will happen because you’ve put it out there and you’re already have begun taking the steps to make that happen. This is not something that’s out of the realm of possibility because you’re already in the practice of getting there. That’s pretty outstanding, that’s pretty outstanding!
DL:
Thanks.
RCK:
That’s pretty outstanding. Diane, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your insight and your I-statements. I think that’s awesome. I know the future for you is it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen in the manner for which you’re making it happen.
Before we go, however, we are collecting our advice for the women in our communities and sharing it with our Think Tank of Three forum. We’ve got our rapid fire questions. These are very quick answers, okay? Just a sentence or two to really hit that point.
Is there a lesson that you’ve recently learned that you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
DL:
Yes. Prioritize joy. I can’t say that I have just recently learned this, but I’ve been embracing this concept more and more right now. I am a fiercely hard worker who will put eating, sleeping, even going to the bathroom off to get my goal finished. You miss the journey along the way. If you aren’t enjoying the journey, what’s the point?
JH:
What is the biggest piece of advice that you would offer to any woman?
DL:
I would say don’t just lean in for the sake of leaning in, and don’t just say, “Yes.” If it’s not a “Hell, yes.” It can be really flattering to be asked to do something, but really check yourself and your motivations and your values before you jump in.
For example, we need more women in politics and I’ve been asked to run for office. I have to run because I believe in this, don’t just do stuff because you believe in it, make sure that this is entirely going to sit with your value system.
AF:
In today’s world, what do you think the most important skill for a woman to have is?
DL:
I’m going to say, learn how to be your own best friend. Your inner dialogue can be detrimental to your progress. If your friend told you they wanted to try something new, would you say, “Oh, you’ll never be able to do that. You’ll probably be bad at it.”
You would probably stop being friends with that person. I’m going to say evict that, evict that voice from your head, evict that person. Be your own best friend.
RCK:
Thank you, Diane. Can you please share the best way for our audience to connect with you if they have any additional questions?
DL:
Sure. If you have any questions you’d like to get in touch with me about any of my sessions or just want to chat, you can reach me at dianelutzconsulting@gmail.com.
JH:
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, Diane. That is all for this episode of Think Tank of Three.
AF:
If you have topics you’d like us to cover or guests, you’d like to hear from send us a message@thinktankofthreeatgmail.com. Subscribe to the Think Tank of Three, wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with us online. We blog weekly thinktankofthree.com.
JH:
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RCK:
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