Ep57 Craig Domann - Taking the Lid Off Your Greatness: How Authenticity Creates Success

Craig Domann  0:00  
And we have a tendency to play an outside game. We start pointing fingers at our boss, our circumstances, our company, all these different things, when in fact, it's always us. People generally are reflectors, meaning they reflect us. If we have energy, if we're positive, if we're confident, it's a different, different connection. You

Suzanne Taylor-King  0:23  
Hey, hey, welcome to a podcast where dreams meet determination and success is just around the corner. I'm your host, Suzanne Taylor King, and I'm here to help you unlock the full potential of your business and your life. Welcome to unlock your way with SDK, let's unlock your path to success together. Good morning and happy Friday. Everyone. Suzanne Taylor king here for another episode of unlock your way with STK. And I am so stoked for this conversation, because in the five minutes before the show, Craig was dropping some gold, and we really had to stop talking so we could bring it to you live. I want to welcome Craig Doman, sports attorney, pro, mindset coach, podcast host, author, speaker. We've already talked on his podcast once, and totally had an amazing conversation. I'll make sure to share that episode again very soon. Welcome Craig

Craig Domann  1:27  
Suzanne, thank you so much for having me. You're

Suzanne Taylor-King  1:30  
so welcome. So we were totally riffing five minutes ago in the green room, prepping for this show, which I don't do much prep. I have no canned questions for you, and I love that our conversation started out so awesome about how people show up for meetings, how how we dress. You're a casual dresser. I'm a casual dresser. I let go of that you know need to impress, like I did put on a necklace just for you today. Well, that's about the extent of it. From the waist down. I'm ready to go out for my walk in pants and sneakers. So my neighbors must think it's really interesting to see me out walking dressed up from the waist up. But hey, it's life on. Zoom, right. But let's get into a little bit of imposter syndrome. What it looks like to you know, really embrace yourself and dress more casually. And I know you show up in a sweatshirt nine times out of 10. So let's go there.

Craig Domann  2:38  
Yeah, I wear athletic sportswear almost all the time, and even in situations where I probably should wear, you know, a coat and tie. And the reason why is because I feel more comfortable. I feel like it's really me. A few lessons, like being in the sports business, there was a gentleman. You know, everybody's trying to impress. You're recruiting these young men, it's all about bling. It's all about looking the part. It's all about, you know, acting the part. It's all these things that are somewhat superficial, yeah? And when I grew up, I was taught, you know, dress for success, so you always wanted to go to the fancy places and get the nicest stuff, yeah. But thing that people don't realize is that when you are not who you are. You're not authentic in who you are. You don't show up authentically, and you're trying to be somebody you're not. You're actually less than who you really are. And so going back to that competitor that I had, he used to show up at a white t shirt and jeans, and he signed clients all the time, and he, you know, all the time. And I couldn't understand, how in the heck is this guy being so unprofessional? Once you are your authentic self, yeah, people don't care what you're wearing. Once you are really who you are, and you show up, everybody's unique. Well, you're unique. You've got your personality. I do too. Once I show who I am, they don't care about our accessories. They don't care, right? All that stuff. You don't even need a briefcase. You know? You can be carrying your computer like a college kid. So it's like the I think the the real lesson here is that if you're struggling before a big opportunity to show up and look the part. Yeah, just be who you are, instead of trying to be somebody you were told you should be, or perhaps somebody you saw on on Instagram or social media. Oh, that's what he does, or that's what she does, so I gotta do that. You need to look like that, yeah? Now if that's you great, but if it's not, you just be you. So the hardest part for all of us is the concept of we're good enough, and if we just show up being who we are, people are still gonna like us. Yeah?

Suzanne Taylor-King  4:59  
Yeah. Yeah, well, I I want to ask, When did this happen for you? Like, when did you realize that this was okay to embrace a more casual and truly be yourself in those situations.

Craig Domann  5:23  
Unfortunately, I had to have proof of concept first. I has successful first. Yes, Melody, don't so it's like when I reached the top of the mountain. That's when I became more vulnerable and I became more authentic. Yeah, you didn't realize that I could have done that the whole time, and I probably would have climbed the mountain faster if I was authentic from the beginning. And so I realized that once I became more successful, and I just didn't care what people thought, because I knew who I was, I knew my value. I knew what I could do. I knew I was a dream coach, and that I could help these young men achieve their dreams. And it had nothing to do with, you know, what car I drove. I mean, I've known people, you know, they'll go in for a business meeting and they're trying to impress somebody, and they they rent the car that costs a couple 100 bucks a day just to impress just so it's gonna park in front of their office or their house, that's silly. So that's that's taking it to an extreme. It just doesn't matter. And so there are probably a minority of people that it does matter, and for those people, they're probably not the best fit to work with you, yeah? Because if they're focusing on the outside, the exterior, the superficial, then what does it matter? What you bring to the table? Because they're looking at the wrong things. Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  6:53  
I love that so much, because it took I was probably a coach for 10 years before another coach that I was working with said to me, when in your life did you make the most money? And I said, Oh, I was 24 I owned a chain of retail stores. I was running snow war trips all around the world, and this one day, I was at Starbucks, and I met this person, you know, random conversation, and it turned out that he was an investor, and he ended up investing in one of my ideas, and it ultimately was a $5 million deal, and he looked at me And he said, What were you wearing that day when you met him? And I said, Oh my gosh, an Indian Motorcycle t shirt, jeans and flip flops. And he said, and he still talked to you, and he still invested with you. And I was like, All right, all right. You proved me. You proved me wrong, right? And it was this moment for me when I was like, Oh, I made the most money, and it had nothing to do with what I was wearing or the car I was driving or the purse I was carrying, and it, it instantly shut down that online persona image thing I was having. Oh, I need a Paris photo shoot, and I need, you know, $1,000 heels and the $20,000 purse so people will hire me, and I really embrace the concept of you don't need those things to be successful. And for me, it's actually less things make me more successful. Now it's like the opposite is now true.

Craig Domann  8:57  
Well, Suzanne, something that you didn't mention, that I know happened coffee shop was your passion for your ability to communicate from your heart about what this idea was, yeah, how it could really serve people. And that person, that investor, he he fell in love with the idea. He didn't fall in love with the look, right,

Suzanne Taylor-King  9:27  
right? And I think when I think about being a coach, and I'm curious about this for you as a coach, you know, having an offer or a program or modules or a signature method, I think is important for your own confidence, but that's not what people buy. And nine times out of 10, and you mentioned this, nine times out of 10, my clients don't get. Step one, step two, step three, step four. They know it's there, but that's not the work we're doing together to get that result. It's almost, it's almost counterintuitive to sell an eight step program.

Craig Domann  10:21  
It really is, but here's here's where I differentiate it. If someone's not in the game, you can start with module one, because they're not in the game, but most of the people that pay for coaching are already in the game. They're already dealing with issues and failures and failures and shortcomings and rejections and disappointments and things that you know, like, Hey, I thought it was gonna be different. So what I found in the coaching space is that you have to meet them where they are. Yes, every single one of us wakes up every single morning with at least one important issue we're trying to, trying to, like, solve. Yeah, it's the problem that we it's it was there yesterday. We haven't fixed it yet, and we're still thinking about it today. Soon as we solve that problem, another one replaces it. So there's always some problem in the batter's box, so to speak. Yeah. And so if you are coaching, and you have a curriculum and a program and a system and you're walking them through the program, you might be the it might, might be something that's going to show up on week seven, or something like that, they don't care, because their mind is still thinking about the problem they have. Yeah, so it's always better to find out where they're at, find out what what's important to them, not yesterday, not last week, today. Let's fix that first. Let's talk about that first, and let's apply the principles of your program to that issue first, yeah, and that shows a lot of things adaptive, you know, on our side, on the coaching side, it shows adaptability, shows listening, it shows attention. It shows applicability of your program to whatever their issue is, and ultimately, you make a positive impact on your client by treating them in that fashion, instead of putting them through a program. Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  12:29  
agreed. It's one of my core values, that coaching is custom and CO created in conversation with your clients, and that idea that your course or your program should be an asset to that conversation, but it's not what you're selling. And I think that's why what you do resonates with me so much, because we have that in common. And I want to go a little deeper into how you actually help your clients. You know, it's a coaching conversation. It's getting over problems. It's but when you're dealing with high performers, like professional athletes and, you know, business people, what did that look like for you, getting into this field? Like, where did it come from? For you? I

Craig Domann  13:30  
didn't get into it. It just happened. So we're How I love that when you're representing athletes, they're running into different situations all the time. Sometimes they're missing. They feel like they're misunderstood. So then you learn how to communicate about how do you handle a situation where you've got this coach that thinks you're a certain way, that you're really not, and now you have this fractured relationship, you have this distant relationship, and you've got, you know that unless the coach trusts you, you're not going to get on the field, unless the coach trusts you may not even make the team. So all of a sudden, you start tackling this issue of and it repeats itself with different clients at different times where they that's understood. And then there's other situations where athletes sometimes don't feel seen. They do not feel like the coach sees them the same way they see them. And we have that same issue. We sometimes know people don't see us the way we see us. We how important we are. We know how what we can bring to the table. We know our expertise, but some we don't think other people do well, how do you handle how do you basically pro mindset is a platform and a curriculum and a framework that helps people understand that they have a story, and their story shows up every day. We have systems and standards, and the world is really good about system. Systems, but they're not as good about standards. Systems are what we do. Standards are how we do what we do. And don't get me wrong, they're both them. Both of them are important. But if you got great systems and you don't do them great, you don't have high standards, they don't work. Yeah. And then the third thing is, everybody has a stage. We all have a stage. This is a stage for you and I right now. Every time you have a conversation or a coaching session with one of your clients, every time you have a discovery call, Hey, we have we have stages in our kitchen, our living room, our bedroom, our boardroom, everywhere we go, we have a stage. So it's, how do you show up to be your best in those moments? And so in the course of representing players, the way I got into it was, I'm coaching my clients all the time on all these crazy situations. And the thing that I realized was the common denominator with every one of my clients is this issues, every challenge they had, a common denominator was always them. And when you coach and and you look at your life, your your issues are the common denominator is you? What is your story? What is my story? What are what is the person listening today are watching what is their story, and if they don't like what they're getting, it's usually them. And we have a tendency to play an outside game. We start pointing fingers at our boss, our circumstances, our company, all these different things, when in fact, it's always us. Yeah, people generally are reflectors, meaning they reflect us. If we have energy, if we're positive, if we're confident, it's a different, different connection than if we're pessimistic. Yeah, and we're unconfident, and we really don't want to be there. We don't think we can do it. So the cornerstone of pro mindset is your identity, which is your story, and understanding it. Every single one of us like you, you introduce me. That's the story people can see off. That's the iceberg. That's the top of the iceberg that people can see, but what they can't see is what's below the surface. The Titanic was sunk because of what was below the surface, not what they couldn't that what, not what they could see, but what they couldn't see. Most of the time, what sinks us is not what people can see. It's what they can't see.

Suzanne Taylor-King  17:45  
Yeah, and I can only imagine that as an attorney, you were dealing with lots of egos in the room, right? And when I think about, you know, my time as an athlete, there was a lot of ego involved. There was a lot of, you know, competition involved. There was a lot of, oh, I have to be the best today, or I'm not going to get noticed. I'm not going to get seen in this competition, right? And I was a little older at the time I was competing, you know, most of my competitors were 1415, 1617, 18 years old, and I was 24 so there was a little bit of fear involved, not, not of what I was doing, but you know, I'm not, I'm not 16. I'm not competing, you know, I'm competing with people so much younger than me, faster than me, I don't know. It's just a mindset shift for me to use age as experience instead of, oh, I can't compete with these younger people, but I can imagine the egos in the room, you know, between athlete and coach, between coach and coach between. I can't even imagine what that's like.

Craig Domann  19:09  
Well, I think that an extroverted ego is like a protective layer, protective like it's like a shell that when you feel safe, when you feel confident, when you feel like you're where you're supposed to be, you need an ego. You only use the ego to protect yourself. So for example, as a professional athlete, if you've already been paid, if you're the face of the franchise, most of the time those guys don't have eagles, eagles egos. They're very, very humble, because they don't have to have an ego. Everybody's telling them how great they are. The owner writing a big check every week so they don't have to, like, ask the question, Am I good enough? No, you got all that going, yeah. Ego, it's. It's a it's a concept we talked about a minute ago, which is, how do you get to the top, and how you act and behave and think to get to the top? And the the answer is the same way you do at the bottom. You all along the way. It's the same. People think they have to be somebody different to get to the top. So once they get to the top, they lose their ego. But at the bottom, they think they need to have an ego. Yep. So I, I've identified four things. I'm sure there's, there's psychologists out there. They've identified several more that are identity killers, that that that hurt your story, and one of them is comparison. You know, when you're 24 years old and you're competing against 16 year olds, be very normal for you to go, I wasn't as good as that person at 16. All of a sudden, now you're getting feedback. You're giving feedback to yourself. Maybe you, maybe your time has passed. Yeah, the maybe they're, where are they going to be at 24 Yeah. And also, and you can't win that game, yeah. The second one is perfection. Being a perfectionist is a great way to fail. It's a great way to feel pressure. It does everything it does is negative. So God did not create us perfect. None of us have I mean, our ears not the same place. Our eyes are not set in the same place. I mean, we are not perfect people fits or mentally or emotionally or spiritually, any of this stuff. So the bottom line is, quit trying to be perfect. Love it if you, if you look at your most successful experiences in in your personal life as well as in your professional life, we're never perfect.

Suzanne Taylor-King  21:59  
No, they were messy, and the messier, wow, the messier the better, because of the lessons learned along the way. You know, a business failure for me was probably the best advice has come from that for my clients, from me screwing up a whole a whole business and losing a ton of money. Those mistakes along the way were such teaching moments. Not at the time, believe me, I was beating myself up right, but now, looking back, connecting those dots, I know exactly why I went through those things. And I think helping people do that with their own lives, connecting the dots going backwards, because you can't do it going forward when you when you're in those messy, you know, horrible situations, you can't possibly see into the future and say, Oh, this is going to help me later in life. You can't, but once you get to the future, you can look back and connect those dots and see how those messy things are actually adding value to coaching, conversations, business deals, whatever you're doing,

Craig Domann  23:19  
well, that's where you get your wisdom, right? Wisdom and make decisions moving forward is, is how you it's from, it's derived from the lessons you learn from your failures and mistakes. And so part of rewriting your story is reframing your past, and it's getting the lessons. So if you think about the idea that your business failure is one of the greatest resources for your future success, yeah, my channel, if I was coaching, we would go back one more time and we would relive your failure, your business failure, and make you're getting every lesson you can get out of that. We're going to squeeze every every ounce of orange, every bit of the juice out of the oranges we can, and we're going to get really clear on what the fundamental lessons you learned. So the thing now become your new standards moving forward, our standards, because you know your you know yourself better than anyone else. You know your tendencies, you know your blind spots, and they all showed up in that business failure. Oh, yeah, right, we're gonna create, and you already have, but we're gonna create systems that address everything that happened so it doesn't repeat itself. Yeah, so it can't happen again. Now some other failure may happen, and then you got to take lessons from that one too, and then enhance your systems even more. Okay? So it's like people are so scared of their failures they want. Forget them. You put it in a you want to put it in a closet, you know, close the door, throw away the key, and never think about it again. It works until you start having multiple failures, and then you got too many closets in your mind, right? And then you're weighed down because you've got all this crap so people don't tell you, hey, when you fail, get a lesson. Embrace it, build new systems and clear it out.

Suzanne Taylor-King  25:30  
Yeah, I love that. I love that I had a therapist one time explain to me that by not unpacking your failures. It's like having a dirty sock on your bedroom floor that every day you walk over it and you say to yourself, dirty sock, dirty sock, dirty sock. And she explained trauma the same way you know that if your failure hasn't been unpacked and analyzed and thought about and and you realize the benefits of whether it's a marriage or a business or whatever, that dirty sock is there every minute of every day you're walking over it. She said the key is to pick up the dirty sock, wash it, fold it, find its mate, put it away in the drawer, and it's still there. But you're not walking over it reliving the negative. You're reliving the positive outcomes of picking it up, washing it, folding it, finding its mate and putting it away. And it was so profound for me just to think about struggles and failure like that, if I don't write about it, if I don't think about it, if I don't see my own part in that failure or that relationship change or whatever, then it can't benefit me in the future,

Craig Domann  27:08  
I would even go so far as to say that you cannot become the next best version of you doing that process. So what happens is when that dirty metaphorically, when that dirty sock is still on the floor, you're stuck in in you're stuck in the same place. Yeah, all of us need to get to the next edition, so to speak. The new story can't get there. So by addressing that dirty sock, by washing it, all those kind of things, dealing with it, learning from it. Now you can become the new write a new chapter, so to speak. Yeah, hey, you know what? Let's say it's a it's a male female romantic relationship. You You have a failure, you are in denial. You carry that into the next relationship, and then it happens again.

Suzanne Taylor-King  28:06  
He did that so many times,

Craig Domann  28:08  
yeah, so now it's reinforced. Now it becomes a bigger Boulder, so to speak, a dirty sock that smells a lot worse. But once you learn your lesson, you show up as a new person in the next relationship, yeah, and the next business opportunity, you show up wiser, smarter, and you you're you can see, one of the things that I've always done as a as a sports agent, is had the knack to see farther than my clients could see into the future. So they had an horizon that they could they were, they were limited in their vision to a certain level. But because I was representing lots of players over lots of years, I knew what was going to happen at before, before they did on in their future. And I was able to tell them this is probably what's going to happen, and it would happen, and then the trust would go up, because, like, dude, this guy's psychic. No, I wasn't psychic. I guess, benefit of all those failures, yep. So if you can gain, I mean, it's beautiful when you can gain wisdom from other people's failures. So good, but unfortunately, the most impactful wisdom comes from our own, because we never forget those and and we have that little voice, I call it the pocket voice that'll remind us. Hey, man, you know like Suzanne. Remember what happened with so and so? We're not doing that anymore. Yeah, now you show up differently because you think differently because of how you handled your past setbacks and rejections and failures and whatnot.

Suzanne Taylor-King  29:55  
Well, what part of you know, self awareness, uh. Emotional intelligence comes into play to be able to do that, because I noticed so many people have such a hard time removing themselves from the situation, to be able to look at it objectively like an outsider would. And I think that's really key. What do you think stands in the way of that? Is it lack of emotional intelligence, or is it just a lack of willingness to look at yourself objectively?

Craig Domann  30:35  
That is a wonderful question, I think, until it's modeled for you. It's almost impossible to do either, whether it's through coaching, whether it's through a friend or a colleague. And they show awareness. They show a perspective that that defies logic, like if you put yourself in their shoes, you'd be you'd be revengeful, you'd be pissed off, you would be vindictive. You'd have all these emotions of like my friend was treated wrong. If I was them, I would do this. I would, you know, I would make sure and try to make life hell for that guy, whatever it would be. But when that person softens and has awareness that is not logical, that is a perspective that is like maybe a 10,000 foot view, instead of like being in their own body, and they can go, Hey, I and take accountability for their part in the mistakes in the in the fractured relationship, then I think what happens is, when we see that and hear that, well, how does that apply to me? What if I thought the same way about my situation and my relationship and my business failure? Holy smokes. So what happens is what it really is emotional. Emotional Intelligence is a direct reflection of your detachment from your circumstances. Because when you're attached to your circumstances, we cling to this victim mentality. We cling to. I was wronged. I was treated unfairly. I wasn't seen, I wasn't heard. They didn't they didn't see my true worth. Yeah, when you are detached from that, you realize things like, well, maybe I didn't show up the way I should have showed up. Maybe I should have prepared more. Maybe I should have listened more. Maybe I shouldn't have been as judgmental all these things that we do. So emotional intelligence is there's probably a million different ways to define it, but if you're attached, you can't be you can't be emotionally intelligent. You have to be detached to have a chance, and it has to be modeled for you or coached with you.

Suzanne Taylor-King  33:08  
Yeah, yeah. I remember doing some work that was around self sabotage with a coach a while ago, and my default would be to go into victim mode. And when I noticed that and started doing the work around that, I was personally offended, like it was like having this conversation in my head, like, oh, victim, I would never do that. Yes, you do. You do it all the time. And it was like this awareness outside of myself that, oh my gosh, I do do that. I do do that. And that was the moment to be able to let go of doing that, only because I was willing to see the awareness in that moment. Oh, that's my default. And I think I took some assessment that said nine out of 10 times if you're going to self sabotage, it's because you do this. And I was like, oh, personally offended. Oh, my gosh, I have work to do in that area. So I knew that by getting personally offended, I'm a coach. I can't I can't be doing that. I knew that was the homework spot, I knew, but I would say most people don't know where they're self sabotaging, and I almost feel as coaches that's our responsibility to point that out or ask questions around that, and giving people passing that, that gift forward, is almost the sole mission of having a coach. In my book,

Craig Domann  34:59  
absolutely. And I think awareness and emotional intelligence are connected. But awareness is first, you cannot have intelligence, emotional intelligence unless you have awareness. So the question is, how do you have awareness? And I think that if you can, if you can, like, if you can agree that today, Suzanne, the version you are today in 2025 is not the same you were in 2020 2015 Yeah, 2010 so and so forth, then you have to realize, and have an awareness that you're growing and changing and evolving, and probably most things you're getting better, and some things you might be getting worse. We're all human. We We have good and bad, but it's Can you in the moment, have an awareness of this is what I this is how I usually respond. Mm, hmm. Is that how I want to respond in this moment? Yeah. Now we gaining some awareness, because you paused, you you pumped the brakes just for a second, just for a mini just a microsecond, and said, Do I want to respond to this situation the same way I've always respond to the situation, because if I do, I'm going to get the same thing back. Or can I have the awareness that this is the moment, it's decision time. Do I want to act differently? Do I want to respond differently? Do I want to listen more intently? Do I want silence to work in my favor, so that that person can absorb what they said, and I can buy some time on how I should respond, because I've never responded differently than I always responded. Yeah, no, I need to respond differently. So awareness is critical.

Suzanne Taylor-King  37:02  
Well, that's, that's the freedom place right between, between, you know, having something happen and then responding. Sometimes it's only, you know, 10 seconds. Maybe it's three seconds. And how would you recommend increasing that space between stimulus and response? Number one, because I know for athletes, reaction time is critical in the game,

Craig Domann  37:37  
and I think situational awareness too, yeah, okay, if you can as an athlete, and I think it applies to us and in normal life as well. In business, what are the situations that normally pop up? You know, percent of the same things pop up in every game. Okay? In business, it's generally 80 plus percent of the things that are going to potentially misunderstandings, things that are going to happen. You're all the same. It's just a different product, a different service, a different time, and maybe different people, but the situation is the same. And then when you go back and review your story and how you responded in that situation in the past, maybe that doesn't serve your best interest. Maybe it does. If it does, you reinforce that, and you do it again and maybe even improve it. But if it doesn't serve your best interest of it creates a bigger gap in your relationship. If it destroys the trust that you might have with a coach or a boss or whoever it might be a client, that's when you have your brain, your reticular brain system, looking for those situations so that when they pop up, you go, Whoa. This is what I was looking for. This is yeah, no. Maybe you don't know in that exact situation how you're going to respond, but you definitely don't want to respond like you used to respond, right? And then when you get really good and you start anticipating situations, you visualize yourself in advance responding differently than you've ever responded, so that when it shows up the next time you've already done it before, in your mind, it's easier to do. And you've got a little bit of a toolbox to go to, to go, I'm going to grab this tool, I'm going to respond a certain way. And then you get positive reinforcement from that, because it gets better. Changes the energy of the relationship, changes the energy in the room, whatever it may be. Holy smokes. Now it's starting to get hardwired, because you're going to start doing it more and more and more because it works. Yeah. So it's a it's a game within the game. We're all playing a game of life within the game of life. And it's really all the edges and all the friction and all the contact we have you. With other people.

Suzanne Taylor-King  40:01  
How important is that? Mental rehearsal?

Craig Domann  40:06  
Oh, it's crazy. I mean, there's after doing the normal preparation and practice that you know, every professional has to do, regardless of sport, of the activity of the profession they're in, you know, you got to be prepared and you got to know what you're doing. You got to practice it. Visualization. To me is, is it because your brain and your mind can see it, you have more confidence and belief that you can do it, and then when it starts happening in the game or in that business meeting or in that sales call, or whatever it might be, it's in slow motion, and you've got the confidence to step into that space. So I can't tell you the hundreds of times I've had conversations with my clients where they did something amazing and their response was, it was just how I saw it in my mind. Yeah. I mean, that is, if I could, I can't count how many times that's happened. And so think about even in going out on a date or going on a vacation or going into a business meeting, or even a journey of going out, let's say you're speaking somewhere, and just the the art of, you know, getting to the airport and jumping on the plane and getting a rental car, and all the things checking into a hotel, all mundane things, but if you can visualize that going really smooth, and you're going to have fun with the process, you'll probably have a really good convo with the person sitting to you, sitting next to you on the plane. If you take Uber instead of a rental car, you'll probably enjoy the ride. Everything will go better because you saw it in your head first. But if you are like blank, you're going to get on stage and you're going to be surprised by something, and you're not may not respond the way you want to respond, and you may never be asked back by that group to speak again, because you didn't do anything evil, you just didn't handle it as professionally as you could have, because you didn't visualize yourself with that kind of thing happening. So the the art of visualization is not only the belief that you get because you can see yourself doing it, and the confidence that comes from that too, you also can anticipate all different types of situations, positive or negative. Curveballs, you know, technical. It doesn't matter what it is, yeah, and it all bumps in the road. Call them whatever you want, and it doesn't matter.

Suzanne Taylor-King  42:39  
I actually love them. I love a bump in the road. The last time I spoke on stage in person, I was there, it was a three day thing, and I noticed, you know, on the first day, all the speakers had a walk up song. And I was like, I want a walk up song. I don't want them picking it for me. So I hustled myself backstage and talked to, you know, the guy who was in charge of lighting and sound, and I said, hey, everybody gets a walk up song? He's like, Yeah, I'm just picking random, you know, motivating songs. I was like, no, no, can I pick my own? Is that okay if I pick my own? And he's like, okay, so I told him what song, and he looked at me like, that's kind of weird for a talk about charisma. And so the song plays, and it changed my talk. The song, you know, for me, was a black sheep story, and you know, it it changed the structure of my talk, because I'm opening with a different story, and it was so good because it made me uncomfortable. Talk I've given 1520, times before made me a little uncomfortable, which turns on all the awareness for me. And I caught somebody in the audience heckling me, and I said something really, really funny, because he, he was a friend who heckled me, and I basically, you know, tied it into the whole story, and I got more compliments on that story and that interaction and everybody laughing, then the original story that went with the talk. And I thought afterwards, after I, you know, reviewed how it went for me, and after I watched the recording, I said I couldn't have planned that any better, but it was because I was willing to make myself uncomfortable in that moment. And how fun is it to be uncomfortable and do something different and ditch the note cards and embrace the moment? And I love that so much, and I think it's only from doing. It over and over and over, being willing to be uncomfortable,

Craig Domann  45:05  
here's what I see you. Is it fair to say that you did a better job than you would have done? Yeah. Okay, so maybe bigger impact on the audience was more like, probably impactful in terms of, like, getting their attention and relevance, all that type of stuff. Yeah. So you took the lid off your greatness. You chose to be brave. And even when that gentleman or the per the sound person said, hey, you know, gave you the look like, Oh, you're the You're the crazy lady that wants to their own song, right? Yes, yes. You then step into your greatness. Yeah. When the one thing that practice does and reps do is sometimes it makes us really good, but it doesn't make us great. The only way we can be great is be in the moment, have 100% courage about what we're doing, and put our neck out there. And so it's hard. It's almost like every, every every speech, every Keynote you give, you should leave a little part of your speech that you're not going to decide what it is, yeah until the day of, yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  46:25  
yeah. Martin said you took the lid off your greatness. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna can that phrase from you. Craig, for sure. I love it. I think Gordon said the same thing. Took the lid off your greatness. So good. And I think what's really key here and for people to remember and take away from this conversation, is that I couldn't have planned that better. Now, could I have screwed it up? Absolutely but by not planning that, by being willing to do something different or embrace a challenge, and I actually think Challenge is a great word, I don't see it as a negative word. I'm like, Oh, you want to challenge me. Cool. Come on, challenge me. I want to be challenged. I think that's part of life.

Craig Domann  47:26  
Well, I think the part of taking lit off your greatness is by being in the moment, and you're not rehearsing. So when they use the term mental rehearsal, it can be, it can it can make things a little monotone, a little predictable. So really, what it is is, is what I call, I call it a preview. You're just kind of showing, hey, what might happen, and you're considering all the different options, all the different scenarios, and you're just going to respond in real time at that moment where rehearsal is doing the same thing over and over and over again. And so you need rehearsal. I get it, but you also need the the liberation of being who you are and being and really showing your greatness. So there's a, there's a there's a happy medium there. And there's a fine line between, you know, great, you know the good and the great debate. You know, the enemy of great is good. If you have so much mental rehearsal that you're like a robot up there, you can't be great.

Suzanne Taylor-King  48:38  
Yeah, that that's the point where you know you're just happy with being good. I know you're a little bit of a fan of stoicism and stoic philosophy as well, correct? So what part about settling, you know, for the status quo, like good enough. Here's the bar. I'm gonna hit the bar, and that's it. We can't truly embrace being an athlete if that's what we're happy with.

Craig Domann  49:18  
My thing is, we only get one day, and today's the day. How great Do you want to be today? And so can you fully embody who you are, what you prepared to do, whatever your role is, whatever your whatever you do in your career? Can you truly embody it today? And I think where greatness comes is when we leave our head and we move into our heart. So when you speak from your heart, you live from your heart, you work from your heart. You try to you try to relate to people on a heart level, not a head level. It changes everything. So if you're an. Athlete, and you're playing out of your head. You're thinking too much. Okay, you can't be great when you're thinking too much. But if you're, if you're, it's almost like tapping into your seven year old self. I've got a young man that's running a 40 today at its combine, and I told him last night. I said, I want you to act like you're seven years old when you're running the 40 yard dash and you're racing your neighbor and whoever wins gets candy bar. That is the, that is the, that's the mindset. You're just running for fun. Yeah, you're running for dollars, and you're running to impress scouts. All of a sudden, now you feel this pressure, and now you're thinking a lot, and you're not going to be great.

Suzanne Taylor-King  50:53  
Yeah, that was my question. You tap into the fun, right? Tap into the game of it. You know, games are fun. You should be enjoying it. And I think business is very, very similar to that. If it's not fun, I don't want to do it.

Craig Domann  51:15  
The people that are most successful in business usually are having

Speaker 1  51:17  
fun. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right.

Craig Domann  51:22  
And they're not counting their hours everyone, right? They're not dreading than their to do lists, not, you know, wanting. They're not shying away from making phone calls because, if it's fun, they want to engage. They want to have those phone calls. They want to check things off their to do list, right?

Suzanne Taylor-King  51:40  
Yeah, it's a get to do list. Yes, I'm so lucky. I get to do that. I like that one get to do. Yeah, I get to do and even more important, the delegation comes from the things I don't like to do. So if I don't like to do it, or I'm not good at it. That's the not to do list. That means that's for other people, and that that's helped me grow over the years too. I like that. So not to do list sometimes is more important. I think, you know, all right. Well,

Craig Domann  52:16  
here's, here's one, one final thought on that. Okay, your success or fail. Failure may depend on putting your task in the right list. Is it a good to do, or is it a get to delegate? Love it making sure you have everything in the right place? Yeah.

Suzanne Taylor-King  52:38  
Perfect final call to action for our listeners today, make your get to do list and your get to delegate list and see what's currently messing up your schedule. I know productivity is huge for Craig and it's huge for me, and if we could challenge you to do one thing today. I think that would be really fun.

Craig Domann  53:06  
My call to action. I want to give a call to action to your listeners. Yeah. Is, can you be great today? Can you embody your greatness today? Not wait for tomorrow and not live in bask in the glory of the past? But today, today's Friday. Can you make it a great day? Can you make an impact on your friends, on your colleagues? Can you really live your purpose today? Yeah, don't wait for tomorrow.

Suzanne Taylor-King  53:36  
I love what Gordon just said. He's never seen Richard Branson in an office ever. He is always on a jet ski with pot

Craig Domann  53:47  
some people

Suzanne Taylor-King  53:49  
you know, right, Craig, how can our listeners get in touch with you?

Craig Domann  53:58  
They can find me on craigdoman.com They can find me on LinkedIn. They can grab my book on Amazon. Pro mindset, awesome. They're interested in having me as a speaker. They can check me out on either one of those locations.

Suzanne Taylor-King  54:18  
Sounds great. Thanks so much for the conversation today. I appreciate you.

Craig Domann  54:22  
Suzanne, thank you very much. You have a wonderful weekend. You too.

Suzanne Taylor-King  54:28  
Thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of unlock your way. I hope you found today's discussion inspiring and you're ready to take your business and personal growth to that next level. If you're feeling as fired up as I am and eager to unlock that full potential, I'm here to help you on your journey and provide that personalized guidance tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Simply book a one on one coaching call with me, and we'll dive deep into your business. Aspirations and see how we could co create a roadmap for your success, and whether you're striving to scale an enterprise or just getting started, I'm here to support you every step of the way. To schedule your coaching call, simply visit the website at unlock your way with stk.com click on the book a call button, and we'll turn your dreams into that reality. Subscribe and review on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube, plus, you can join over 800 entrepreneurs in the IDEA Lab Facebook group. Let's make success as an entrepreneur happen together until next time I'm SDK, keep dreaming big. Stay focused, and most of all, have fun while you're doing it.

Speaker 2  55:59  
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