Our guest’s perspective on success and happiness emphasizes a shift from conventional measures like wealth and achievement to a more introspective and authentic approach. To Dominey Drew, true success lies in discovering oneself and finding authentic power, which leads to a profound transformation and, ultimately, happiness. Dominey emphasizes that leadership is a continuous process of personal growth and development. She illustrates how she rose above her struggles like a phoenix emerging from the ashes by overcoming colossal insecurities and challenges. Dominey believes that individuals need to embark on a journey of self-discovery to find happiness and achieve success. This involves delving deep into oneself, and understanding personal values, passions, and desires. Dominey’s teachings revolve around redefining success and finding happiness through self-discovery, authentic power, and conscious leadership.
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Redefining Success: Discovering Your Self To Find Joy In Life With Dominey Drew
As I told you in the last episode, we are going to finish the season with a bang. We’re going to take a shot across the bow and start a process of bringing you some three dynamic, incredible, full of wisdom and advice folks that are in this world. I’ve specifically plucked them out from the world to bring them to you with the hopes that out of our conversation, you’re going to pull some golden nuggets to integrate into your life as you pursue joy, happiness, and success.
I’m pulling my wallet out right now. I’m going to pull a $20 bill out, and I’m going to bet you this $20 that somewhere in our conversation in this episode, the word success and its definition is going to be part of the conversation. My guest and I believe truly in our hearts that part of the multifaceted, complex problem that’s out in the world now is because the world wants to define success for you and not you yourself.
When you do that, who are you giving the power to? Do you get to define that for yourself and live it and try to achieve it in your life or are you letting the world in Hollywood and everything else define what success looks like to you? I am willing to sit here and bet you $20 of my hard-earned money that it’s going to come into the conversation. Our guest and I have not had this conversation. We talked for 10 or 15 minutes in the agreement before we started and that topic did not come up. I specifically saved it for after we start.
Maybe I gave it away because I brought it up before she came in and now, she knows it’s coming. Anyway, that’s okay. My guest is Dominey Drew. She likes to roam around the world. She’s sitting in one of my favorite cities in the world, Galway, Ireland. I’m so jealous because I’ve been there. I can sense, see, and taste the Guinness and everything else from my experience in the town. Before I bring her in, as I always do, here are parts of her bio because, as you, the audience, know, I’m big in storytelling. I want her to tell the juicy parts of the story of her life. You can read it in her own words in our conversation.
This is what I am going to tell you and then we’ll let her tell the rest of the story. Dominey Drew is revolutionizing male leadership on a global level, redefining success from wealth and achievement to authentic power and social impact. High performers in every industry, from tech to finance, entertainment, and sports hire her to identify and solve the issues in their inner world which keep them from real happiness.
Through a process of profound self-discovery, she takes those who are successful professionally but struggling personally and guides them to the genuine fulfillment, freedom, and authenticity they desire. Dominey is living proof that any human difficulty can be identified at the source and transformed. She’s a speaker, author, spiritual advisor, inner fulfillment coach, and healer. Nowadays, reinventing what it means to be a global leader is her passion in her life’s work.
Those words, that last sentence, means a lot to me right now, too. It’s my why and my passion to change the look and feel of leadership as it is now. With that being said, Dominey, welcome to the show. Excited that you are here, saving the best for last, as you read in the last three episodes. I can’t wait for you to share your wisdom, but anyway, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I’ve been so excited. Ever since you were kind enough to offer me the chance to come on, I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to diving in.
We always like to start our conversation with storytelling because I’m a firm believer that storytelling is a huge leadership tool. It makes a lot of impact in people’s lives because people get to see where they fit into the story, which for every single individual could be anywhere within the story. Let’s start at the beginning. I know your story, but the audience may not know. What did you have to overcome to be where you are now physically, mentally, and spiritually? You weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth. How did you get to where you are now? What did you have to overcome?
It’s interesting because, in some ways, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I come from a wealthy family. I had incredibly fortunate that I had very conscious parents. If anybody’s familiar with wealthy families, there’s a lot of distortion, a lot of families, a lot of ways, but there’s almost a way in which, from my perspective anyway, this is like a more formal old money type of world of perspectives.
There’s a lot of grandeur, etiquette, and this type of thing. It’s lower on the deep heartfelt connection. They’re not known for being super warm. That’s an interesting thing to examine on its own, but a lot of separating out the individualistic type of thinking, cutting each other off if you don’t like what people certain people did, and things like that.
From one perspective, I did have that type of initial upbringing. What started my path, though, was my mid-teens, I got incredibly, deeply depressed. The question of what I overcame to be here, interestingly, to me, looks totally separate from the type of family I was born into. On a consciousness level, that’s all incredibly intentional. On a human level, it’s like all of my issues were inward. I’ve done the work I now teach for many years. I’ve seen so many issues from so many different people. Sometimes it seems like I had all of them in one form or another. Despite my issue, I did not have money issues. My parents loved me. They were divorced. They went through a divorce when I was seven.
Stuff happened. I feel as though I am incarnated to have all of these insecurities in me already. I had this profound self-hatred, a sheer, deep split from myself. I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid of what people would think. I had control issues. I was deeply insecure. I was overweight. I was uncomfortable in my body. I was a people pleaser. I couldn’t say no. I didn’t even know that was an option until my early twenties. The things that I overcame to be here in some way seem inwardly like everything. It was almost like I had to touch every issue so that I could experience it and feel it. When I was nineteen, I found the work I now teach and I began peeling back the layers.
One after another, the issues were solved. I say that word intentionally. They’re not better. It started with getting better and coping but then layer after layer, deep enough into the core of the issue, that issues were completely solved eventually, completely healed out of my system from nearly a consistent state of being triggered to pretty much no trigger at all.
As I went through that process, there was an emphasis on the word through, because I had to go through each experience, I got the experience of, “This is what it’s like to be deeply insecure.” Now I know what it’s like to be profoundly secure. Truly, I walk into every human interaction. There’s no fear in me at all anymore.
It used to be constant. It was all the time and now, there’s none. I have had this extraordinary perspective of having seen both sides of almost seemingly every fence as far as the issues that humans deal with. The circumstances would be quite different depending on the human. It was myself, I would say, is probably the most accurate answer to your question. What did I have to overcome? I had to overcome who I was afraid I might be in order to reveal who I was, which felt like a huge risk at the time. Now I show up simply as I am. Some people love that and some don’t, which was perfect. I am now able to meet every human that I meet where they are.
The audience knows this. I’ve walked the same, maybe not to the depths that you did, but I went through a self-esteem journey too, where, as you did, I had to go peel the layers back through therapy, self-health books, introspection, and everything else until I could get to the point. I don’t know what your definition of solving it is, but for me, it was an act of forgiveness.
Forgiveness for myself and for the others that were involved in the process of having this state of self-esteem that then allowed me to go or to be free to be myself to then start a journey of self-love to go, “Now I know who I am, but do I love myself? I don’t know. I need to go on that journey.” The entrance fee to start that journey of self-love was to truly understand who I was that was in a state of love and not a state of fear to go through this self-leadership process of peeling back those layers and walking through that fire to understand and discover who I was.
Forgiveness is an interesting word. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to say that as the core piece, but it very much is. The reason why it very much is is because real forgiveness is actually letting go. When you’re finished with an “issue,” when you’re done rebelling against your mom or whatever the thing is, there’s a relaxation in your relationship with that thing. There’s a release and neutrality that comes naturally because that thing is simply a thing. Your mother is simply a thing. She’s not good and she’s not bad. That’s a human judgment on top of her.
Real forgiveness is letting go.
You’re releasing it back to that person. My issue or dynamic was with my father and me turning my father into a human that was flawed in my mind as well as your behavior and your words. You’re going to own them. I’m not going to own them. In doing that, I regain my power over my life.
It’s a release of attachment. That’s why it feels freeing afterwards because you were holding onto something that you’re not holding onto anymore.
I used a process of forgiveness for that releasing process.
That’s why people talk about forgiveness. They talk about you doing it for you as opposed to doing it for them, which is a more modern way of seeing forgiveness and used to be seen that way. The reason why that’s true is that you are the one holding on and remaining “tense” in that way. Holding onto something, attaching to something. The state of enlightenment is one which is not attached to one’s surroundings but simply able to be.
That’s why non-attachment is a thing. You’re not holding onto that which is around you because that moves. There’s tension when you grab it and tension when you’re like, “Should I hold onto it?” Life is moving. Instead, you can connect itself, and allow life to do whatever it wants to do. There’s your state of peace and it’s immediate. It’s not like a twenty-year journey. It’s like, what if you turn your awareness inward and allow life to be what it is?
That’s when life starts working for you, as in that moment. Was there a moment or several moments in your life where that switch flipped for you to say, “I don’t like where I’m at and I want to do something about it?”
My teenage years were rough. Deep depression, lots of anxiety, and suicidal. I was 15 or 16, probably when I went on meds. I was on antidepressant medication. It’s like I couldn’t tolerate being myself. It’s like I couldn’t stand being me. Talking about self-love, that was further down the journey. I had multiple breakdowns and profound loneliness, which I didn’t understand at the time, but I now know because I was so split from myself. We feel loneliness when we disconnect from ourselves. We think it has to do with other people around us, but it doesn’t. I was so split from myself. I had this profound emptiness inside. I went around looking for solutions, looking for help.
When we disconnect from ourselves, we feel loneliness.
I found a weekend workshop somewhere in Virginia when I was nineteen. I transformed more in one weekend than I thought was humanly possible. I was like, “I would like more of this, please. Sign me up.” I dove in and I studied that work intensively for four years. I did a school there. I did another intensive four-year energy healing school and got a Master’s degree. I kept going and going. A lot of people, when they come into the healing path, they come in because they hurt. You get to a certain place where you stop hurting and most people stop there. They plateau and that’s where they want to go, which is great. People geek out on this shit, which is what I do.
I kept going. I was like, “If it can be this good, maybe it can be better. What about this little issue? I didn’t even think there was a problem.” Every “problem” is a place of self-sabotage. There’s something you are creating subconsciously that’s creating this state of being that’s causing you to suffer. I kept going and going. At some point, I reached a state of low-level enlightenment, where I was in bliss for about a year and a half.
You started truly getting a taste of what joy and happiness is.
There’s joy and there’s happiness. I was happy enough before. I was a happy human. This was a little bit beyond the human. There was no ego. There was no self anymore at that point. I was there for quite some time. I remember it was like I was in love with everything. I was operating normally this whole time. I ran my business and I hung out with friends and whatever. I remember turning onto a street and seeing the street. I’d turned down the street like 100 times before and I turned down and I went, “This is the best street.”
It was totally legit. That was my response to seeing the street. I was in love with it. It was extraordinary. It was very interesting to see how that state impacted my clients. People started getting results much faster by being around me because my vibration was so much higher that they would come up with me simply by connecting with me. I was there for about a year and a half, and then I came down out of “that” for a little bit, maybe a year or something. I went back up for maybe about six months or so. I’m like in and out of that. I’m honestly so profoundly grateful that I even got to experience that type of state because it’s glorious.
It’s also very high energy. Think of our energy sources in the physical world to power a lot of light in this world. You need nuclear reactors and high-energy sources to be able to do that. It’s not easy to sustain in our world.
What’s interesting is that by the time I was there, I was the nuclear reactor. It was effortless to stay. Other people would gain it because I wasn’t trying to power my personality. Now I’m a little bit out of there and I’ll get tired. For that whole period of time, I never felt tired. It’s like you’re plugged in. It’s like being on batteries like most humans are, but then I was plugged into the wall, which is amazing.
What excites me the most about that is that there’s nothing significant about me whatsoever to have reached that state except that I kept doing the work. I kept going and going and digging and digging, and I was curious. That’s my thing in this lifetime, and I love it. That’s everybody’s natural state, which you know. The gift of that experience for me is I can say that with 100% certainty because I’ve been there.
You talked about going and getting college degrees and so forth, but what were your tools in your process to get through those layers, to get them solved, and so forth? Did you use therapy? Did you read a lot of books? A lot of introspection? What mechanisms did you use?
Interestingly, I didn’t do a whole lot of any of those things. I love to read, but I don’t read self-help books. This is my field of expertise. I don’t think I’ve ever completed one in my life. That’s not how I gain the information. To be more accurate, I could say that’s how I gain information, but the information doesn’t help because that stimulates the brain. The problem is in my body. It’s on a deeper level. I find that sometimes what those books are made for is for somebody to read through them and have an insight and a lot of people do. That’s the gift that they bring.
Sometimes what can happen is without that insight, you end up being very smart about your problem. Sometimes that can happen in therapy too. If anybody’s reading this, you have a therapist and you’ve been going for a while, and you make little bits of progress, then you need a new therapist because a therapist needs to challenge you. Otherwise, you don’t go anywhere. You wouldn’t go on your own at home. That’s why you’re paying the money to push you to go somewhere you don’t want to go.
It’s what I say to my coaching clients. You’re trying to get from a state of fear to a state of love. In order to do that, you got to move through the state of courage. You got to walk through that fire in order to get yourself there. What you’re talking about is somebody sitting in fear still. They’re very knowledgeable in their mind about what the issues are. They’re not feeling stepping into the fire into the state of courage to then move themselves to a state of love.
To put that into your framework, the state of courage is consciously existing in the state of fear. When you get scared, people will shoot out of their bodies, they’ll defend, they’ll start overthinking, or they’ll distract themselves. They’re out of it. They want to avoid it in some way because it’s uncomfortable. However, if you can exist in it, because that is the reality of the present moment, and simply be there and breathe, then it moves through your system and processes out. When you do that, the piece you were willing to feel that went through your system is now “gone.” You have processed that piece of the issue. If you do that enough times, there is no fear left. You’re not talking about the fear. You’re being in it and then it processed through that.
The phrase I use with my clients is to become friends with it, to the standpoint that you recognize it. You walk over to the park bench that it’s sitting on and sit next to it and say, “Fear, good to see you again.” You have a conversation with it. The act of courage, you’re releasing it. You’re being present with it. You’re recognizing that it’s in your life and you’re working through it to the point that it releases. It may take a long time in the beginning when you’re getting used to this process, but eventually, you get so comfortable with it.
That’s where a lot of people get to the point where they’re like, “I can manage it well.” Great. That’s far enough. If you keep going, there is a bottom. I emphasize that because even in pretty advanced personal development, people do not know that’s true.
They’re like, “It’ll get good. You’re an anxious person. You can get your anxiety under control.” Now you’re just controlling the part you don’t like. That’s not helpful. The whole point is let’s move through it. The way to heal it entirely is to continue to go through each piece again. You go through as many times as you need to go through. Maybe it’s twice. Maybe it’s 2,000. At some point, you get deep enough and that’s when there’s actual forgiveness.
Whatever’s happening in your personal life tends to happen in your business relationships as well.
If you’re working through the issue with your mom, it’s not about your relationship with her. It’s about, “Can I let go of this?” You can’t while it’s still an issue while this process is through and through. That was my medium. They called it process work. It was cathartic and you went into the feelings you didn’t like, and you sat there or you breathed, whatever you had to do. You went toward. It was accelerated because it was big pieces. Each time, you’re going deep and you’re feeling a whole bunch of it. It was quite accelerated. I did that for four years. The healing school that I did was a similar thing. It was that on an even deeper level. It was very through oriented. The college degree did absolutely nothing.
It leads to my next question. Why coaching? You went and got all these college degrees. Why? I had to answer that for myself too.
What was your answer?
It’s the reason why I feel like I was created. I had to walk through my issues to be effective as a coach moving forward. I had to work through to a point of forgiveness, self-love, and self-esteem. All those issues had to show up in my life or my soul growth to be a teacher. That’s why the universe created me.
Not too dissimilar from mine. I am a natural teacher. Whatever I have learned and excelled at in my life, I have taught pretty much right away. I love this more than anything. This is my absolute favorite thing. I’m weirdly good at it. Even the first few weekends of learning this work, I had a knack for it. In fact, I remember there was an experience that very first weekend and someone else was having their process scene and there was a moment where the facilitator didn’t know what to do next.
That happens sometimes. That’s not like a skill thing. Sometimes it’s a lull. He was sitting there waiting to see what happens, which was exactly the right thing to do. I got an insight at that moment and very timidly, I can’t believe I was even brave to say that, tapped him on the shoulder and was like, “Can I try something?” He’s like, “Sure.” I went in and made a little shift and the guy cracked. These tears came and this beautiful release. That just came to me. It’s exactly as you’re saying. It’s like this is who I am.
Let’s talk about clients. Do you have any starting points that somebody has to be at? In other words, if you’re not at the spot in your life, then coaching’s not going to work for you. Come back and see me when you’ve reached A, B, C, or all of the above or you’re in a state of or you’re ready to walk through the fire, whatever it may be. What makes a successful client?
Willingness. That’s the end of the list.
I knew where you were going, but on purpose, I didn’t say anything because I wanted the mic drop. Are you ready? Do you have a willingness to do the work and walk through the fire?
If you’re willing, then you’re ready. Done. That is it. I will say that is true for every other coach, and every other therapist as well. It’s the shape of the human system. Free will is a thing. Human free will says that you don’t have to fix anything. You can keep going in your distorted direction as long as you want to and distort as many other people or cause as much harm and damage in the world as you want. That’s the life we’ve created. It’s not the happiest life for you, but there are perks. You might have power, which probably thinks you feel good and safe or you might have manipulation or control, and those things are fun or might be admired and that feels good.
It’s like there are lots of reasons why people choose that type of life, which is fine. The people who are over it are the ones that come to me. They come to me in droves, which is an interesting phrase, because they’re over it. My process is super accelerated. That may be the thing that I offer. I’m not the only one that offers that, but my system is very direct. I’m like a masculine type of chick. I’m like, “Let’s get straight to the point. Let’s talk about this. You’re somewhere floating over here. Where are you in your body?”
You’ve also been doing it for many years. You know where all the rocks are and you know everything that’s underneath the rocks. You’re like a nature guide who knows the park that he or she’s an expert in. If you want to get to a certain spot in the park, I’ll get you there like that because I know where all the snakes are, where all the rocks are, and where all the bears are. I know everything. I got the quickest path to get you there.
What an absolute gift when you’re in so much pain to finally come to someone who’s like, “I know that pain. A) I’ve been there, and B) I’ve helped 100 people through this. Come on. I got you. Give me three months.” Not eighteen years of work. I certainly spent that long, but even though it felt like my process was accelerated at the time, maybe it’s the times, the people that I work with, or it’s me now, but people who work with me now go through much more quickly than I did, which is interesting.
It was for me. I came out of a divorce and said to myself, “This is not the life that I want for myself.” There was a wanting. “I’m at this particular spot in life and this is not where I want to be. I’ve got to do something different.” It goes back to that definition of insanity. “This is not for me. This is not what I was expecting to have. I got to do something different. I’m not going to keep repeating this and expect a different answer. What do I need to do?” That’s what started my discovery or my process of figuring out, “How do I get to where I want to be in life?”
That’s so glorious that you even made that choice. A lot of people are like, “I don’t like my life either.”
They don’t have that sense of power inside themselves. The phrase I use in my coaching is, “Are you the CEO of your life? Do you own all the resources in your life, the biggest of which is time? What are you going to do with your time?” Time is a resource for you to go achieve the life that you want for yourself, just like a CEO is going to use time and money to go do something in the business world. As a human being, you definitely have time. Every human being has time. Hopefully, you have some money in your pocket. What are you going to do with it?
Who do you want to be at this moment?
What do you want? Going back to the phrase you’re saying, “You can do this and that and make chaos in the world and so forth. That’s your free will if that’s what you want to do. Is that what you want? Yeah? All right. There you go. Go do it. Call me in 80 years. Let me know how you’re doing.” How are things?
How’s your happiness level? Is it doing all right?
Let’s switch gears a little bit. We’ve talked a lot about self-love, self-leadership, all those types of things, and overcoming things in life. How does all this affect leadership? You’re in the business world managing and leading people. Everything that we talked about, in your eyes, how does that affect leadership? I’m assuming you have a lot of leaders that come to you that are in some pain and are like, “I don’t like where I’m at in life.”
I do. They come to me because their personal relationships are struggling, they can’t get in one, or they can’t sustain one. They got negative patterns. Whatever’s happening in your personal life tends to happen in your business relationships as well. They come to me because they’re unhappy, just like you’re talking about. That’s the place where you were in of, like, “I’ve achieved a lot. Is this it? Do I get happiness as well or do I get the yacht? How does that work?”
Leadership is a place to work. How does this impact leadership? It’s because it impacts the person and every leader is a person.
How are you showing up as a person? Sure, you’re showing up as a leader, but the kind of leader you are depends on how you’re showing up as a person. Do you stand in your body with confidence? Are you wearing a mask? Are you pretending that something is so that is not? Are you being the person you’ve always been told you need to be? Have you ever even asked yourself if you’re happy? Do you even think happiness is an option?
The kind of leader you are depends on how you’re showing up as a person.
Is your happiness wrapped up in a title and a paycheck?
In which case, are you really happy? If so, great. There’s no judgment behind this, by the way. If the yacht, the title, and the paycheck make you happy, that’s truly what you want, great. That’s fabulous. We’re not anti-that. The boats are great. Go get one. Go get five. If you’re getting your sixth boat because you’re feeling empty inside, now that’s where my work comes in.
That’s important because we vilify wealth while simultaneously, everybody wants it. Everybody at this point knows that it does nothing for your happiness. That is common knowledge at this point. Fame does nothing for your happiness. In fact, if anything, it tanks it, and yet everybody wants it. It’s like we’re in this very interesting time in history right now where people are waking up.
There’s a lot of consciousness on the planet. It often doesn’t feel that way, but comparatively, to any other period, the consciousness level is going up. We’re starting to see behind the curtain a little bit more. A lot of people also are not, and a lot of people are like, “What curtain?” It’s quite fascinating to see. Leadership is leading this. What leader do you want to be? I see it in an old paradigm, a new paradigm. The old paradigm worked. It’s worked for a long time. It’s more fear-based, it’s more competition-based, ego-based. People with the biggest egos had the most power because that’s what they liked. That worked then. That’s great.
Now power is a little different. We don’t see ego as being as attractive anymore. We’re certainly starting on that trend. You can meet me wherever you want on this path, but it’s certainly going in that direction where now it’s even a conversation. It was never even a conversation before. Now what we’re starting to see is this new paradigm of leadership. Rather than competition based, it’s abundance-based. Rather than ego-based, it’s community-based. It’s more that you’re seeing the shift from the social aspects of our world that are changing, from hotels to Airbnbs, from taxis to Ubers. It’s more social. “I’ve got one. Do you want to rent mine here?”
The new paradigm of leadership is abundance-based rather than competitive-based. Rather than ego-based, it’s community-based.
That’s easy. It’s this little network thing. You’re in this community here and you’ve got this car here. I’ve got this house. I’m not using it. Why don’t you come in? That wasn’t a thing. From a leadership perspective, there are ways to lead. We’re starting to talk about the empowerment of employees. You could be sure that wasn’t a conversation 30 years ago, probably barely 10 years ago, to be honest. It’s accelerating quite quickly.
Now because people are valuing the quality of life more, Millennials value the quality of life over making a lot of money. That’s screwing the whole system because the whole system is based on you working your way up the ladder because you’re motivated by more money. The whole system is starting to shift in some interesting ways.
I like working with leadership because, to me, the leaders are in fact, leading. They are showing people how it’s done. They are pulling the levers of the large companies or organizations that set templates for a lot of things, smaller companies, nonprofits, communities, whatever. When Google does something revolutionary, like trying out a four-day work week or something like that, that has ripple effects on people because there are a lot of eyes on them. They’ve got attention. The most valuable thing in our world right now is people’s attention.
Leaders of leaders.
To awaken there, to work with a leader whose every choice they make impacts hundreds of millions of people. We’re talking CEOs and, and Google, but this is everywhere. Think about people who create video games. Every choice that visionary makes like, “I want this grass to be this color. I want them to be able to chop the head off the goblin,” impacts hundreds of millions of young people. That is okay. That’s a thing.
My question is that guy who’s making all the decisions, what’s his inner world like? What was his childhood like? Does he know? Has he ever looked at why he might want you to be able to beat a prostitute to death as you speed off in your car? I don’t play a whole lot of games. It might all have fairies in them. Every choice is coming from deep in the subconscious of this person and nobody’s eyes are on this person. They’re on what he’s building. What I’m drawn to more than anything else in the world right now is the psyche, consciousness, and healing process of that person shaping the world.
That’s why you’re in the business that you’re in and the reason I’m in the business I’m in is because I’m the same way. I tend to use business terms. I call it the personal culture that’s inside the person because it’s mind, heart, spirit, and soul. How is that person making decisions with those three in the mix? Where do values come in? Everything that you espouse in terms of a corporate or company culture exists inside of you as well. What’s the personal culture here, the people making decisions?
The phrase I use is the most powerful tool that a human being has is choice. If you got a leader up there that’s making choices, like you stated beautifully, what is going on inside here? I call it a person of culture. You call it psyche. What’s going on inside here that’s driving that behavior, the words, and the decisions that this person is making that’s then, as you stated, is going to affect 100, 1,000, or millions of people in this world? How much are you looking at that as somebody who’s following a leader?
Almost zero. It’s quite interesting. This is not quite in people’s minds yet.
You do a lot of men’s coaching. Is that because that’s a choice you made or because you happen to have a lot of men in a bad way coming, “Help?”
Both. My vibe is I’m very comfortable with men. I’m very comfortable with my own masculinity. In fact, I had to learn quite a bit about my own femininity throughout the process in my early years. It was a conscious choice at the beginning. When I started my company, I was a dating coach for men. I helped single men track life partners.
I chose that because I was new in business and I was told, “You need a very specific niche.” I was like, “This sounds like fun,” and my work could do that. I was like, “Okay, great.” I had a wonderful time and it’s given me an interesting insight because a lot of people worked with me, but even the people who didn’t hire me, I was on the phone with, seeing if they’d be a good fit for my work.
It ended up such that. Over a couple of years, I had spoken to probably thousands of single men. It gave me an interesting insight into a culture and how that community thinks and sees things. When I moved to work with high performers, a lot of my following was already men. A lot of high performers in the world nowadays still tend to be men. It continues. I don’t make it exclusively men anymore, but I do love working with gentlemen.
I’m going to put my $20 bill out here. How do you define success? Do you let your clients choose that for themselves? Do you have a specific definition of success? What comes to mind for you whenever you hear the word success?
Interestingly, what comes to mind is the word redefine. That’s literally what was in my mind as you were saying that. That was the word that was coming. My definition of success is your definition of success. From the viewpoint that I have, it’s a life that lights you up because the light up is resonance. It is your system saying, “Yes.”
By definition, if your system is saying yes and you do that, and you build your life such that yeses are everywhere around you, that is a successful life, regardless of how you define it. If that’s lots of money, great. If that’s lots of ladies, great. If that’s gentlemen, whatever, friends, family, solitude, or whatever because that light up is crucial. That is literally when you are on your best path. That is the right path for you.
Your best path is the right path for you.
I was invited to do a TED Talk, and that was the topic I was thinking about doing. I might still. It’s like how to find that inner light up because it’s binary. It’s very easy to find. I can teach someone to do it in two minutes. There’s a way in which it’s very clear. When someone’s like, “I’m not sure what to do with my life.” Apparently, life can get complicated. It’s not that complicated, but it looks very complicated. We get stuck in it, but there’s a very binary, clear guidance system that every time which direction to go. That’s of massive value. I would say a life that lights you up.
Having joy and happiness, whatever it brings you to that elevated state of vibration. That’s what we’re looking for. It’s different for everybody. Let’s talk about how we get ourselves to that elevated state.
If you look at it very closely, it’s a higher vibration than happiness. Happiness can be achieved, but it goes through you like a wave. Light up is effortless. It’s instantaneous. It’s complete. It’s very clear. If you follow it, you get more of it. That’s exactly, as you say, get up to that higher type.
To me, it’s like a launching pattern or a springboard, if you will, to get to that higher state. As you said, surround yourself with all the yeses. I’m going to have happiness in my life if I’ve got all these yeses that I made conscious choices to surround myself with because I understand that about myself.
There’s a choice piece. If there’s a yes, are you going towards the yes or are you dismissing the yes and going towards the no?
You feel like, in the eyes of other people, that’s a better place to be as opposed to what your soul is trying to tell you what’s going to make you happy. Once again, it’s taking that self-power.
It’s a myriad of reasons. Humanness gets in the way. As you were saying, the definition of success is, in some ways, universal and in some ways, completely individual. Both elements are very important. It’s always the same for everyone. It’s whatever lights you up. What lights you up is different for everyone.
Everybody’s a human being. If you’re looking at a foundation, the left half is going to be the same for every single person because you’re a human being. We’re all built in a certain way. The right-hand side is going to be individualistic and different for everybody. That’s where our uniqueness starts getting created.
Being human is a fascinating experience.
An important part of life is reaching a point in your life where it’s like this. You used the example earlier in our conversation about turning that bend into a street or a road that you had been on 100 times. All of a sudden, you’re seeing or feeling something very different, even though you’ve done it 100 times. That’s part of the human experience. Can you get yourself into a state of being that you have this uncanny bliss? You’re pulling into a street you pulled into 100 times.
That’s under all the crap for all of us. For every single person, that’s our natural state. It’s important for people to know.
Next to the last question before we get to the one we ask all our guests. In your career in coaching, are there 1 or 2 things that you can almost guarantee are going to pop out of the conversation? When you start working with a client, is there an issue or a position or part of the angst of the pain that they’ve reached a point of, “I want change. I’m going to go talk to Dominey?”
The universal factor underneath all distortion, when the yes is to the right and we go to the left is fear-based. It’s nearly always around fear of being ourselves in some way.
The fear of shame, the fear of judgment, and everything else. It’s like we’re not good enough in the world.
Fear of being ourselves, showing up authentically as ourselves. A lot of my work is around authenticity. That’s the name of my program. It’s the Art of Authenticity. That’s number one. For the people that I work with, the high performers, there are also a lot of commonalities around the experience of value. When one is fabulously wealthy or has all the things outside that we think lead to happiness, then they begin to associate they have achieved and acquired the things because you associate your value as being outside yourself. That starts when you’re a five-year-old playing soccer. “I get the award when I win and that means I’m great.” You associate your value and so there’s a shifting the value from outside of yourself to inside of yourself and realizing and experiencing that your value is, in fact, inherent.
You take famous athletes and so forth and all of a sudden, the body wears to a point where they have to retire. In essence, there’s a loss of self because the self has been so wrapped up in the value of being the sports star and celebrity that everybody looks to.
Who am I now without the wealth, skills, and medals?
They still may have a lot of wealth. It’s in the bank account. They’re just not acquiring it like they used to because they’re not playing the sport anymore, which is what they get paid for.
It’s across the board. You’re a businessman. You’re an actor. You’re a whatever. It’s without the thing that gives me value. Who am I now? Powerful question.
I could sit here and talk to you for hours, but unfortunately, we have to bring it to a limit for this time. That’s not to say we won’t have future times together to talk on this topic. Before we let you go, if somebody wanted to work with you, have conversations with you, or make you part of their yes, what’s the best way they could do that?
If there’s any part of your system as you’re reading that’s a yes to this, it’s best to reach out to my website, which is my full name, DomineyDrew.com. There’s a little message on there. You can send me an email directly. There’s a link to my podcast, which is a great resource for people. That’s the most direct way.
You could buy a plane ticket to Shannon and go meet her in a pub and have a Guinness.
That’s risky because, by the time somebody gets here, I’m probably going to be somewhere else. I’m tricky to find in the flesh, but I’m very reliable online.
Maybe it’s someplace else, the Swiss Alps or somewhere else that’s as inviting as it is a club in Galway, Ireland.
That’s exactly where I was before this.
Here comes the last question we ask every one of our guests. We like to collect answers and see where the common thread is to this question. Dominey Drew, what do the words generate your value mean to you?
They’re a bit of a misnomer to me because, in my experience of life, one’s value is not generated. It simply is. It cannot be gotten away from, it cannot be adjusted, it cannot be raised or lowered. It simply is. I will, though, say that rather than generating value, there is a way of revealing. You get out of your own freaking way. You allow happiness and joy. You follow the life that you want.
Trust that it’s going to take you or you want to go. There are ways in which when you eliminate self-sabotage from your life, you reveal your value to self, to others, or to life itself. It was there under the surface. That’s simply who you are.
When you eliminate self-sabotage, you reveal your value to self, others, and life.
There are a lot of people in this world that understand that. That’s why your work, your teaching, and why you’re on this Earth are so valuable to the world because everybody has value by the nature of being and who they are. The question is, do you understand that? Can you use everything that we talked about in this episode to be your authentic self, to be this thing that can allow you that life leadership to then bring value to the world?
Can you step into it? Can you own it? Can you let it shine? That’s the art.
Step into your greatness.
That’s what I had in mind when I created my business and use the words generate your value. I thought people would understand that phrase better than to be because it takes a journey for people to get to that spot where they understand that and the power of it in their lives and how your life shows up in the world.
When you do, life looks and feels very different.
It does. That’s where you get to that higher state. That’s when you realize that you’ve done the work, the introspection, and everything we talked about to get yourself there. I can’t thank you enough for taking your valuable resource called your time as part of your life to share your wisdom with the audience. They’re going to understand from our conversation why I said a powerhouse of people is coming in the last three episodes. It will be a huge impact on people’s lives if they will take the golden nuggets of this conversation and step into it. Step into your greatness.
It takes a step. Step. Move forward to it.
Move forward to it, embrace it, and you’ll get yourself there. For our audience, this is step 1 of 3. We’ve got 2 more coming your way over the next 2 episodes with 2 other coaches that are as amazing as Dominey in their own right. We’re not here to compare all three to each other. It’s to say they have their own greatness, which is going to be on display in these conversations. That’s my objective here in bringing these people to you. It’s for you to understand that these are three people that have stepped into their greatness.
They’re here to help and guide all of us in this world on how to do that. They’ve blazed the trail and they’re here to show us the way on how to make it happen for ourselves. I don’t know about Dominey. She can answer for herself, but for myself, I’m still stepping into my greatness. It’s not a simple act that happens in a day or an hour or whatever. It’s a process of stepping into your greatness and your authenticity and keep showing that to the world.
Dominey, we didn’t get into our definition of success. My definition of success for myself is living my why out loud every day. The greatness that the universe created me for, that’s my success. The question I ask myself every time that I crawl into bed and go to sleep at night was, “Did I live out my why today?” Everybody’s got a different definition of success, and I’m not here to judge. That’s mine.
Have a great day. Have a great week. Keep stepping into your greatness. Keep being. Still do, but don’t let it override your being. By doing so, you start stepping into your greatness. We will see you here in the next episode. I can’t thank you enough for taking your valuable time to read this episode. We will see you next time for another great episode. Take care.
IMPORTANT LINKS
- Dominey Drew
- The Art of Attraction Podcast
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/domineydrew/
- https://Twitter.com/DomineyDrew
- https://www.Instagram.com/domineydrew/
ABOUT DOMINEY DREW
Dominey Drew is revolutionizing male leadership on a global level – redefining success, from wealth and achievement, to authentic power and social impact. High performers in every industry from tech and finance, to entertainment and sports, hire her to identify and solve the issues in their inner world which keep them from real happiness. Through a process of profound self-discovery, she takes those who are successful professionally but struggling personally, and guides them to the genuine fulfillment, freedom and authenticity they desire.
Dominey is the premier in rapid results coaching. Her direct, intuitive approach is unlike anything else in the industry – she solves in mere minutes issues that people have struggled with for decades. She’s been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine and ThriveGlobal for her work, and now travels the world teaching those who seek massive transformation. Dominey is a poster child for the success of her work. After nearly 20 years of profound, soul-level growth, including two intensive four-year schools and a Master’s degree, there is no issue that Dominey is not equipped to solve. She transformed more in that time than even she thought possible, overcoming colossal insecurities, weight issues, self loathing, low self confidence, constant mental voices, depression, anxiety, people pleasing, ADHD, money fears, and much more.
She has dived to the depths of her own soul countless times and emerged, through seemingly endless layers of distortion, self-sabotage, trauma and human programming, to rise like a phoenix into a default state of effortless joy. Now, she exists every day in a continuous state of flow and ease – and her passion is teaching others to do the same.
Dominey is living proof that any human difficulty can be identified at the source, and transformed. She is a speaker, author, spiritual advisor, inner fulfillment coach, and healer. And today, reinventing what it means to be a global leader is her passion and her life’s work.
