Dr. Dravon James: Hello and welcome to our show! I’m Dr. Dravon James and this is Everyday Peace. I am super excited to have you here with us today as we explore the concept of living a life of peace every day my goodness! Peace defined as wholeness, completeness, nothing missing, nothing broken totality. And if you are able, it would be so wonderful if you just take a moment, eyes closed or open, it doesn’t matter, and just let that resonate with you. Breathe in deeply and hold it for a second or two. And then exhale slowly but completely on that concept of you in peace every day, hopeful, complete, nothing missing, nothing broken, totality. Well, I’m here to tell you, yes, it is possible that you can have peace every day. Yes, you deserve Everyday Peace and yes, you can have Everyday Peace. We work together on this show to bring you the topics and the guest to partner with you as you create your life of peace every day. And we are off to a great start this year. Our anthem is What are you waiting for? What are we waiting for in 2021? As Everyday Peacemakers, we are NOT waiting for the opportunity to knock on the door and say, “Here I am!” No, we are dedicated to gathering here every week to help each other as we travel on our personal journey towards everyday peace. So I’m super excited. We’ve had some excellent speakers this year and several important topics, things like how to set goals and so we can be successful, the importance of diet and physical health along our journey, adopting a purpose-driven life. And this month we launched our Diverse Voices segment in honor of Black History Month. Last week we had the incredible show where we had Professor Kang talking to us about the impact of implicit bias on our decision-making. And, you know, as every day as peacemakers, it’s important that we understand how we perceive things and how our perception impacts our decisions and our growth. We also had the incredible Neatte Ridgeway, the founder of B.O.S.S. Beautiful, Optimistic, Successful Sisters Neatte is a positive force for change and the B.O.S.S. movement is rolling. So, if you missed any of these shows this year, don’t worry, you can catch up on these shows and any past episodes by subscribing to the Dr.Dravon James Everyday Peace podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, and Stitcher. Or you can listen to them on the Unity Online Radio website. And if you have not completed your free course on discovering your passion, what are you waiting for? It’s absolutely free! So email me today at DravonJames@Gmail.com put the word free in the subject line and we will be sure to get that out to you. Today, our show is going to be amazing! We are going to talk to Ruble Chandy, author, speaker, and business consultant who has developed a proven process to accelerate business growth. Ruble will talk about his in his book Ninety Days to Life A Journey from Turmoil to Triumph. Our second guest is none other than the incredible Allison Jones, author, speaker, and consultant to discuss her new book, Measure Twice Cut Once Navigating Negativity in Toxic Relationships. At this time, I’m going to share I’m going to start titling these things because I love the idea of taking a moment. So this segment right here we’re having is an “Everyday Peace Moment” to talk about a moment in our life where we just take a moment to reflect on who we are, where we’re going, where we’ve been, and just how amazing we are. Because many times the day begins and ends with our forgetting to celebrate us and to spend time with us. And so this is an important segment, the everyday segment. And today we’re focusing on self-love. Why? Because we just had Valentine’s Day, one of my favorite holidays, because it emphasizes the importance of love. It’s also a very challenging holiday because many of us focus on external love. And oftentimes we’re disappointed when we don’t have a special someone in our life or we don’t get that special love language that is ours in particular in our, our significant other may be missing that. But Valentine’s Day actually is this huge energy that we share of love and sometimes we misplace that love. So I just want to take this Everyday Peace Moment to just sort of recenter ourselves and ground ourselves into what should be our focus on Valentine’s Day. It’s great to give, but we can only give from a vessel that is overflowing. So when we first pour into ourselves authentically and organically this self-love, then it can drip all off us like honey from a honey pot. We can give it away and that’s how this should happen. So if you haven’t had the opportunity to make a date night with just YOU. A date afternoon, five or 10, 15 minutes where you just are in your own presence giving yourself organic love, good looks like this. Actually, it’s just time how do we spell love T-I-M-E, just you, yourself, and you asking yourself one question: How are you doing today? And waiting for the truth without judgment, shame or guilt, or condemnation and then deciding to love yourself right in that moment. So that’s for us today. That’s what we’re going to start. And guess what? It doesn’t have to be Valentine’s Day. This needs to be a practice for us Everyday Peacemakers that we’re taking this moment, that we’re practicing self-love, that we’re giving ourselves the attention that we desire from others. So for now, you’re going to continue with that? Hopefully. But for now, let me ask a question. Have you ever thought about starting your own business? Maybe you have started a business but struggled maintaining focus. Maybe the idea of starting a business is too daunting. Maybe you just are not confident that you have the formula for success. Well, if you have a desire but have doubts and reservations, that’s why we have our special guest here today, Ruble Chandy. Ruble works with entrepreneurs and small business owners to accelerate growth. Welcome to the show, Ruble.
Dr. Dravon James: I am excited to have you here because I think all of us, they say everybody has at least one book inside of them. I know that the vast number of people I work with or talk with have some desire to be an entrepreneur, whether it’s on a small scale or something huge. But there is that little desire to bring forth their own magic into the world and to leave their footprint in the world. And many people don’t ever step out on chance and do that, especially now with everything that we have going on with the pandemic. People are thinking, well, you know, it may be a great time to do that as we see companies downsizing and adjusting to the COVID situation. But then there’s a lot of fear surrounding opening your own business. Tell us a little bit about your book, the book that you wrote, 90 Days to Life.
Ruble Chandy: Dr. Dravon, 90 Days to Life is a story of a woman who’s basically ready to commit suicide. She’s like, I’m done with this life. I cannot move forward. And then she is trying to figure out life. She failed in a business, failing a relationship, and she doesn’t know how to move forward. And it is herself discovery of finding herself and falling in love with herself and figuring out business in the process. So it is based on the idea that you spoke of a few minutes ago. Growing a business is a spiritual activity. It is a self-help program. Your business is a self-help program.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, I love it! When you look, when you see it that way, it’s like, you know, how could you not do this? This is a way to self-help and to self-heal for a lot of people. Right? But still, there is this fear and people don’t move forth into this self-help. I love it! Starting a business is a self-help program, and it’s for a lot of people, it’s a self-help is a courageous step for a lot of people. So like many things, getting started is half of the battle. What kind of advice do you give to people who are considering starting a business and considering starting a self-help program, but they just don’t know how to start, especially now in this environment, financial environment, with everything that’s going on with the pandemic?
Ruble Chandy: First of all, at this time in our at this time of this time, travel that we are doing, it’s very easy to start a business. It doesn’t even cost you almost anything to start a business. And it, it is because it’s too easy that most people are scared. Oh, my gosh. The cost of entering into a business is basically, you know, it, it’s zero, almost close to zero. You have the, you have a multimedia company and Youtube. You have all kinds of PR capabilities and Twitter and everything else. It’s just a matter of deciding and deciding to allow yourself to in some capacity fail. Because when you, when you start a business, the probability of you succeeding, it’s not very high. This is the mindset that we want to look at. And we are like, you know, some people come to me. I mean, I teach businesses in 14 countries and helping them to scale and grow to early stages in their business, to a seven-figure business, to eight-figure to nine-figures and all of them, they started knowing that there is a huge probability that they might actually fail. So how can we start a business knowing that, you know, there is a 20 to 40 percent probability that you are going to succeed? Knowing that, can you step into a business? That’s where that’s what it takes to start a business.
Dr. Dravon James: Now, I SO get that! Because I think that most people are focused on, you know: “I won’t be able to pay my mortgage, I won’t be able to pay school fees for my children, I won’t be able to eat, This thing will never work.” Although it could be the best thing to hit the market and to help so many people. But it is that fear of failure. Is there any way that they could insulate themselves? I mean, failure is possible in anything. But I think the idea of failing and then losing your home or not being able to pay your children’s school fees or are not being able to eat those type of things, really. Really paralyzed people. Is there any way that they could insulate themselves for some degree of failure?
Ruble Chandy: So let’s talk about the psychological, you know, insulation and physical insulation. So, there are two elements here. Psychologically, we all have a fundamental fear that we are not enough. We all feel that even if you were president of a country I mean, I deal with like people who are like multimillion-dollar companies and they have grown to a different level. They all have fear. So we all have this fear that I’m not enough. It’s all we translate that fear into. I’m not enough to succeed in blank, in this case business. So I’m not enough to succeed in business. So we just. Placed that belief into our body, into our mind, and because of that, we are restricting ourselves instead ask the question from this fear. There is an intelligence for this fear. Since this fear is having a conversation with you, you could ask fear: Hey Fear! What are you trying to communicate here?
FEAR: I don’t want you to lose the house! I don’t want it to be not being able to pay the mortgage!
Ruble Chandy: OK, got it. OK, so how could we do business in such a way that we don’t lose the house or not being able to pay for my tuition or whatever? What about other things? So then we negotiate it like it, like another human being. You go to a car dealership, you negotiate with the salesmen just like that, you negotiate in a beautiful way with fear, trusting the fear and to some capacity that the fear is actually giving you advice and that the fear is an adviser for you. But fear is not a boss. Fear can advise you and at the end of it you’ll tell fear and fear. You know what? I listen to everything that you said. These three things make sense. If I make sure these these three criteria are met, will you be OK with me going forward? The fear is like, “Yeah!” I had a client who was doing 40 plus million dollars in a country in Asia and he was stuck in the same place. So don’t think that you when you start out, you have this fear and stuff like that, just like I don’t know how to grow my company. This is the exact process that I did with him that helped him to move on to the next level Dr.Dravon.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, I love that. I love the idea of facing fear and having a conversation. Right. Because then it doesn’t really look like this big, ominous thing anymore. You see, what exactly are you trying to communicate to me? And it forces fear to become rational, too, and say, oh, well, now it’s not abstract. It has to be narrowed down. As you said, I’m worried about the mortgage. OK, if I can secure a way that the mortgage will not be in jeopardy, then will you be OK? And I’m sure fear scrambles around and says, you know, I have this little cartoon image in my mind. Yeah, you’ll never do it. But when you do, do that and then you go back and I love the idea, too, of keeping a journal, because that way you can go back and check all these things and say, well, last week you were worried about that, and now I have that resolved. So can we go for it? I love, I love the idea of facing fear, because the truth is, if we don’t face it, then we’ll always be in the position that we’re in now. We will have to do something new if we want something different. And another great point is that the idea of not being enough exists and follows us at every level. Right? So, you know, you imagine you had this really, really successful business owner that you’re coaching. And at that success, there’s still feeling like I don’t have what it takes to grow this business. Yet, you had everything it took to begin this business, to get it to this place. So if we’re waiting for fear. Just to not have a voice will be waiting forever, don’t you think?
Ruble Chandy: Yes! And the point of view is today, people, whether you like it or not, the fear is your boss. It is deciding what it’s what you are going to do or you’re not going to do. So in that case, you might as well make this boss, you know, like demote this person, like demote this person to a lower level to an adviser where, you know, what? Do you have a director board and you are the head of this director board and you’re like, OK, you’re OK. You have something to say. OK, yeah, I would listen to you, but the final decision is from me. So at that point, you’re playing a game here like it’s, like a game. You have a real human conversation with fear and then all of a sudden it’s like fear. It’s like, OK, I give up. Looks like you have a clear plan. The fear, the purpose of fear is to protect you in some capacity. It’s trying to tell you like, hey, don’t be don’t you know, don’t make that mistake your dad, your uncle, your grandfather made. Let’s be intelligent. That’s what the fear is trying to tell you. OK, OK. I figured out a way to be intelligent here. OK, are you OK now and then the fear is like, OK, yeah. If you feel the business, you have a handle on it then the fear will let go. And now do your business test your business in a very cost-effective way. Not like not believing that you are going to succeed, but knowing that you might actually fail. And if you do fail, you would learn a lot from it, because when you try to do something and if you don’t succeed at the first time, you would learn a lot from it. And from that learning, you would try something else until you. Succeed, and if you have that mindset to test a new thing and then not have it worked out and still try another thing and another thing, at some point you will have to win. That’s how everybody wins this game.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, I love that. And I just want to say, you are not just speaking theory. You were speaking from experience because I believe it. At age 19, you began your business career in India. Is that correct?
Ruble Chandy: That’s right! And by the time it was 24, I. I had 60000 dollars of debt in India. That’s like a like a million dollars a year in the U.S..
Dr. Dravon James: [00:19:05] Wow. And that business succumbed to failure at some point, is that correct?
Ruble Chandy: Two businesses.So.
Dr. Dravon James: yeah.
Ruble Chandy: So I started my first business at the age of 19 and I didn’t want to start a business. But, you know, we you know, we had our house was like, you know, paid like we took a loan from a loan shark to buy our house, my family. And then we were going to lose this house. So I realized that if I was going to get a job, I was probably going to get 100 dollars a month at the time in India. And this was like twenty-three, twenty-two years ago. And I thought you know what, that’s not going to help me survive. So let me start a business. So I started a business not wanting a business, but to pay this loan sharks. That’s another thing to remember. Don’t start a business unless you are – you have a passion for what you want to be doing because it’s highly likely you might not be getting all the success in the next week itself. So you want to be ready if some if you have a setback, if you have passion, you are going to break through and wait for wait for your turn to be successful. So the bottom line is, by the time it was 24, I lost a lot of money failing two businesses. Then I’m like, you know what? I’m going to figure this thing out. I’m not going to go back. So that has been my experience. And I built three multiple several businesses before the age of 37 and literally the age of 37 to do this thing that I’m passionate about, helping businesses now in 14 countries. Eventually, we’re are expanding into 50 countries to help entrepreneurs to grow and scale that business.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, you said something, Ruble, that has just opened the can of worms for me and a very good way. Don’t start a business for something that you’re not passionate about. Right? Follow that passion. So I want to encourage our listeners, you know, check out that free passion, because if you haven’t already had it, but in saying that you open up this thought in my mind is that you were in all these countries and you’re helping all these people as your passion to some degree is service. Right, You have this passion to serve. And I would submit to our listeners today that wherever you serve, whether your heart goes with a thrill to serve, there is where you’re going to find your treasure chest because it is there in that service, whatever it is. And we all serve in our own unique way. But your spirituality, you are proof positive that your spirituality does not equate to poverty. So many people believe that spirituality equates to poverty, but you have defied that and shown that your spirituality has led to service towards others and not only your own financial growth, but their financial growth as well. How were you able to translate your spiritual growth into financial growth,
Ruble Chandy: Your spiritual development! Great question! And I love this is an area that most majority of people who practice spirituality in different capacities, different religion, different cultures are stuck in. The truth is nobody can tell the absolute truth! So my relative truth is that your spirituality is measured by the impact that you create in this world. The impact you create in this world and decide how much money you could make. So if you decided to be like Mother Teresa and help other people and create an impact, not make money, that’s perfectly fine. If that is a choice of your soul, that’s good for you. I’m okay with that. But if you want to be like other people, like Bill Gates or other people who create a big impact in the world. And through that impact use money as a tool to measure your impact in the world, then you are a spiritual being.
Dr. Dravon James: Yeah, that is wonderful. Your success is connected to your impact, and just to draw from that, the measure of your impact will be greater if you’re acting in your passion. Right? You talked about, you know, starting that business to pay off that loan shark and then realizing, well, you know what? Had I started a business because I was passionate about it, I would have been able you know, when your work feels like play, you’re never at work. And I think so often times we get into a situation where our work just feels hard and arduous and we always feel like we’re doing backbreaking work because we’re not listening to that internal voice inside of us that is really guiding us if we pay attention and if we set down, as you mentioned earlier, and faced fear and interviewed fear and then demoted fear from being the boss to just being an advisor right away, I love ALL of that! I love all that! If you if you had a piece of advice that you could give our listeners who are maybe sitting on the fence, how could they find what would you say to them? Like, this is what you need to know in order to step forth today and do something?
Ruble Chandy: Absolutely! By the way, I wanted to come and comment on you about a specific thing. You are an amazing listener, Dr. Dravon, so that’s phenomenal. So if you have it and if you don’t hear from people that every day I’m letting you know you are an incredible listener. So it’s great!
Dr. Dravon James: Thank you!
Ruble Chandy: I could hear that in you, all of your conversations. So here’s the thing, guys. Those who are listening to you are like, I don’t know what my passion is like. I don’t know. I mean, what do I find my passion? This is how you find your passion START DOING! Don’t wait around to be passionate about something. Start doing something and then get stuck. Then you know that, oh, I’m not passionate about it. Try something else and start doing it to find your passion. Don’t wait around in life thinking that passion is going to hit you on your face and you fall down. All of a sudden you find passion. You find passion by taking action. If you know that one thing and you go forward with that one thing and test action, do action, and test passion through action, then you are going to find your passion within the next six months or sooner.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, that is so great, because we hear people I coach people all the time. I don’t know. I don’t know. And the one thing I say to them, do something. Action gives clarity. And what you just the discovery of self saying that, no, I don’t like that is you’d spend thousands of dollars for somebody else to tell you that you can discover this for yourself just by taking action and getting down a road. As you know what? I did try that. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like the following things about that. Be specific so that when you go out on your next step, you try your next thing you can say. I know this more about myself. This so-called failure is just research. That’s all this is. Guys, you are researching the most important specimen of your life, and that is you. So you can upgrade yourself to a level of success. Now, we only have a few minutes left. I’m so sorry to have you Rush, but how can we get your book Ninety Days to Life?
Ruble Chandy: Yeah, you could go anywhere you get bulk books and especially Amazon, it’s called 90 Days to Life. You could say my name and 90 Days to Life and you could actually get-go to my website, RubleChandy.com, which is R-U-B-L-E-C-H-A-N-D-Y dot com and download free productivity training that I am teaching people in 15 different countries to increase their productivity in business for free as well.
Dr. Dravon James: Welcome back, I’m Dr. Draven James, and this is Everyday Peace. Do you have a toxic relationship in your life? It could be a friend or a family member or a romantic relationship or even a week. Well, I am so glad that we have our special guest with us today, Allison Jones, here to talk about her new book, Measure Twice Cut Once Navigating Negativity in Toxic Relationships. Allison, welcome to the show!
Allison Jones: Thank you so much for having me, Dr. James!
Dr. Dravon James: I am super excited about this topic. First of all, I got to tell you that every time I read the title to your book, it makes me smile because I took home ec. They don’t do that anymore. But when I was in seventh grade and that was the art, my sewing teacher would always say that measure twice, cut once. So it’s nostalgic and it makes me very happy to hear that title. But even more so this topic about navigating negativity and toxic relationships. Boy, I have got to tell you that when I do my little talk, the topic with everyone that I meet concerning shows that are upcoming shows, the hot thing that I heard from people was that, oh, my gosh, having to be quarantined and home more or they’re just really discovering that they’re unable to positively and effectively deal with the toxic relationships in their life. So this is a wonderful, wonderful topic. So what motivated you to write your book, to force you to come to this terms of making us face these relationships that are negative and toxic?
Allison Jones: Well, I actually wrote this book based on the dysfunction and several of my personal relationships to my relationship with my mother, my mother-in-law, and I, although we loved each other and we had a very contentious relationship, I think I’m a big family and the baby of seven. And by the time I came around, my mother was a little tired of raising kids and I was left to my own devices a lot. And so I did not realize initially, of course, in your young mind, you don’t know how this is playing out. But as I got older, the relationship didn’t get better. My mother and I felt more like almost sisters in some ways, although there was always respect. I grew up with a certain era, but it didn’t feel like a typical familial mother-daughter relationship. I felt more like I was more confident at times. I felt like there was more pressure to be there for her and her. You know, my other siblings had already moved out of the house and moved on. And so I became a sounding board and in some cases, I became a person that she could kind of unload on as well. And so based on that relationship, unfortunately, when my mother passed away suddenly back in 2009, she and I unfortunately were on very, very poor terms. And I made a decision that I had no choice but to make because the year before I had suffered a stroke and I was in rehabilitation at the time. And so some of those patterns that were habitual for both of us actually were actually impeding my ability to get well. And so I made a decision in that moment when we were having a conversation that was going down the same familiar path, destructive and mean and desperate and disrespectful. I basically stopped the conversation. And I told my mother, I love you very much. I love you with all of my heart, but I cannot do this with you anymore. And if this is the last time we speak. I don’t want it to be, but if it is, I’ll have to find a way to live with it. And that’s actually that was the impetus for writing the book.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, Allison, I got to tell you, you’ve just done something that is near and dear to my heart. You took something that could have been just destructive, you know, your mom passing and my condolences on that. But your mom passing in that relationship being fractured and you were able to stand in a place of healing and say that I’m going to use this that has shown up in my life as a stepping stone to my next level of greatness and to be in service to others. So congratulations to you. I know that had to be very, very difficult and heart, but that is what growth and development is all about. You made a decision in that moment that this didn’t end the way I would have liked for it to end. But it is not the end, right?
Allison Jones: It is not the end. Absolutely! And that’s one of the things that I enjoy about your particular brand of messaging. I took a lot of what I learned about holistic therapies, meditation, the books that I began to read, the approaches that I used, I began to take. And I grew up heavily in the church. My spirituality had begun to change and those patterns had already appeared a decade or half a decade or maybe even two decades before everything happened. And it was just the universe’s way of aligning me for that moment. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being aligned in that moment to be able to heal from within from that fractured relationship.
Dr. Dravon James: Yes, yes. In some of our listening audience can just, you know, those of us who are everyday peacemakers you just talked about, a fundamental principle for us is everything that shows up in our life, the good, the bad and the between has shown up for one reason, and that is to bow down and serve us as we consciously move to our next level of greatness. And so even though you don’t know at the time why this painful event has shown up, believe me when I tell you and as Allison is telling you, that this event if you would let it, it will grow you to do your ultimate service. And that service, that service is going to be so fulfilling to you. You don’t know that at the time. You know, we look at these things and say, oh, my goodness, why me? Right? And then, you know, but eventually, if you if you lean into that moment and embrace that and ride that wave for all that it has to teach and give, you will arrive at this place of awareness. If it had not been. For that learning lesson, I wouldn’t be able to give in the way that I am giving, so I am so grateful to you and that you were willing to face that. So how would you – You were very good at and say this, too, in your intro, the way you describe the toxicities in your relationship with your mom. Very picturesque. I could feel it. I could see it. But I’m not sure that other people can identify. They just know that something doesn’t feel right. How would you help people to identify the toxic relationships in a personal or professional or just in general? How can people say, yeah, this is toxic?
Allison Jones: Well, in toxic relationships, they’re typically pretty destructive and they’re damaging to your personhood. They make me feel pretty bad inside. And different methodologies are typically employed. You know people deploying very different methods to the toxicity. But the first thing I want to say before I even go into that is that it takes two people to form a toxic bone. It’s never one person. It’s always two people. There has to be someone who is giving and receiving it. And it’s also a cyclical negative behavior. It comes across as unsupportive and may come across as demeaning or diminishing, but it’s always undermining in some way hidden typically. And it’s typically disrespectful in some way as well. And it can be disrespectful. For instance, if let’s say you tell someone I don’t like when you say X, Y, Z, and you communicate this to need and the person acknowledges that they hear it and then they go back and repeat it. Well, that is a form of toxicity because it is basically saying, yeah, I hear you, but I don’t care enough to course correct. So, toxic relationships. Again, it’s a two-party system. No one is ever off the hook of toxic behaviors. It can also be something where, again, on both sides of it, on your side of it, you know, there’s always one person on the other end that typically a little more aggressive about it. But let’s say on your end, you’re less aggressive about it. You may be doing things like overlooking your feelings or you have hidden anger or hostility or maybe you feeling, I don’t know, sad and tearful when you’re around the person or after you leave the person or you feel anxious or desperate or worried when you have to engage. And on their side of it, they may be passive-aggressive. You know, I call passive-aggressive people. They feel that they are peacemakers, but in actuality, the behavior of passive-aggressive, they may gaslight or come across as martyrs or use silent treatment or keeping score. But again, it takes too and people have to be aware that you can’t just identify the behaviors in others without taking an introspective look at yourself.
Dr. Dravon James: That is so insightful, you know, I do some work with codependents, and one of the things, you know, they say codependents have a tendency to attract narcissistic personalities. And I sit in and both people are responsible, right? For this toxic relationship. And I love that you point that out is that it is not a place to just finger point. In fact, you know, they say you point one finger out and there are three fingers pointing at you. And that is not to put you in a place of shame, guilt, or condemnation. That is to empower you to say this is the role that I am playing in this toxic relationship and I am no longer willing to fulfill that role! And so that empowers you to find out to get educated on how to make that shift.
Allison Jones: Um-hm.Perfect- Yeah! I agree with that.
Dr. Dravon James:I love that. I absolutely love that. So what are some tips that people can use in their career to heal toxic relationships with co-workers and employees? Because that’s a big one.
Allison Jones: Oh, well, when you are looking at professional relationships now, then my prior life before I retired, I was a senior executive in H.R. who dealt with people all day long. And so, you know, you’re dealing with people’s problems from their pay to their medical benefits to promotions, etcetera. it can get highly, people get highly you know, people get highly anxious and agitated. It can become volatile. There’s a lot of anger. So the main thing I would say is that you’ll hear it all the time, of course, I know. But you have to listen. You have to be willing to respectfully offer and accept feedback as well. But you can’t really do that well until you listen to the problem. And you have to be able to work through challenges and disagreements by allowing the space for differing views and opinions and solutions. Because I always say eight plus one, seven plus two, six-plus three, they all equal nine. There are always different ways to get the desired outcome. Your way may not be the best way. So that’s when you have to be willing to allow that space for differing views, realizing that you all want to get to the same place. The solution. And then the next thing I would say is you have to be able to provide support, which sometimes in a workplace because you spend more time sometimes at work than you do at home, you sometimes have to be in the position where you provide emotional support at work. Someone had a bad day or a loved one is sick or what have you. And just being able to say, I don’t know why people do this, but, you know, when they have a thing for people on Good Morning or let’s say How are you? And it’s very cursory. We don’t stick around for the answer. We just kind of blow it off. Well, we have to engage in a way where we allow people to be seen. So when you ask, be aware that maybe it takes a little bit more of a conversation, maybe someone’s behaving differently to engage them. Don’t be afraid to engage it’s very important because it also taps into the bottom line of an organization. Your talent pool is the heartbeat of your profit and your productivity. And so people, when jobs go away, quite often people don’t look at the people that work in those jobs. They just see a business that is failing. And so a lot of times I think we miss the big picture that even in business, we can still exercise humans.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, I love it. Even in business, the heartbeat of your organization is your talent pool. I SO agree with that. We have a couple of callers in the line. I want to bring one on now. And. Hello! You’re on the air with the Everyday Peace show with Dr. Dravon James and our fabulous guest, Allison Jones. Do you have a question or comment for our guest?
Caller-1 : Hi. Yes, I did have a question for the guest. I don’t know if you already touched on this, but I wanted to know what does it say about a person who keeps finding themselves in toxic situations? That could be toxic family situations, toxic friends, situations, relationships? What does that say about the individual who keeps running into those situations?
Allison Jones: Thank you so much for calling. It basically says that, again, go back to introspection. You have to kind of take a look at yourself to say, what is it about me? That for some reason, there are these red flags that I’m ignoring. Because every relationship that has toxicity, typically that has red flags and those red flags are typically not only recognizable to you, but they’re familiar to you. You’ve seen it before. As you say, you keep running into it. That means you’ve seen this before. So when you see the red flag, the first thing I would say is now it’s time to look at your part, to play as I said and then start to look at how to create some boundaries for yourself. Because I can guarantee you, once you start to create those boundaries, it becomes harder for people who are toxic to enter your space. Boundaries should not be they shouldn’t be punitive. By the way, don’t punish people when you create boundaries. Boundaries are for you. They’re straight-forward guardrails that limit behavior that you feel uncomfortable with when you engage with this person and those boundaries. Don’t let someone dictate to you what those are. Only you can define what those boundaries look like that’s on you. And boundaries should be used with all other forms of communicating your needs have gone unrecognized, but before you step the boundaries, start with you. Understand for you – What is it going on in me? Maybe you’re a fixer. Maybe you’re the type of person you want to fix people. Maybe you’re a high impath where you feel very deeply. Someone’s hurting. You want to help. But take a look at you and your behaviors. And I guarantee you, once you identify those red flags that encompass your behaviors, you will course correct and your relationships will change.
Caller-1 : Oh, thank you.
Dr. Dravon James: Thank you for being an everyday peacemaker and thank you for calling in to the show today. Enjoy your day. We have another caller here I’m going to bring on the ear. Thank you for calling the everyday show at our fabulous guest today is Allison Jones. Did you have a question or comment?
Caller-2: Hi, yes, I have a question for both of you, I don’t know if either of you can answer it better. I saw the title of the show also was Building Business Success during the pandemic. I was wondering, like during the shutdown itself for small businesses. How is how does one keep hope during all of that? I never seem to like a time where everybody’s scared and confused and your business might not be doing as well as you want it to do. So how does someone like they hopeful?
Dr. Dravon James: Well, I wanted to say. Oh, well Allison wanted to say but I do want to suggest that you go and get the beginning of a show because that guest was fabulous he was Ruble Chandy that was on there. But I’m happy to address it. And Alice is happy to address that question too, so Allison, Go right ahead. Thank you.
Allison Jones: Well, I defer to you, Dr. James, and I can come right behind you, probably over it anyway.
Dr. Dravon James: So I was going to say to you is being hopeful is an internal job. And I know it’s easy for all of us to look with our eyes that outward at the world and become so fearful about what is next or what is going to happen. But to realize that I believe I wish that I were designing humans because our eyes should point inward and really use these challenging situations to search from within to find that part of us that knows that, yes, we are safe, that yes, it is OK. And one of the things that our guest previously talked about is being able to ask, what is it exactly I am afraid of? And letting fear answer that question will give us a way to say, OK, I am now going to resonate at the energetic level of the answer instead of at the fear it’s been identified. And I’m going to just sit in that space and allow creativity to give me some answers instead of continuing to focus on the abstract fear. So I hope that’s helpful for you. I do want to encourage you to listen to the show on the online website where you’ll get more information from that particular guest who did address that very same issue. Allison, did you want to add anything ? You’re welcome.
Allison Jones: I just wanted to add your support network. It’s very important. The people who lift you up, encourage you. I call it the four walls everyone needs for walls; needs someone that, you know, the people that keep us accountable, the people who are encouraged to support us, the people who are peers. You need to identify who your four walls are. These are your gatekeepers to keep you on task and keep you motivated. And I understand that you know, it sounds like you’re fairly a young entrepreneur. Other young entrepreneurs can keep you on task because sometimes just having that outlet of other entrepreneurs to kind of field your idea and keep you hopeful because hope is hard. But, you know, your ability to rise above it is easier. Something made you do this and you have to continue to remind yourself of why you did it and continue to move forward in it. You’ll get there. Believe me, I know it’s hard, but you’ll get there. But something made you say, you know what, I can do this. Don’t forget that. Remind yourself as often as you need to.
Dr. Dravon James: Yes, I 100 percent and I love that the four walls that are there and I believe we have another caller here it’s going to bring on the air and. Oops. OK, here we are. Hello, you’re on the air with Everday Peace, Dr.Dravon James and our fabulous guest today is Allison Jones. Did you have a question or comment?
Caller-3: Yes, I had a question. Great show. Great show. By the way, your first guest is great, too. So I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, but Teddy Pendergrass has a song to says, if I could, I would have said. And so I believe that when we go through that IF, I’m going to speak for myself. When I go through the: I should have, I could have, I would have. And I believe that That’s negative. I think that you know, if you use it as an impetus to move forward, that’s one thing. But I know for myself, I used it to, I guess, to make myself feel like, you know, if I were to do this, I would done that, I would have treated people better. I would have such in such. So how do you how do we navigate that? Because I’m sure we all go through it. But how do we navigate that could’ve and the would’ve and the should’ve and like sort of eliminate that from, you know, your brain? How do we how do you do that?
Allison Jones: Well, I would start by saying you have to first become your own ally at the end of the day, honestly, you have no idea what’s on the other end of your could’ve, would’ve should’ve. You have no idea. You could’ve did that. You should’ve, you would’ve, but it coulda, shoulda, woulda been worse. And so you have to remind yourself, I don’t know what was on the other end of that. So we were sitting in this is not helping because it could have been a lot worse if I did what I thought I should have done. You also should create positive, positive spaces and habits to basically it will eliminate what’s going on in your head because it sounds like it’s on record. It’s just looping now. I coulda, I shoulda and so you’re doubting yourself, but remind yourself of how many times you came out of things. Remind yourself of your strength in the past. Remind yourself of the challenges that you’ve risen to in the past and the things you’ve accomplished. A lot of times when we do things, we don’t stop long enough to give ourselves any real affirmation, a pat on the back, anything. We just move on to the next thing and we forget about how great we are in the great design of the divine. And another thing I would say to you, regardless of your belief system, you were made from the DNA of the most high.
Caller-3: Right.
Allison Jones: So, nothing you do is a mistake. Everything that you do is for your good, no matter how it turns out it was for you anyway. It’s either a lesson or a blessing. Either way, it was for you, though. Don’t ever forget that! And sometimes we think when things don’t go our way or go great. Oh, I should have… No, it was supposed to go exactly the way it went. I try to remind myself and think when I get into that stinking thinking, I try to remind myself sometimes, you know what, even if I had done it differently with the outcome have been any better. And what did I learn from it if it didn’t go the way I had hoped? So start thinking about the lessons. What are you learning? And don’t forget, you are great! You were made to be great! There are no mistakes. Everything that you’re doing is in perfect alignment. You’re exactly where you supposed to be until you’re not.
Caller-3: Ok, thank you very much. Another great show, Dr. James, thank you.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, thank you. You’re very welcome. And thank you for being a consistent, everyday peacemaker. You enjoy your day!
Caller-3: All right. You too.
Dr. Dravon James: Yeah, I love the messaging that you’re giving out. It really is. If it’s going to be is up to us, that is sort of our theme. And with the Everyday Peace show, this year is what are we waiting for? The answer is nothing. You know, we are here and we have everything we need within us to get started right now in this moment. So as everyday peacemakers, we take responsibility for our own path in life. What can we do to either convert a tax relationship to a positive one or, you know, sometimes it is to reduce the impact of a negative relationship in our life.
Allison Jones: I say the best way to nurture your relationship, I do five things, the first thing is I make my relationships a priority. We make time for things that matter to us, don’t wait for a special occasion every day that you wake up as a special occasion. Make the relationship a priority.
Dr. Dravon James: So I just want to say, we have been running low on time. So we’ve got to kind of speak through these for our listeners. You can always go back and get it. But I do want to talk about that book after we get the five minutes. So make the relationship be a priority.
Allison Jones: Next, if there’s conflict around the problem with that, without attacking the person, separate the person from the behavior, the third is to stop jumping to conclusions even if it’s based on previous behavior. The fourth is listen and communicate open honestly and regularly. And the fifth is appreciative, polite, and sensitive to other’s feelings, just being empathetic.
Dr. Dravon James: Oh, I love it and your book, where can our listeners really quickly get that book,
Allison Jones: You can get the book on Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble or the hardcover, and you can follow me on my website, Theallisonjones.com.
Dr. Dravon James:Thank you for being our guest. Thank you all for being here. I absolutely love you.