How do you make marriage successful and fulfilling? Dr. Patty Ann Tublin sits with Dino Watt, the CEO of Our Ripple Effect and the author of the #1 international bestselling book, The Practice Rx. The first step is to set specific systems and processes to support your lifetime partnership. Dino shares how he and his wife made a rule never to call each other derogatory names. Even in the worst moments! Relationships are supposed to nourish and inspire rather than tear and break down. Another vital factor is communication. Couples need to tell each other what they need in a respectful way. Do you want more advice on how to make your marriage successful? Dive in!
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How To Make Marriage And Your Business Successful And Fulfilling With Dino Watt
I cannot tell you how excited I am for this interview. Before we go there, I know you are going to love this interview. Make sure you like, share, comment and subscribe to this show. We have, believe it or not, another relationship expert. I like his PHD much better than mine because it stands for Passionate Husband and Dad. Isn’t that awesome? He happens to be one of the most exciting business relationship trainers in the world. Full disclosure, how I got to meet this guy is through his number one best-selling book called The Practice Rx.
He is the CEO of a company called Our Ripple Effect. As a relationship expert, he passionately believes that there is no success in business that compares to being successful in your personal life and that there’s no success in business that can compensate for failure in your relationships. Buckle up, folks because Dino Watt is about to take us for a ride. Welcome, Dino.
Let’s go for a ride. I’m excited. Thanks for having me.
This is going to be awesome. I was a guest on Dino’s podcast and we had so much fun. We decided let’s have Dino be a guest on my show. We share so many values about business and relationships that you don’t have to make that false choice between success in your career and in your personal life. Share with the readers how you started this journey and what brought you here now.
My journey started when I was eight years old. I was standing on a sidewalk and watching my father pack up our Honda hatchback. He drove away from our family. I remember standing there, frustrated and believing I had the answers. I’m like, “I know why you make mom mad and I know what you can do to make her feel better,” and vice versa. I was eight so nobody was listening to me. I remember talking to a teacher about this. She is my favorite teacher in the world, Mrs. Tillotson, who I still love and then connected with. She had some empathy for me the day after that when she knew that I was just feeling bad.
I said, “It’s not fair that my mom and dad have taught me in my whole life that I’m not allowed to give up. I need to go the extra mile. I can’t quit, yet that’s what they are doing.” She didn’t have an answer for me. She was just empathizing and consoling me. It was in that moment, in those times in my life, where I wanted to understand relationships and what made them thick. I was always that guy through high school, they call it now friend zone but I was totally in the friend zone in so many relationships growing up and in high school especially.
What do you mean friendzone?
Do not call each other derogatory names no matter what happens.
There were all these girls I would have loved to date and have a relationship with but they saw me as a friend because I would give them such good advice about the jerks they wanted to date and the guys that were like, “I will only love you if you sleep with me,” and me talking to them being like, “That’s crazy. Let me show you why.” I was always the advice guy. Everybody in school knew me as the advice guy.
I was friends with everybody. I was popular in the sense of I got along with everyone. Growing up, I always thought, “This would be cool.” I didn’t know there was this thing about information marketing and where you could learn to be a coach for people and relationships. I thought it was counseling. I went to counseling when I was a kid with my parents. I hated it. It drove them even further away. I remember the fights they would have after we did the counseling.
Why did you hate it? Why do you think it was more damaging than helpful? I’m curious.
I hated it because after the counseling would be the fight. We’d go to counseling as a family. We’d get into the car. My dad and mom would start fighting with each other about what they said, what they shouldn’t have said and all that stuff. It didn’t make either one of them have a better relationship at all. I remember as a kid seeing that. I didn’t know that there was this thing called coaching. Later on in life, we had had our first daughter and thinking, “I would love to teach people some of the systems that my wife and I had put into place.”
When we got married, we were very specific about the systems and processes that we wanted to put into our marriage so that we could be successful. Her parents had a terrible marriage as well. I was like, “My parents did this. I don’t want to do that. What if we did this? When we have conflict, let’s do this. When we disagree, let’s talk about this.” One of the rules we created before we ever even got married that this was a deal-breaker, we would not call each other names. No matter what happens, we are not going to call each other derogatory names like stupid, idiot, witch or any of that stuff.
That’s name-calling. That’s not communication.
That was a non-starter for me. She was like, “Yeah.” That’s not been an issue. It’s heartbreaking that sometimes, especially in my work and what I’ve done over the last years, I’ll hear people talk to each other. I’m like, “Why would you talk to your friend like that? Why would you talk to your spouse like this? Why would you call them that? Even in your worst moment, why would you say that?” It’s little things like that. It became a passion of mine to understand relationships. I had dyslexia growing up. I didn’t know. I was a terrible reader and speller.
We have spell-check now.
There are still plenty of days where it does the red line underneath the word where it says, “You spelled it wrong.” I’ll right-click it to find out what the real spelling is. I’ll be like, “I don’t know what you are trying to spell.” It became a passion of mine to study, watching, focus, what works, what doesn’t work, the psychology of it. I’ve read a ton now. I have found to be true that it doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful my business is if my marriage is not number one at the forefront and if my relationship with my wife isn’t focused and driving. It all sucks, the good times and the bad. I feel it’s the most important thing we can do. At the end of my life, I know I’ll be looking up at a pair of eyes. That’s all I care about in the world. My kids around me and my wife, I’m not going to care about anything else that went on. I’m going to care about those eyes that are looking at me.
It’s interesting you say that because I was speaking with somebody and I was saying, “At the end of your life, nobody ever said, ‘I wish I worked more.’” Nobody would ever want that on their tombstone. You have an interesting journey. You do a lot of work with not just dentists but orthodontists and people that aren’t familiar with the dental field and the specialty of orthodontics. It’s very labor-intensive. It works in the margins era of 0.00. You put your millimeters. You put a crown and chump down if it’s off just a little bit. These are people that have intense jobs. Let people know how you help them in their business and their marriage because we do the same thing but you have a specific specialty at the moment with orthodontists. I know you’re branching out. It’s a fascinating story.
I fell into it. I was working with higher-end entrepreneurs at the beginning and people who I felt like you and I were having this conversation about I use speakers a lot, authors or who go out and speak to these audiences and they’d clap for everything they say. They’re amazing. They go home and their wife is like, “You got to take out the garbage and I’m not going to play your theme song while you take out the garbage. I’m not going to clap for you for doing it.” I would work with a lot of them. One of them happened to be a big financial guy. He had a ton of clients that were in the chiropractic and dental world. Money is a huge issue in marriage if people don’t know how to communicate around it.
He was having problems with his clients, not being able to communicate. He sent them to me so he could do his job better. I found this little area and this niche. You are talking about the high pressure of the dental world. There’s dental and then the specialty of an orthodontist. I focus a lot more on orthodontists but I got into it dental-wise because they have the highest suicide rate amongst professional business owners. A lot of people will wonder why that is. There are a couple of reasons but the main reasons are it’s a profession that, even though the goal is to get them out of pain, you are causing people pain every single day. No one wants to come and see you.
There’s not a single person that goes, “I can’t wait to go to the dentist and get my teeth railed.” You are living in a world where you are dealing with two of probably the worst orifices in the body on a consistent basis. To top that off, they went through all the schooling. They did years of schooling. They are professionals. They are doctors and yet no one taught them how to run a business or deal with people.
Combine that all together, the pressure, the overwhelm, addiction, suicide, affairs are huge in the industry. I saw that and I thought, “This is an area where I can help people.” It evolved into orthodontist because I was invited to speak at different events and they have similar issues, not as much because they are beautifying people. They are not causing as much pain but there are still the pressures of business and not being taught business. I love business and relationships. I believe they are very similar. I figured, “What if I combine those two?” It’s been an interesting approach and business because no one’s doing what I do. I used to say, “I made up a job. I wrote a book about it and now people pay me to do that.”
Couples need to be clear on rules and responsibilities.
It’s like Steve Jobs with the iPhone. Nobody knew we needed it. One observation is I remember when I was in college and I’m not saying that this is true but the perception out there used to be and I don’t think it’s out there anymore, dental school was the consolation price to the students that didn’t make medical school. That was back in the day when dentists were fighting like crazy to try to get insurance coverage because even good insurance coverage for dentistry isn’t that good. Now they have the last laugh because they don’t want to be covered by insurance. It’s interesting that I do remember people feeling like, “If I don’t make medical school then I’ll go to dental school.” There’s almost this sense of consolation prize that dentists may or may not share with you but that was years ago. I’m not so sure that’s true anymore.
I haven’t heard that so much in the dental space. In the chiropractic place? Absolutely. When I got in the industry, there was a lot of conversation around that as like they’re not looked at as real doctors, even though they have a doctor on their name. I have seen that.
Also, with chiropractic, there are people that don’t believe in it. That’s changed it for sure. The other thing is that most people aren’t aware and it’s almost like the dirty little secret is with the healthcare industry. In this particular case, dentists, in particular, the addiction issue. Let’s talk about that. I know the nurses also.
You have got easy access to certain types of drugs. It’s right there. I have heard horror stories. I usually try to go to this event at least once a year. It’s called the Dental Festival. I get to hear these stories. There are a bunch of speakers who are being speakers in the dental space and trying to share about hygiene or how to run your business better. There is always the group of speakers that talk about these horrific stories of them walking on their doctors who had ODed overnight in the office and crazy things.
My own personal journey gave me a push because of the suicide part of it. I definitely heard the stories that made me go, “Wow.” You and I both know Joe Polish. He is talking about how addiction is looking for love at the bottom of a bottle. That is what sparked for me. It was realizing that so many of these people are in pain and trying to mask it. The pain is because they feel like they are alone. You be an entrepreneur alone. You and I were just talking about the hours in front of your desk and trying to keep focused. No one’s here to say, “You have got to clock in and do certain work at certain times.” It’s all on you. These are people in a profession who are forced entrepreneurs.
My podcast is called The Propreneur. It’s the professional entrepreneurs, people who went to school for a certain thing but then were forced into being entrepreneurs or decided to without really knowing what they’re getting into. It’s all that pressure, all of that feeling of alone, the rollercoaster ride that is being an entrepreneur when it comes to financials. For example, there’s a ton of stress in the industry like there is almost everywhere around hiring people and getting people who want to work in their office when we have this Great Resignation where people don’t even want to work in an office anymore. You can’t do dentistry remotely.
A lot of the work that I do with professionals, dentists, doctors, accountants is helping them in their relationships with their team members and clients. For licensed professionals and health professionals, they don’t want to be reported to the board. They need that skillset. It’s communication, emotional intelligence and relationship expertise. How do you go into a practice where let’s play it out where if the spouse, the wife or the husband is involved in the practice? My experience has been that personal issues come into the office, the office issues come and go home. What do you do with that? I know there are people reading that either it can help them and can certainly help someone they know.
It’s a great point because it’s a big issue, especially when you realize that the intent at the beginning typically was very pure, “We don’t have money to hire a director of first impressions. We don’t have money to hire a TC. We are using what we have, which is we’re building this business together.” A couple of things can happen either that business grows and a spouse stays because they felt like they are a part of it or that business grows and the spouse is pushed out a little bit because now they don’t need that help but it makes them feel like they are not necessarily. It makes them feel a little bitter or frustrated.
When I have the spouses and doctors that are working together in any capacity even if, for example, I have a couple of doctors where the spouse is not there full-time at all. I have one where she’s the doctor, he’s a stay-at-home dad and taking care of the kids but he’s also their marketing department. We have to be very clear on the rules and responsibilities. Who’s in charge of what? Who’s responsible for making what decisions?
In this situation where that doesn’t happen, one of my first clients ever had a successful practice. His wife had helped him build the practice. She wasn’t in practice as much anymore because she was raising their kids. She would come in about once a week. I call that the tornado effect where she would come in and just tell this person to do that, that person is out, “We need to change that over here and do this over here,” and then leave.
Everyone is like, “That’s not what was talked about in the morning huddle. That’s not what we had agreed on earlier.” It causes this who’s in charge. The husband was like, “I don’t want to make her mad at me. I don’t want my team mad at me so I’m going to not do anything,” and now causing them more. If we don’t know what the rule and responsibility is, for example, if you’re in a normal corporation, never does the accounting department go to the human resources department and tell them how to do their job. That’s not what happens and vice versa.
You have to treat your small business and your practice the same way. My spouse is responsible for this. That means they’re accountable for it, they have check-ins and they are going to be the people who are going to be responsible for when it fails or whatever. I’m only overseeing it as the CEO to say, “Is that happening? Cool. Go to your job,” just like any CEO. You want to have that type of situation. The biggest problem I feel is nobody is not having those rules and responsibilities.
Let’s make the parallel because we both work in this space. The example you gave is a perfect example of boundaries and roles. Many dentists might learn a little bit about selling but they are not taught same with law firms too. It’s unbelievable. They have billable hours, brain makers and nobody teaches the how to bring a client in. Let’s talk about the parallel between having clear boundaries and expectations of what your roles are within those boundaries in the dentistry world and how that relates to marriages?
Some of those boundaries, when they bring it home is where I think it crosses the most. It gets the weirdest. First of all, on a positive note of that, you are building a business. That business is part of your life. It’s part of everything you are thinking about. For most entrepreneurs, it’s something that you are thinking about quite a bit. You wake up in the middle of the night with ideas and stuff and then you have a partner in life who hopefully, you want to share what your thoughts, feelings and where your frustrations are. Knowing how to work that into a way where you can both have a conversation about it without it being all of your conversations is the tricky part.
Communicate more to connect with somebody.
I teach my clients a thing called the Marriage Mastermind. That whole idea is there’s a specific time and place that you have where you talk about these things. It doesn’t become in the middle of a TV show or when the kids are arguing or having dinner. Therefore, there’s a specific time and place but like in any business, it’s a habit and it’s something you have to build up but those lines get blurred quickly. The other side of that is I used to coach a lot of women in business. One of their complaints was, “My spouse doesn’t support my business. My spouse doesn’t want me to be outside the home. They don’t like my boss. They don’t like my ideas.”
I would always ask, “How often do you complain to your spouse about what you do and about your job or about your business in general, ‘All the businesses are having a rough month this month. This is hard?’” Usually, it’s a pretty high percentage of complaints. I’ll say, “Think about it this way. This is the one person in the world who loves you the most. They are seeing you in pain as a loving, caring, empathizing human being. What are you going to do if you see your partner in pain? You are going to convince them to stop the painful habit or to get out of that situation.” It’s not about not supporting always.
Oftentimes, it’s about helping you not be in pain anymore, “If you don’t like it then you should quit.” “Don’t tell me to quit. You are not supporting my dream.” “If you don’t like being around that person or you don’t like dealing with that company or the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur, I don’t have any other ways to help you other than try to get you out of that situation.” Those are two areas where you have to be very careful.
You were very specific in saying, “I have coached a lot of women that are business owners,” and you talked about the non-supportive spouse. In my book, Not Tonight Dear, I’ve Got a Business to Run!, it’s all about that not happening. You set that up with having roles, boundaries, communication and time for that. However, I found it interesting that you brought that up when you were speaking about women in business. Is your experience similar with men in business? Is there a reason why you went to the women in business to bring that up?
When I first started doing my business, I was dealing a lot more with women trying to build up their small businesses in some way.
Were they dentists?
No. This was outside and before I started getting into that world. My wife and I helped build up a communications company. We focused a lot on body language and helping people understand more about their body language and that type of communication. In that role, there were a lot of people who wanted to be coaches. There was a very heavy female. I’ll tell you where I see it with the men tend to and not all men, not be communicative enough with their spouses, the spouses’ withdrawal from any type of support. I have a client where they don’t talk about business at all. It makes him feel like she doesn’t care but he is not engaging with her to talk about it for her to care.
For men, I see a little bit more of that, of where they are like, “It’s okay to tell her that you’re scared, worried or that it’s not working well.” The balance has to be on both sides. You have to be willing to balance the good with the bad. You have to be willing to say, “This is frustrating me and this is what’s going well. I’m glad I have this challenge. What I’m dedicated to is this.”
This is in relationships, in general. When we throw something out there that is upsetting, frustrating or makes us angry and we just let it land and sit there, it’s like, “What are we supposed to do with this? It’s sitting there. This is festering right there,” as opposed to, “What do you want to happen?” I believe the greatest question we can ask ourselves at any time at any moment is, “What do I want?” I say that to Shannon all the time when she has this complaint or whatever. I’ll go, “What do you want?”
When you were saying, “What do I want?” I was thinking it’s also, “What do you want?” You said she was complaining and you said, “What do you want?” It’s both questions.
What do I want is like if I’m in this moment now with you, I want it sitting down and, “What do I want out of this conversation with Patty Ann? I want to have a good conversation. Maybe communicate more or connect with somebody out there who’s reading.” When Shannon and I are talking or I’m talking to my kids, the tendency is to solve the problem especially I know when it’s a stereotype. It’s the tendency that it’s instead of solving their problem, I want to know what he wants, “Do you want me to help him with this problem or no? I got other stuff I can do. Do you want me to do that? What is it? What do you want?” That way, we can both reverse engineer the want to where we are right now.
Give an example of either in your personal life or with somebody that you helped either in their marriage or in their business. I literally had a similar conversation with a coaching client where she was talking about her business partner. I work with business partners that aren’t necessarily narrowed to each other. They may or may not be. She was saying, “All they ever do is complain like Mr. Doom and gloom glass half ball. The sky is falling.”
I said, “You have to stop the conversation and say, ‘There’s a complaint but you have to tell me what you want to do with that. What’s the wish behind the want? What are you saying? I can’t change the weather so to speak. I can’t change that the clients are coming in late or they’re sending their information for the tax return late. What can we do? What can I do? How can I help?’” Otherwise, the behavior goes on and on and people get frustrated.
It’s the same thing as employees like the employer that complains about the employee that keeps complaining. I call it a capacity issue. When somebody is continually complaining about a problem that they see, let’s use your example of the taxes aren’t sent on time like, “There’s nothing I can do about that.” That’s the problem. The problem is not going to change, “I am not going to be able to change who the president of the United States is, the weather or any of that stuff. The only option I have is to change my capacity to deal with that thing.” On a level scale of 1 to 10, 1 being no problem whatsoever, 10 being the worst problem ever, let’s even say it’s a level 8 problem of them not sending in their taxes.
Leaders lead from love and example.
If I’m a level 4 person, that’s a big problem. I’m going to react to it completely different but if I up my skills and understand how to let it go, have more peace, recognize I can’t control it, all of a sudden, my capacity becomes a 9 and that 8 problem is not a problem anymore. It’s a problem. It’s just not a big problem. It says, “I can deal with it.”
I do a lot of conversation, especially with my team members and offices, about increasing their capacity when they have had a bad morning and somebody cut them off, they had a fight with their spouse and now they’re coming into the office. Too often they will bring that problem into the office, make sure everybody knows about the problem they have this morning so everybody else can carry that for them. It ruins everybody’s at least half an hour, if not longer in the day because some people let it last all day long. I want to teach them how to have a higher level of capacity so that they can deal with the situation at home, know themselves and realize that they can leave that baggage at the door and then move on into the office. We need to have that in every office.
You help them increase their capacity to deal with it. As you were speaking, I kept thinking, “Let’s talk about emotional intelligence,” because that’s pretty much what you’re saying. Emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness. What you described, once you had a fight, if somebody cut you off is the self-awareness of understanding triggers. The more you can understand triggers and what you react to, the more you can manage them or control that.
Speak a little bit more about that in terms of how it works in your work for an orthodontist. They have clients that come in late, staff can call in sick, the bills aren’t paid on time, they are supposed to pay before the procedure and they don’t. Talk a little bit about how understanding what triggers you helps you deal with it. For example, for some people, lateness is just the trigger. There will be a lot of reasons behind that. Other people expect people to be late. When somebody is late, they don’t go ballistic. It’s the capacity to handle but everybody’s got a third round.
There’s a saying about how, “All pain and disappointment is attached to the attachment.” When you are attached to an outcome, “It should be this way. It should look that way.” It’s funny because as you were saying that, I was thinking that a lot of the challenges that come up in offices have to deal with commiseration because you are dealing with a group of people who, in theory, all have the same goal, get through their eight hours, help people with their smiles, go home and have no big problems. Because you’re dealing with a team, oftentimes, one person’s challenge and problem end up being other people’s because people love to commiserate. People want you to feel like you are not alone. They don’t want you to feel bad.
I deal with the health care world. These are literally people who want to heal other people, who want to make other people feel better. I talk about this often in my groups about how there is a world of givers and challenges with receiving. That creates this commiseration that then becomes the staff infection that I talk about often. As you corrected yourself earlier because I used the word team instead of staff because the staph is an infection nobody wants but we get staff infection. It could be that person came in late to them so mad.
I also think the other side of it is from a leadership standpoint, it often breeds because of being out of integrity. What I mean by that is I believe your job as a leader is to lead from love and example. If you have someone on your team who you don’t like, you don’t feel is a fit or you can’t wrap your mind around like wanting them to be a part of your team but you are not willing to love them enough to let them go because you’re worried about staff shortages or you got to find another person and you are putting up with that person, to me, that’s 100% out of integrity. Anything that’s out of integrity eventually loses its foundation and they will crack.
That’s where you have cracks become anger, bitterness, complaint and gossip. The building will fall. Those two things being out of integrity and focusing on commiseration instead of when somebody at the morning huddle goes, “Mrs. Jones is coming in today. We’re not going to try to talk bad about people but we all know who she is.” I say this from the stage all the time. You’ll hear everybody start laughing in the audience because they know exactly what I’m talking about.
In that moment, you have done a couple of things. Number one, you have told everybody it’s okay to treat Mrs. Jones a certain way. Number two, Mrs. Jones has failed before she’s even walked in the room. You have set her up for failure for everybody else. When she’s in the room, she’s going to get and feel that energy because as soon as she walks in and somebody who’s going to get on their earpiece, say, “Mrs. Jones is in the building,” and everyone is going to be on high alert. Now you have created a commiseration scenario out of the idea that, “We are trying to educate people and let everybody know that Mrs. Jones is coming in,” instead of turning it around and being more on a positive note. Those two things are big challenges inside the offices.
It’s great because the whole concept of the commiseration that when you are expecting the worst in this specific type of situation, no matter what Mrs. Jones does, it’s going to be looked at through a lens of not good. Even if she does something kind or she’s having her finest moment, it will be interpreted as, “That’s not really her. Just wait. It’s coming.” This brings us to the conversation of, in a business, a small business owner, a propreneur, people go to school for a long time to learn their craft, skill, trade and vocation. They’re not taught to be leaders.
Let’s talk a little bit about the CEO of a small business. Quite frankly, a lot of CEOs in big corporations think they have the title of leader but they know nothing about leadership. Talk about what you focus on and for anyone reading that’s thinking about being a business owner or is the business owner. It’s not good enough to be the best dentist, lawyer, accountant. You have to be a leader but they have never been taught. Speak to that in whatever way you think would be most helpful. That’s the basis for the relationship. To me, you are trying to create trust because without trust, you got nothing.
Part of that is trusting yourself too, trusting that you might be the best for a moment but you are not going to be the best forever. There is always going to be somebody who comes along. I am one of the very few people in the world who watched the Olympics. My wife and I are watching snowboarding. Shaun White is the three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is 35 years old. He is eight years older than the next youngest competitor. He’s going up against this 15-year-old.
He’s like, “There are certain things my body can’t do anymore.” At one point in the world, he was the best in the world. Someone else has come along to be better and they’re doing bigger, better tricks than he was doing. This sounds a little bit contradictory but I sat up on stage, the first thing I typically say when I speak to a group is, “My name is Dino Watt. I’m the best in the world at what I do.” I’m standing in front of a group of people that I believe are the best in the world at what they do or at least I hope they think so. The reason I usually start with that is that in this moment, I’m going to be the best in the world I possibly can. I’m not saying I’m better than Patty, Tommy or he sucks. For me, in this moment, I’m going to be the best.
I want my doctors to feel that way. However and this is where I came up with it too is I think the thing that is the most challenging for many people like doctors or lawyers, it doesn’t matter is the Imposter syndrome idea. That feeling that, “I don’t trust who I am and what I know or somebody else might call me on the things that I believe I am or a belief I know.” That’s a scary place to be. When you put yourself out there, “Who’s going to criticize me?” Sometimes the mom is criticizing the way that you’re putting braces on a child but she has no idea what she’s talking about but yet in their brain sometimes they’ll go, “She’s seeing that. Who she talked to?” and starts to self-doubt.
Find someone to talk to who believes in your vision.
Dr. Google told her. That trust you said at that very last of, “Why is that?” It’s that trust of that self-trust of believing. I like to walk the tight rope a little more than my wife likes me to. For example, I’m doing an event speech for the National Speakers Association. Part of my speech is what I call the Bill to Speech speech. Meaning, I’m not going in with a speech. I’m going to ask the audience what do they want to learn about. Give me a topic, a timeframe. At the moment, I’m going to have them do an exercise for five minutes. During those five minutes, I’m going to create a 45-minute speech. I do that for a couple of reasons.
Number one, it’s fun. It’s crazy to live on the tight rope. Number two is it is my exercise and realizing that I know my stuff. There are people who know a lot more than I do. Patty, you’ve got way more education than I do. You can probably talk about psychoanalytic and all this way more than me. When it comes to my stuff and what I’ve created, learned, assimilated into my being, the only way I’m going to test that is by going out there, getting it done and doing it. You probably see it on Facebook or social media. People often ask, “If I asked you to speak on 1 topic for 45 minutes, what would it be?” People will be like, “Culture, relationships or whatever.”
I don’t believe 99.9% of them believe they could without a ton of preparation. I want to get out there and do it. Let me reverse that. I believe they could. You put them in that moment on the spot. Most people are going to be like, “I need more time. I need to focus.” When you’re true to who you are and you trust yourself, you don’t need to worry about Mrs. Smith that she is going to critique you, the other doctor down the street or any of that stuff. I believe being true to yourself, trusting yourself and getting over that Imposter syndrome is probably the most important thing.
It’s interesting you say that because I love doing TV Q&A because Johnny on the spot, you got 30 seconds that we’re springing your ear and it’s easy for me because I feel like I know my stuff at that moment. I have two questions for you. One is what is the most important thing in life that you have learned that you want people to know?
I cannot think of any business success, worldly success or fame that supersedes sharing your life with someone or some people that you fully trust and believe have your back. Out of everything that we’re taught about emotional intelligence, whatever our profession is, what society deems as successful or acceptable, it’s that end of the life moment that there’s a part of me that wants to make an impact more the world for people to remember me but Shannon’s going to be standing over me with tears in her eyes. She’ll be in that moment of pure love and gratitude with me. That’s the most important thing.
Success is the ability to create nurture and sustain healthy relationships because without that, you have nothing. Last question. If there was one entrepreneur throughout history that you could have a conversation with, who would it be? Why?
My first thought was my dad. He is still alive so I can have this conversation but it doesn’t talk about him. He used to be an entrepreneur. That’s where I got my entrepreneurial spirit from. He used to have spec homes and owned a carwash. I probably understand why he doesn’t talk about it is because all of those things ended up turning out poorly. We are the cause of probably part of their divorce but probably my dad. The other person would probably be Walt Disney because he didn’t give up. He knew who he was. He went through some bad stuff. Not just the bankruptcies but people who didn’t believe in him.
To talk to somebody who believes in their vision so much and that he was able to literally think his vision into existence beyond his wildest dreams. I’m sure this is where it is now way beyond. To find something that you are passionate about. You don’t look the part. You’re in a suit. You’re a businessman. Whatever you think of Disney throughout their existence, joy and happiness for people, that takes a lot of fortitude, self-belief and emotional intelligence as you’re talking about to get people behind you. That would probably be the two.
It’s a great way to end the interview because what you’re speaking of is that he had unlimited belief in himself. He did not suffer from Imposter syndrome because if he didn’t believe in his vision and himself, he wouldn’t have been able to have to get everybody else, especially in the face of such resistance. How can people find out more about you? Where would you like them to go?
DinoWatt.com is probably the easiest place to go. Instagram and Facebook are the same things. If you’re on TikTok and you want to see Dino dancing, @DancingDino is my other TikTok account. You can see me dancing but I also dance on my business account. Those are the best places.
That concludes this episode. As I promised, Dino took us for a ride. Make sure you like, comment, share and subscribe to this show. We’ll see you next time.
Important Links
- The Practice Rx
- The Propreneur – Podcast
- Not Tonight Dear, I’ve Got a Business to Run!
- DinoWatt.com
- Instagram – Dino Watt
- Facebook – Dino Watt
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/DinoWatt/ – Dino Watt
- [email protected]
About Dino Watt
Dino Watt is one of the most exciting business trainers and the author of the #1 Best-Selling books, The Practice Rx and Hire and Fire Like a Boss.
He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX News, and TEDx.
As a high-performance practice advisor, Dino has frequently been referred to as “the Tony Robbins of private practices”. His goal is to help business leaders and teams create more passion in their life, be more productive in the office, and create more profit in all areas of their life.
Studies show that your intelligence increases by 31% when you are in a positive and fun environment, so get ready to become 31% smarter with Dino Watt.
