Self-Awareness is Everything

Mudassir (00:04.074)

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of ProdCircle. And today I’m so excited to have Dave and Delynn from all across the world. No, no, no, let me do it again. Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. We’re so happy to have Dave and Delynn joining us today. So, how are you guys doing? How’s everything?

Delynn Miller (00:22.938)
Amazing.

Dave Miller (00:24.038)
Absolutely wonderful.

Mudassir (00:26.274)
All right, thank you so much for the time. So, let’s actually start with, where are you guys actually today?

Dave Miller (00:55.688)
Okay.

Delynn Miller (01:11.01)
Well, we’re from Southern Ontario. However, a year ago, we decided that, you know, we had to just say to ourselves, what if we lived on an island somewhere? And we kept going with that idea. And before we knew it, we had sold everything, packed up the dog and kids, and moved to Barbados. And now it’s like, we’re not looking back. We’re loving it. So, that’s where we are right now is Barbados.

Mudassir (01:38.23)
Wow, how is Barbados treating you guys?

Dave Miller (01:40.856)
Amazing. Island time, island time.

Delynn Miller (01:42.85)
So good.

Mudassir (01:42.99)
Wow, okay. Oh my, okay. All year long, what’s the weather like?

Delynn Miller (01:49.698)
summer, it’s, it fluctuates between like 28 degrees and 30 degrees Celsius, like all the time. It’s like, no difference. It is.

Dave Miller (01:50.496)
Yeah, doesn’t change.

Mudassir (01:56.362)
Wow. Heaven for you guys compared to what you guys were living in Canada. Yeah. Okay.

Delynn Miller (02:01.784)
So good.

Dave Miller (02:01.9)
It gets really hot where we are, where we’re from in Canada in the summertime. It’s actually like it can get hotter there than it is where we are here. But definitely very cold winters as well. So, we didn’t miss that at all this year.

Mudassir (02:05.843)
Oh, okay.

Mudassir (02:16.686)
Okay, awesome. I actually have a question for Delynn to start us off, but actually, you know, because we were like doing a whole bunch of research on the show and on the background of you guys. So, I actually want to start us off with you today. So, one thing that popped up was you started out a career in police, right, in law enforcement. And how did that entire shift has happened that you guys ended up becoming an entrepreneur, running a coaching program?

Dave Miller (02:24.62)
Thank you.

Mudassir (02:43.742)
actually, an institute, but I’m going to ask a lot of questions around that as well. So, how did that shift actually happen? Just, you know, from a law enforcement officer to an entrepreneur.

Dave Miller (03:03.256)
Before becoming a police officer, I was in business anyhow, I’ve owned health clubs, other online startups, I’ve been involved in a lot of different ventures. So, I’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit from a young age. I did not go the traditional route, you know, after graduating high school, right? I was I was little at that time, kind of confused about what I wanted to do for a career wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to go. So, I took a year off.

Dave Miller (03:32.436)
And during that year off, you know, where I vowed, you know, I’m going to go to university after this. I’m going to figure out exactly what it is that I want to do. And getting into a business kind of fell on my lap at that point in time. So, that was the direction that I went. So, I was like 19 years old when that opportunity presented itself. And for the next, uh, about the next six or seven years after that, I completely focused on business. But.

Dave Miller (03:57.016)
Policing was something I was always interested in through high school, but at that time, but you know, I didn’t know if 100% if that’s what I wanted to do. And it just kind of kept coming back to me, even while I was on this entrepreneurial journey. And I decided to go all in after that. And you know, I was like, I can balance and have both. And so, I did that and I was fortunate. I got hired rather quickly. And it was awesome. Like I spent 14 years doing it. I learned so many things.

Dave Miller (04:27.304)
in that career and skill sets that I kind of carried forward with me. But I knew in my heart it wasn’t entirely fulfilling me anymore, right? And I knew that I still had like 16 more years to do it. And that was, I guess, that was a big question I asked myself. I’m like, I’ve got so many other skill sets. I’ve learned so many other things in the entrepreneurial world. I have so many different ideas. And I knew I could only balance so much, right? And when Delynn and I, you know, I…

Dave Miller (04:55.5)
came home to her one day, I’m like, remember we always talked about like, maybe going to an island or moving somewhere, I’m like, let’s like really take an actual serious look at that and see if that’s something that we could actually do. And we found this opportunity to come here to Barbados. And the big question for us then was like, if we don’t do it, are we going to regret this opportunity?

Dave Miller (05:16.148)
And so, I kind of partnered with what Delynn had already created and, you know, helped her and we’ve really elevated and grown the Pursuit Institute.

Mudassir (05:16.192)
Okay, now that’s very.

Mudassir (05:24.142)
Amazing. You mentioned that, you know, obviously, how long were you in police, I think 14 years? So, in 14 years, obviously, you have learned so many skills. Which of those skills you actually transfer to startup, or you can say that it’s entrepreneurial world. Like, you know, a Dave who hasn’t been to police before starting a business, compared to a Dave who has learned like, I don’t know, how many different things in police.

Dave Miller (05:31.528)
14 years, yep.

Dave Miller (05:53.98)
Yeah, from with that, I think, communication skills, learning how to be very direct, loving and honest with people. I think that’s a big thing, especially with us from running a coaching business, and helping people establish and build their own coaching businesses, you have to sometimes have difficult conversations with people. So, that’s been a big one, I think, for sure, that’s allowed me to really advance.

Dave Miller (06:19.572)
But I know when I left policing, like I had a lot of people say to me, it’s like, well, how are you doing what you’re doing there? Right? And I think people, no matter what walk life, whether they’re a teacher, with police officer, a paramedic, a doctor, postman, it doesn’t matter. Like people have all of these skillsets that they gain in their work. It’s just teaching people now how to be able to go out and monetize it, find a market gap, find something that society may have a current problem.

Dave Miller (06:47.4)
with it that there’s no real relevant solution for, or there is a solution, but you can do it better in a different way. And teaching people like, you can take your skill set that you’ve got, and just because you signed up for something for maybe 30 years, doesn’t mean you have to do that, right? You can take that and you can transfer it and apply it to doing absolutely anything that you want. That’s one thing I absolutely love doing, is helping people figure out what business opportunities could they run.

Mudassir (07:14.038)
Nice. Speaking of business opportunities, and we’ll come back to a few more questions on this, but speaking of these different skills and opportunities, a lot of people actually think that unless they get to a C-level exec role or something like that, they haven’t actually learned anything. That’s worth monetizing. But that was a shift like probably 20 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe 15 years ago.

Dave Miller (07:41.377)
Mm-hmm.

Mudassir (07:42.538)
But now it’s just like every kid who’s getting out of the college is thinking, like they have so much to offer and so much, like everything that they have, they can monetize that. So, it’s like two ends of the spectrum. So, what do you think about both end of these spectrums?

Dave Miller (07:57.176)
We live in a world now where I think that traditional form of education, a lot of it’s going to go out the window. I think that people can get resourceful and find absolutely anything that they want. They can find an expert in something and learn in the online world and learn that hands-on skill set. You don’t need a; you see so many people graduate with a degree in something and then end up in a completely other field of work. So, I think…

Mudassir (08:06.742)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (08:24.832)
people now are realizing, especially that generation that’s graduating from university now, is realizing how the online world works and how offering services works, whether it’s services as a software type of business or course creation or sales or anything else, that they’re really being able to only say, you know what, the biggest thing I got out of university was I guess you can know that I can read and regurgitate something.

Dave Miller (08:54.772)
And that’s not trying to knock that. Like there’s definitely a place for it, but I just think people are becoming so resourceful now in what they can do and learn in the online world. And maybe they’re taking their study habits or other things that they are learning and being able to apply it. But it’s an open-door world when it comes to, especially in the online world with establishing a business and taking a skillset that you have and being able to put it to a monetized business model.

Mudassir (08:58.744)
Mm-hmm.

Mudassir (09:20.222)
Yeah, agreed. And I also think to a very, very good extent, you don’t have to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to get a degree, in order to become something, in order to make something, in order to have a good life. You can actually do it like the other way around. You can skip the college. You can skip the school thing, right?

Dave Miller (09:34.896)
I know more people. I skipped the whole thing. Delynn went the traditional route. She got the degree in psychology, then she got her diploma in social work, she got her master’s in business. And her and I are like total obstinate of the spectrum, but even she totally realizes now, it’s like, yeah, that’s great. I got a bunch of letters at my name, but none of it’s really relevant to what it is that she’s doing. I know more people who make more money, who have, you know, they’ve kind of just gone to the school of hard knocks.

Mudassir (09:38.827)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (10:04.308)
more than anything and have built based off of life lessons rather than somebody who’s gone to university and got a degree. Again, I’m not knocking that model. I believe that there’s going to be a big cultural shift in what people do with traditional education or whether they go through with it. You want to become a doctor or a lawyer? Yes, you need it. You want to become an engineer? Yes, you probably need it. But if you’re just going to go and just trying to throw a bunch of crap at the wall and see what sticks or go, you know what? I’m going to go get a degree in English or a degree in…

Dave Miller (10:33.72)
you know, whatever, it’s not necessarily transferable or it leads people to doing a job that they’re not passionate about. Okay, I graduated, I have to get a job that traditional person says, or mom and dad say, I got to go do this. And then they end up in a career that they absolutely hate. The best thing you can do is go work for yourself, go create and be absolutely anything you want. But it’s like people got these limiting beliefs going, well, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. You’re not meant to do that. And it’s like,

Mudassir (10:52.402)
Exactly.

Dave Miller (11:01.696)
Who’s to say I’m not meant to do that? You can be holding back a lot of gifts to the world by saying, okay, fine, I’m going to go become this or that just because I got to, you know, have to get a job like everybody else does.

Mudassir (11:20.942)
All right Delynn , let’s come to you actually. So, let’s talk about how did you end up becoming a health and mental coach actually. And what exactly is that you coach people on?

Delynn Miller (11:36.482)
Yeah, so, I mean, Dave, Dave, or spoiler alert, he let you in on the early, early days. But I would say honestly for me, I, like Dave said, I was definitely the one that went the traditional route, mostly because I very much had a self-image that was a people pleaser. And I wasn’t willing to do anything that was outside of the norm.

Mudassir (11:44.063)
Mm-hmm.

Delynn Miller (12:02.402)
Like I would tip my toe, dip my toe in the lake of, outside the box, but for the most part I was like, oh, I just, I had this need to people please constantly. So, starting at the age of 17, when I had, my parents were like, you’re going to university, not sure how we’re going to afford it, but that’s what’s happening. And it was like, okay, I guess that’s what I’m doing. And I went to my guidance counselor and I said to them,

Delynn Miller (12:29.154)
You know, I want, she’s like, well, what do you, what do you like? Which I think is a brilliant question to ask people. What do you like to do? What are you interested in? And I said, I want to know why we do what we do. I want to know why you have, why people think what they think and then why, you know, you’ve got some people over here that are like absolutely just like killing it and they love what they do. And then you’ve got these other people here.

Delynn Miller (12:56.686)
that are like living paycheck to paycheck. They don’t even love what they do, but they’re just like in this mode. And then you’ve got people somewhere in between and like how does it, you got people that look like they’re killing it, but then hate what they do. Like, why are we doing this? Like, what’s the point of it all? And she goes, you should take psychology. That’s your journey. And I’m like, okay, I guess that’s what my journey is. So, I’m going to go take psychology. And in those four years, I mean, grateful for it.

Delynn Miller (13:25.77)
I learned a lot about the brain and I learned a lot about all the things having to do with the brain. Um, but I didn’t come out understanding why we do what we do. And now, um, and it led me to, well, I guess I’m supposed to go and I kept just going back to school, going back to school. And then that, that led me. And I mean, all during university, I worked, um, in a hospital. And then when I finished university, I ended up getting a full-time job at that hospital. And then I, before I knew it, I was like a ladder.

Mudassir (13:35.571)
Okay.

Delynn Miller (13:55.382)
And I forgot all about what is it that I actually love? What is it that I actually love to do? Until it was about 10 years ago, when I said to Dave, my reasons for getting into healthcare, they no longer exist. I’m not passionate about this work that I’m doing. And yes, I’ve been climbing the corporate ladder. At that point, I mean, I was a high-level executive.

Delynn Miller (14:20.63)
I was making six figures a year. I had the pension, I had the benefits, I had all the things, all the, it’s like Vegas type job going on here, all the bright, shiny lights. But I wasn’t, I didn’t love it. I liked it and I was good at it, but I was like, I don’t love it. I don’t love it. And then it brought me back to when I was 17 years old and I was like, why, how did I get sucked into this? Like how, why, how did this happen? How, why are we doing this? And I remember saying to Dave,

Mudassir (14:30.466)
Got it.

Delynn Miller (14:47.818)
You know, my reasons for doing this job no longer exists. I have this feeling I’m supposed to go out on my own. And, um, I, at that point we had had our first daughter and. In Canada, we get a year of maternity leave. So, I have been, went from being a ladder climber to full-time moming and.

Delynn Miller (15:12.386)
Here I thought, well, man, like I’ve been pouring myself into this hospital, shouldn’t this hospital be shutting down? Like if I’m going on maternity leave for a whole year, shouldn’t it, it just wants to close, right? And it didn’t, of course. And it just really made me go, okay, so something I’m pouring a lot of time and energy into is now functioning without me, no problem. Like they were like, hey, who wants Delynn ‘s job for the year? Here you go, done. And…

Delynn Miller (15:41.382)
I had this, now I officially had this most beautiful reason to show up every single day. And I mean, to all the moms out there, it is the best and worst job you’re ever going to have. You’re getting crapped on, you’re getting thrown up on, you’re up in the middle of the night just so they can do that to you. But it’s the best job and we’re like, we love it, right?

Mudassir (16:02.774)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (16:05.654)
and it pays like garbage. Like I was not making very much money doing that. However, there was something about it that made me question how I wanted to spend my time. And I just knew going into like, after that year off, I knew that if I was going to spend my time doing anything outside of what I was just doing, it better be damn good. Like it better be really good.

Delynn Miller (16:34.07)
And I went, but I mean, mind you, I went back and I was pregnant again. Right. That’s what they, I wasn’t going to win employee of the year at this point. Let’s be honest. So, but I really started looking into what, how do I want to spend my life? Like I had just enough awareness to go, this isn’t it. This isn’t it. So, when I was on maternity leave for our second daughter, I started really diving into how do I want to serve people?

Delynn Miller (17:02.306)
And I started coaching. That’s when I started coaching. I started, but it was health coaching because I started really leaning into just more natural forms of healthcare. And it was this big revelation because I mean, I’m a child of the eighties. I was pretty much raised on penicillin and pine salt, right? Like there’s nothing natural about how I was brought up. And I mean, it’s not a knock on my parents. It’s just what they knew, right? So…

Mudassir (17:25.016)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (17:30.146)
when I started doing things differently, I noticed, I’m like, all these other parents are asking me, like, what do you use for this? What do you do for this? My kid’s skin looks like this, what do you use? And I started educating them and I just loved it. And it didn’t matter that I would work all day at the hospital or I’d be up all night with the kids. I would coach people at night and I’m coaching people at night, I’m coaching people on my lunch hour.

Delynn Miller (17:59.906)
people would say to me like, so this is what you do now? But I didn’t even have the self-image of someone that was comfortable enough to say, yeah, this is what I do. I couldn’t even admit it because I had spent so much time and energy climbing the corporate ladder that I literally would say to people, no, no, no, this is just like my side passion. I still work at the hospital. That’s who I am. But really my side passion was like,

Delynn Miller (18:28.466)
really what was trying to, it was like literally my spirit seeking expression. Like it just, it wanted out and this was the vehicle that I was using at the time. It was like, this is what I was, this is what I was meant to do. And so, when I was on maternity leave the second time, I literally spent the time growing that business, growing that business. And I it was doing; it was doing pretty well by the time I went back to the hospital and actually

Delynn Miller (18:55.086)
The year after that maternity leave, I was borrowed from the hospital to be the CEO of a hospice. So, we were just opening this hospice. So, if anybody doesn’t know a hospice is a place that you go to die, okay? It specializes in the end of life and that’s where you go. So, that entire year, I’m immersed in end of life. Okay, so not only am I starting to build something different because I know I’m not spending my days how I’m supposed to, how I meant to, I can feel it.

Delynn Miller (19:23.382)
I don’t know how to word that feeling yet, but I can feel it. Then I get this whole year of immersing myself in people’s end of life. And in the same year, my mom has a double lung transplant and our oldest daughter is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. So, like two of my people have these life-threatening things that happen while I’m planning other people’s end of life. And it was like the smack in the face.

Delynn Miller (19:50.71)
And I’m so grateful for it. I kind of call it the crap show now, but like I needed that to happen for me to be able to go, okay, like enough evidence that I’m not living my life on purpose right now. Like, let’s stop giving me the evidence and I’ll go live my life on purpose. And I would say within two weeks of that happening, I went to Dave and I was like, listen, like I know this is not part of the plan.

Delynn Miller (20:20.442)
Um, but I’m supposed to go all in on my business. And initially he was like, oh, I don’t know. Right. Cause at this point, I mean, we had built the life that we, we needed both six figure incomes, right. And I wasn’t quite making that in my business yet, but I was like, I just said, I just like, I have this feeling that if I just do this, that it’s going to work and this is where Dave being an entrepreneur totally served me because he knew, he knew that feeling.

Dave Miller (20:20.512)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (20:50.722)
that magical feeling that you have when you just know, if I just do this, something’s going to happen. And he was like, all right, just do it. And then I resigned. And it was, I’ve never looked back, it’s almost 10 years now.

Mudassir (21:07.126)
So, I work with a whole lot of founders. Mostly people who are like first-time founders, probably second-time founders, they’re building a product company for the very first time, so I help them take that prior thing, turn it into, turn the idea into product, then to business stuff like that.

Mudassir (21:38.938)
And I always said this thing that, you know, asking the right question matters a lot, right? Every single time. You’re building a business; you need to know the question you need to ask. You’re building a party; you need to know the question you need to ask. You’re going for investment, you know, looking for investment. You need to know the question you need to ask, and otherwise, investors are going to ask you those questions, and you probably won’t have the answers to them.

Mudassir (22:08.354)
So, and then you mentioned, you know, you went to the counselor and she asked like, what you want to do or something like that, right? So, good questions to ask at that point. And then multiple times in your life, you kept thinking about, is that something I want to do? Is that something I want to do? Because most of the time when people are just like down and something is happening in their life, what they usually do is they start complaining. I mean, that’s the easiest thing to do. They just like complain.

Delynn Miller (22:37.85)
100%.

Mudassir (22:37.942)
blame somebody, complain somebody, right? But you kind of had a different approach to it. You kept asking the why, like why the hell you’re doing this thing, right? So, not the how. Most people go to the how, yeah. Yeah.

Delynn Miller (22:49.466)
Not the how. Most people would go to the how. No, most people would go to, they do. Yeah, it’s like, well, how’s that going to happen? I didn’t worry about the how. I was like, why do I want to do this? And it’s like, cause you’re the, the emotion that you have, that feeling that you like, people are like, follow your gut, follow your heart. That’s your why. Why, why, why, why, why? And it was the same.

Delynn Miller (23:17.802)
What I said to Dave, the reasons I was started in healthcare, the impact that I thought I could have here, I can’t have, the impact I want to have is so far beyond these four walls, it’s ridiculous. Like they don’t exist anymore. So, which means I’m not meant to work in this building. Right. Um, and then the same thing happened with him in policing. It was like, well, the reasons I got into policing, don’t, they don’t exist. Like when you get to the point where you only love 5, 10% of your job, you know.

Delynn Miller (23:47.47)
that you’re boxed in and you’re just going by the motions and your why falls out the window. But it’s like when you stop asking yourself, but how can I do it, how can I do it? And start just digging into why you want to do it, the opportunities come to you. Or I like to say play the what if game, right? So, what for me in my mind, I was going, what if I didn’t work at the hospital?

Mudassir (23:54.146)
Yep.

Delynn Miller (24:16.762)
What if I did go all in on my business and started having the impact that it would have? I wonder what that would do for my life. I wonder what that would do for other people’s lives. I wonder what if I had the impact I wanted to have. And then it was the same questions when Barbados came up. What if we lived on an island? Oh, well, what if? What would that do for our lives? Because if I’m living in my highest self, then…

Delynn Miller (24:44.222)
It makes sense, even if for the really logical person, if you’re living as your highest self, it makes sense that the service that you provide is going to be next level. Right? So, it was like, oh, well, and it just, it just rolls in. If you can ask the what if, and just play around with the idea. It’s like your habitual way of doing things kind of gets pushed aside just, just long enough for you to start to actually entertain an idea.

Mudassir (24:54.986)
Yeah, exactly.

Mudassir (25:10.622)
Yeah. So, Dave, coming back to you, when you left the job, you know, a regular job, nine to five jobs, and you decided, no, this is not what I want to do, you know, you lost the purpose, you don’t get the same sense of happiness or fulfillment, I should say. Did you already have this thing planned out? Like, you know, there’s like something to fall back on, like you already had a plan B at that point in time, or you were like, no, screw it.

Dave Miller (25:22.84)
Mm-hmm.

Mudassir (25:38.985)
I’m just going to go do something that I actually enjoy.

Dave Miller (25:42.524)
more so that, I mean, what I had was my faith and belief that everything that we were going to do was going to work out, right? But when I watched Aline transfer from, when she made that transfer nine, 10 years ago, whatever it was, I was like super apprehensive. I’m like, what are you doing? I’m like, we’ve been given these 30-year careers that are going to pay us very well and we’re going to be able to lay in a layer of a great next three years life and we’re going to be able to raise our kids and we can take the vacations and this is just what we’re supposed to do.

Dave Miller (26:11.276)
forgetting at the time that I was an entrepreneur. And when I kind of tapped into that, and I was like, okay, like, because I saw her passion in it. And I was kind of like came from like, who am I as her spouse, as somebody who fully supports her to say, no, you can’t go do this, right? And I saw her passion in it. And so, then I kind of got to watch from the sidelines over the next nine, 10 years, her work from home, her have this balance.

Dave Miller (26:38.356)
not having to run out the door, not having to quickly eat a meal or whatever. I was working a lot of shift work at the time. And when I made that change, I was just at that point where I’m like, no, this is what I want to do. And so, the initial game plan, she had built a business and it was making money. But on paper for us to do what we did, we sold our house in Canada, we sold our vehicles in Canada, we sold 90% of our possessions.

Dave Miller (27:06.292)
we moved to Barbados and it was, we knew the business was taking on a brand shift at the time. And Delynn had been already working as a mindset coach for about the last three or four years at this point in time. She kind of transitioned from the health coaching to working on the mindset coaching and really helping people overcoming limiting beliefs, improving their self-confidence, building that self-image of, you know, you can go and do absolutely everything. So, I had been kind of steeping in that for the last,

Dave Miller (27:36.096)
you know, a couple of years and watching this transition, especially through like COVID and you know, you’re just, you know, there’s nowhere to go, right? I’m hearing the conversations she’s having. I’m watching the people that she’s coaching and I’m learning so much from its kind of from the sidelines. And it’s just like, I can have everything that I want. And so, when it comes to, you know, business, like I’ve got, you know, skillsets in marketing, I’ve got a lot of creativity, I’ve got skillsets in sales and a lot of things. It’s like…

Dave Miller (28:02.688)
You know, I saw Delynn trying to run her business on a lens. I’m like, well, hey, I can fill this bucket for you over here. Let’s what does it look like for us to do this together? And that was kind of the birth of the pursuit Institute because Delynn was running everything kind of under her own brand name before under Delynn Miller. And which was awesome, but it was like, we made this entire shift. And then since then, and I’m telling you environment is everything. When we eliminated ourselves from.

Mudassir (28:22.498)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Miller (28:31.744)
certain aspects of, you know, that, you know, even a change in weather and climate, you know, being involved in the area that we are and the view, like it’s in the last nine, 10 months, I can’t believe how much has come unraveled and built from a business purely based on our environment and dedication to this. And I think that’s a big thing that, you know, Dillon talked about earlier is like, well, people always wonder like, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to do that. As long as you have a strong enough why.

Dave Miller (29:01.632)
Don’t worry about the how, the pieces will come together. When you have a passion for what you’re doing, the pieces will come together. Too many people just get stuck and go, it’s easier to stay over here. Yeah, I’m living in a job that I’m not fully fulfilled in or whatever it may be. But when you kind of put that aside, if you truly have a passion about something, everything comes together for you.

Mudassir (29:20.215)
Yeah.

Mudassir (29:24.606)
Yeah, I think the great, great things to talk about. I think a lot of people, in a little context that is, I’ve been privileged enough to work in corporate, and then I’ve been privileged enough to also work in startups, and then do whatever I want to do, basically. And one thing that I’ve seen in terms of mentality, mentality shift, if you talk about people in corporate world and then you talk about people in startup world,

Mudassir (29:53.442)
The biggest difference that I have seen is the fear of failure, that is one. And second is conviction. So, a lot of people on corporate side, they hate their job, like they absolutely hate it. And then they hate to ask themselves a question, what’s the cost of happiness, what’s the cost of that joy? If somebody were to leave their couple hundred bucks, a couple hundred thousand dollars job per year and do something that they actually want to do.

Mudassir (30:24.246)
they just kind of think like, yeah, okay, whatever, maybe the passion will run out, the drive will run out, and at the end of the day, it’s just going to be a job, so might as well do whatever I’m doing today. A lot of people find excuses in more than one way that you can think of. Compared to people in startups, actually, they’re more like, like they have this conviction, they don’t have a plan. Most founders that I work with, they don’t have a plan. They have an idea, they’re passionate about it.

Mudassir (30:54.818)
and they just know they’re going to do whatever it takes to make it work. That’s all they know, right? So, Question actually Delynn for you, when you work with people and you coach them on mindset and you know, mental health and stuff like that, what sort of customers or what sort of client do you usually get? Like people from the corporate world or people from the startup world? Or it’s like 50-50 split.

Delynn Miller (31:20.154)
both. Yeah, well, I wouldn’t say it’s a 50-50 split. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. But I find that I get a lot of people who are just, they’re feeling stuck and dissatisfied in their work. They’re me from 10 years ago. That’s honestly, I would say a good chunk of the people I coach, they come to me and they’re just like,

Delynn Miller (31:44.166)
I hear your story; I’m feeling that way. How do I get to where you are? And it’s like, well, you’re going to have your own journey. Can I help you; can I help it unfold? 100%, right? Because that’s the only thing that needs to change is your thinking, right? So, you’re here and you want to go there. The only thing that needs to change that you just need to close that gap between what you currently known to do and like where you want to go. So, I honestly…

Delynn Miller (32:13.19)
my, I love to work with entrepreneurs. I love to work like any type of business. It doesn’t really matter. Um, I do have some, some C-suite people, um, that are, they’re on purpose with their role. Like, and, and, and again, as long as, as long as there’s nothing wrong with working in corporate, as long as it is your purpose, you are absolutely having the impact that you want to have in that environment. Fill your boots.

Delynn Miller (32:42.918)
awesome, let’s rock at it, right? Like give it your all, give it all your passion, don’t half ass anything. But really when I start working with people, the best part, I always just say the sucker the better, like the more stuck you are, like come to me, like it doesn’t scare me because this is the best part about it is identifying that, oh my gosh, I am.

Delynn Miller (33:10.862)
so stuck right now. Like I’m so dissatisfied. And sometimes on the outside, it appears that we have all the things, right? And I did too, right? I was making six figures, corporate job, had the hubby, had the kids, had the dog. I didn’t have the picket fence, but you got, like I had the perception of all the things, right? But there was this feeling inside of me that just was missing. And I knew…

Delynn Miller (33:36.022)
that I couldn’t give. I couldn’t show up as the mom I wanted to be. I couldn’t show up as the wife I wanted to be. I could show up as the daughter and the friend and the, I, all that I wanted to be if I wasn’t, if it, it started with me, it started with me. And that’s when I was super stuck. And that’s when I hired my first coach and I’m so grateful for my, for her because she helped me to see that I wasn’t any of those things. Like I’m not

Delynn Miller (34:03.962)
And that’s when I truly started to understand the thing that I had been searching for since I was 17 years old, why we do what we do. I was like, and all of a sudden, I got it. I was like, okay, holy crap, we have this thing called the subconscious mind. That’s why we do what we do. And it just, I knew that that was, I would say probably within three months of working with my coach, I was like, yeah, I’m supposed to do what you’re doing. How do I do what you’re doing?

Delynn Miller (34:33.546)
Right. And I just started, I just started diving into it more and more and more. And then what I was noticing, like as it’s evolved is I would have, so I work with people for minimum six months because I need time with them, with their self-image to like help create it. Right. So, what I was noticing is I was, you know, coming to that six-month mark with, with my clients and a lot of them before and they were like, Holy smokes, my mind is blown. How do I do what you’re doing? And

Delynn Miller (35:01.29)
Initially, I was just like, oh, well, I’ll just, I’ll just teach you how to grow a coaching business. Right. But then what was happening was they were coming up against the same roadblocks or the, the things that I was having issues with. Like Dave was talking about, like, they’re like, listen, dude, I just want to show up and coach people and help people. Like, I don’t want to have to think about marketing and like ads and reels and. Like whatever all the other, all that mechanical stuff, not interested. And.

Delynn Miller (35:30.566)
I said this to Dave once, I was just like, okay, so I have so many people that would be amazing coaches and get amazing results, but they don’t, they’re like me, they don’t want to do the mechanical stuff. Can you create something to summarize what we went through in a matter of, you know, six years into a condensed period of like a couple months, few months. And he was like, yeah, I can do that. So, that’s been Dave’s role is to.

Delynn Miller (36:00.258)
to take what we learned over the course of years and years and years and years and a lot of time and money and all that kind of stuff and condense it into a really so that it’s like a business in a box for a coach. So, that I now like this can’t be the Dillon show. This can’t be the Delynn show. So, we that’s honestly where Pursuit Institute came from as well because it was like we can’t the impact that

Delynn Miller (36:28.222)
needs to be had on our world can’t happen with Delynn Miller alone working in a silo. It’s not going to happen.

Mudassir (36:44.522)
Yeah, just thinking about the type of clients you coach. So, suppose most of them, just suppose most of them are coming from corporate. Why do you think they just don’t want to start their own business? And a follow-up question on that would be, I actually think about that quite a lot of times. A lot of people say it’s like, especially today, you got to start something of your own, you got to start something of your own.

Mudassir (37:14.255)
If everybody on this planet were to start his own business, our own business, where would that leave the whole corporate world? Do you think everybody’s made for this entrepreneurial world or not?

Delynn Miller (37:26.906)
I think that everybody has their own journey and they know what works best for them. And I always tell people, if what you desire, the impact that you, the service that you want to have, if it’s already created, partner, partner with people. And maybe that looks corporate-ish, maybe it looks like a partnership and you’re combining your knowledge and expertise with somebody else’s knowledge and expertise. It’s going to, it doesn’t, there’s no right or wrong the way to do this.

Delynn Miller (37:56.642)
Sometimes what you desire to create doesn’t exist yet. And for me, like I know when I first decided that I wanted to get into mindset coaching, I went to one of the top mindset coaches out there, Bob Proctor, and I said, tell me, like, mentor me, tell me what you know, right? And like, that’s exactly how I went and did it. And then I looked for…

Dave Miller (38:19.233)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (38:25.258)

And everybody will always see the pain points within society that they’re like, that’s a gap. I know I could fill it. And there were things that I was then being, that I was noticing, that I was like, oh my gosh, if, if, if this gap was filled, so many more people would get the results that they want. And then that’s when I, this that’s when I was like, okay, I’m, this is what we’re creating and it’s going to fill a massive gap that nobody’s filling right now.

Mudassir (38:53.258)
Yeah, how was working with Bob feel like? He’s amazing, I know. I know I’ve read a lot of things, a lot of things that he wrote about. And especially, just wanted to add one more thing to it, he wrote a whole lot of things about money management, making money, getting rich, stuff like that. So, yeah, what was it like getting mentored by one of the finest people on the planet? So yeah, just tell us a little bit about that.

Delynn Miller (38:59.786)
Yes.

Delynn Miller (39:21.186)
It’s always it’s going to be it’s going to be the best and worst experience the best in the fact that the information that he conveys is our truth like it’s so it seems so familiar when you’re being When you’re being reminded of it. I wouldn’t say like even taught like you’re just being reminded of it but he knew how to call you out like if

Delynn Miller (39:49.054)
If you’re, he called it your paradigm, right? If your habitual way of doing things was getting in the way, he was on you, like on you. And again, some people would be like, I can’t even handle that and they’d be out. But if you took it for what it was, it was an incredible experience.

Mudassir (40:13.93)
Yeah, so what exactly he mentored you on?

Delynn Miller (40:20.574)
Well, growing like just mindset in general, right? Like, so I mean, he mentors everybody through his books and through his, through all of his work that he does, right? Like that’s what he wants people to understand. And how our mind works, like, and that he’s one of the most brilliant teachers on showing us how our minds work and how to turn our thoughts into things. So, that was, that was a big chunk in my, in my earlier stages of really understanding this work of what he taught me.

Dave Miller (40:22.574)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (40:50.046)
And then I actually decided at that point that I was going to become a coach with his organization. So, when I was working specifically with the Proctor Gallagher organization, it then went into, again, but it came back to self-image. It was like, now, what do you need to believe in order to not be the student, but be the coach and be the coach that your people need you to be? And so, it was a lot of awareness.

Delynn Miller (41:18.966)
around self-image in that piece too.

Mudassir (41:24.023)
Okay, so today you guys run Pursuit Institute. How many people have you mentored or coached so far since inception of the idea?

Delynn Miller (41:34.306)
Since, so the, I mean, over the course of like coaching, it’s now at hundreds of people, right? But it’s one of, but the goal now is to be partnering with other coaches as well, because it’s like, I have the capacity to coach so many people at a time, right? But it’s just like, but then there’s so many coaches out there that aren’t getting results.

Mudassir (41:42.616)
Wow.

Delynn Miller (42:03.03)
Right. But it’s again, it’s only because they probably haven’t asked themselves that question of, okay, how do you, cause this, this material is amazing. Teaching people about their subconscious mind and, and how to get results. And it’s like the best work ever, but it’s who do you need to become it from going from the student to the teacher. Right. And it’s just like, when, when we can help coaches do that, it’s like now it’s people aren’t just learning through me.

Delynn Miller (42:32.622)
Just like Bob never meant for people just to learn through him. It’s like who let’s we’re all, we’re all one energy. So, it’s like, let’s join together as one energy to educate the masses because I’m not going to be everybody’s cup of tea either. So, right. So, me people don’t want to learn from me. They might want to learn from Dave. They might want to learn from one of the other coaches, right? And that’s the best part about partnering up is it’s not only, it feels better from a coach’s perspective, but it feels better from a client’s perspective too.

Mudassir (43:15.342)
What do you think about coaching as a business and the challenge that it has? And how do you guys actually solve those challenges? You know, because you know, a lot of that is just like, okay, you’re providing a service, that’s okay. You know, talking to people, but you know, you still need to build that business, so to speak, because you need to make cash flow positive, you need to get more customer, you need to build processes, systems and stuff like that. So, how do you guys do that?

Dave Miller (43:44.184)
That’s where a lot of, you know, I think even over the last few years that I helped Alain kind of establish that. And then when we decided again, hey, let’s make this move, it was an easy kind of plug and play for me to come in and, you know, work on that side of things. Coaching is one of the fastest growing industries in the world right now. But I think that there exists a problem there. See, like you have people who, you know, and this isn’t a knock on

Delynn Miller (43:52.576)
Thank you.

Dave Miller (44:10.928)
life coaching per se, but there’s a difference between life coaching and mindset coaching. And the mindset coaching component is really tapping into people’s minds and changing the way they actually think. It’s not about just establishing a goal and helping somebody carry through to see that because if you haven’t changed the root of the problem, those old habits are still going to come back and exist. So, I think from a business standpoint and establishing it, it’s trying to establish that difference.

Dave Miller (44:39.304)
and the difference in what it is that you do. Anybody can go online now and say, I’m really good at giving advice and come coach with me and throw a dollar amount at it. And there’s no governing body, there’s no accreditation that you need to say that you’ve been given the blessing and you’re a coach now. Anybody can just show up and do it. We found…

Mudassir (44:47.403)
Yeah.

Mudassir (45:03.894)
You think that’s wrong?

Dave Miller (45:06.644)
I don’t think it’s wrong, as long as people aren’t misleading people. And you know, we don’t, we’re not even in the business of giving people advice. We’re in the business of actually getting people to learn to come up with the solutions themselves, but supporting it because I mean, think of how many negative thoughts somebody can have in a day. You know, think of how many thoughts you have in a day and then how many of them are negative in a day and our whole business model is getting people to change the way in which you think.

Dave Miller (45:35.484)
Eliminating that fear out of your life, eliminating that self-belief, building the self-confidence and the self-image of somebody who is capable of going and doing that. If you look at any massive entrepreneurial figures in the world, I think that’s one thing that separates them from the rest is they don’t let fear dictate their decisions. They don’t let fear hold them back or suppress them from taking action. That’s not to say that they don’t have fear that comes into their life.

Dave Miller (46:01.472)
but they don’t let those things dictate their actions and therefore the results that they’re getting. So, when you’re trying to differentiate yourself in the online world, it’s not just, it takes time to build that know, like, and trust factor with people. It takes time to educate them, right? Building a strong social media profile, producing quality content, giving people spaces where they can come and kind of test out your material.

Dave Miller (46:29.212)
and getting them to connect with you. Like I can’t tell you how many clients that we’ve had enroll with us even over the last few months who have been like, I’ve been following you guys for, you know, Delynn , I’ve been following you for two or three years now. And they finally make that leap. But I think that’s one big gap that other entrepreneurs in any industry, everybody’s looking for that immediate result, right? Like we live in this like click and buy world or swipe and get this or that.

Mudassir (46:51.826)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Dave Miller (46:53.1)
And I don’t think, you know, that’s one thing that people need to have is that tenacity to see things through and really tap into their deep, meaningful purpose of why it is that they’re doing something. Then the mechanic, the mechanical side, it comes together. Um, that was kind of a big part of with Pursuit is we were coaching other clients who wanted to have coaching businesses and who were very capable of coaching people.

Dave Miller (47:21.74)
but they were really stuck on the, how do I run a business part, right? So, when I work with people, like I teach them because all of our coaches, for example, are their mindset coaches. But we have coaches who are in the natural birthing space. We have coaches who are in the trauma space. We have coaches who are in like the teaching space, like a lot of different niche markets. It’s…

Dave Miller (47:44.28)
teaching people like how do you find a market gap? How do you find an opportunity where I can put myself in there and create a little bit of separation from who whatever other people are doing and create a differentiation? How do I create a brand identity? How do I find who my ideal client avatar is? And how do I start speaking to them? And the biggest thing that I find, and this is like one of the biggest secrets I think that anybody can have to starting at their own business, is tap into what your own personal story is.

Dave Miller (48:11.828)
And when you realize why you’re doing what you’re doing based on your history or your past or your story, that’s a great place to start because there’s so many other people out there who are experiencing what it is that you experienced in the past. And now you need to share with them what it was that you did to actually fix that. The rest is, yeah, you need to learn how you’re going to market or how you’re going to sell. I mean, we’ve done and tried so many different strategies when it comes to that from…

Mudassir (48:30.381)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (48:40.788)
paid advertisement to search engine optimization. But you don’t need to know how to do those things. There are people that do them for you. I think that’s a misnomer. People think they have to know everything about anything in their business. No, you need to know what’s going on. You need to know how to make decisions, but you don’t need to know how to do absolutely everything.

Mudassir (48:50.955)
Exactly.

Mudassir (48:56.886)
Yeah.

Mudassir (49:04.03)
And I think especially with the AI, like nowadays, you actually don’t need to know everything. I mean, there’s like tons and tons of tons of things out there. You just need to have an idea, conviction, and willingness to just take the action and you’re probably going to just do it.

Dave Miller (49:07.393)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (49:19.632)
Yeah, I have mixed thoughts on AI because it’s a wonderful tool. I mean, reality is I could probably go write a course on quantum physics right now and put it out for sale in the next week, just based on using AI. I know nothing about quantum physics, right? So, I think it’s a dangerous tool in a sense that you need to make sure that somebody’s not, you know, fraudulently creating something or becoming something that they’re not, you know, uh, what’s that movie Catch Me If You Can, right? Frank Abagnale, you know, that.

Mudassir (49:23.906)
Okay.

Dave Miller (49:49.128)
And I think that’s kind of the same thing, is AI could give people the tools and the ability to become something or somebody that they’re not, and not teach on qualified spaces, versus you can go into AI, and it’s a time saver type of thing, going, look, I would like to write a blog, or I’d like to write an email on, and you give it everything it is that you want it to say or do. That’s different, because then I think, you still have to go through, you still have to proofread it, you still have to make it your own.

Dave Miller (50:14.42)
But to start a business solely just off of AI, I think that’s a very dangerous trend that people could go down that, you know, people need to, I think gives the consumer even more reason to do their homework and background, you know, work when you’re looking at working with somebody to make sure they’re legitimate and who they say they are.

Mudassir (50:35.79)
Yeah, exactly. I think of AI as superhuman abilities in some way. It gets you more efficient, gets you more productive, gets the same, like gets the tedious job done pretty quickly, saves you a bunch of time. Yeah, stuff like that. But where it gets dangerous, like really dangerous, is when you start imposing stuff, like you know, you start becoming an imposter. You don’t know what you’re doing. A whole lot of people. So, I think on Twitter or like

Dave Miller (50:42.296)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Miller (50:48.936)
Absolutely it does.

Mudassir (51:04.698)
I think it was on Twitter, somebody just created an account. You can literally see that they created an account three months ago and they kind of grew the following to a couple thousand followers or something, like which is fine. And now all of a sudden, they are like health experts. They’re selling things on like diet, what sort of a diet you need to have, you need to have like keto diet or this diet or that diet, that’s a protocol you should follow, this follow. I was like, oh wow, okay. I mean.

Dave Miller (51:33.948)
Yeah, that’s a dangerous side of it. And I mean, there is, but even I’ll say with chat GPT, like it was established and built in 2021. And it will tell you, you know, my most relevant information is based on 2021. So, you can’t even rely on it to give up-to-date accurate information. And that, you know, you could be giving somebody false information or wrong information because two years, so much has changed. And I just, you know, I think that’s where I said that people need to…

Mudassir (51:34.234)
Okay, a lot of people are doing that.

Dave Miller (52:02.284)
do their homework and look at somebody and make sure that you’re getting the person, you’re not getting AI from somebody.

Delynn Miller (52:10.77)
Yep. Yep. And that’s it’s important specifically, like in in the coaching space when you when you’re trying to help people. The fact is, I’m not a robot, you’re not a robot, Dave’s not a robot, the clients I’m working with are not robots. They’re real humans having a human experience. And that’s not something it’d be like, and it was interesting, because our daughter, our youngest daughter,

Delynn Miller (52:38.134)
She has to do with this project at school right now. And she was just saying to us this morning, I have to do some research to see if a robot could do the job I want to do. And she wants to be a veterinarian. I think every eight-year-old wants to be a veterinarian. So, she’s going to be a veterinarian. And I said, well, what do you think? And she goes, well, how is that even possible? Because I have to be able to respond to what’s going on with the animal and every animal’s unique. So, she’s saying this to me. And she’s just like.

Delynn Miller (53:05.842)
I looked it up. I don’t think any type of doctor could be a robot. And it’s that same idea, right? And it just was like, yeah, because there’s certain professions that you need the ability to be able to, yes, every doctor doesn’t have everything in their head, right? They might have to go and do research. They have a platform, whatever, to get the best data. But if someone’s doing brain surgery on me and something goes…

Delynn Miller (53:34.794)
a stray in the middle of the brain surgery, I need them to know what they’re doing to be able to in the moment not have this black, it’s not black and white. It’s like, well this happened, it’s kind of gray and we’re going to need to do this. And coaching is the same feel, right? Because anything can happen at any time because outside circumstances happen at all times.

Dave Miller (54:01.408)
Yeah. It’s.

Mudassir (54:02.194)
Yeah, I agree to that. One thing that I think about is, and usually, so we talk to a whole lot of investors, a whole lot of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs as well on this podcast. And I almost ask everybody the same questions. Do you think everybody has the potential to be a coach? Do you guys think everybody can be a good coach? Or what exactly, what are the traits that most people need to have in order to become a successful coach?

Dave Miller (54:38.184)
I think personally like legitimate experience. And I know, you know, just life experience in general, right, like you’ve, you know, even in running a business, I can say from running a business, I have experienced from business failures that I’ve had, and they’re not really failures, they’re nothing more than lessons for me. But every time I’ve had an idea or something like that, or I can tell you right now, I can tell you how many, you know, at the start of COVID, I launched an app that was a completely home-based,

Delynn Miller (54:42.163)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Miller (55:07.836)
uh virtual fitness program and it was my own limiting beliefs about two months into it where I’m like I don’t think this is working and I just quit I shut down on that and I’m like I just spent like and I poured a lot of time into this right so that’s you know I think even from a coaching standpoint there’s a lot that I can take from things that I’ve in my own personal life and experience that are transferable to other people see I’ve made mistakes in areas so other people

Dave Miller (55:36.692)
We’ve spent money in other areas of growing our business, so other people don’t have to. I think that’s a big one. I don’t think everybody is meant to do it. I think everybody could do it, but not everybody is meant to do it.

Delynn Miller (55:53.679)
And it’s one of those pieces where, like, we’ve had people approach us to say, hey, I really want to be a coach. And all my number one question that I ask them is, what are you prepared to study yourself, this universe and your place in this universe for the rest of your life?

Delynn Miller (56:17.086)
the rest of your decision that you want to do this, your decided time. And if there are no that I’m like, it’s not for you, because if you’re not willing to grow yourself, you can’t give what’s not in you to give period. So, does all the letters behind my name allow me to do this? No. Does my awareness and my understanding of, of what I’m talking about, allow me to do this? Yes. Right. And I’ve had, I’ve had people do this. I.

Delynn Miller (56:45.59)
Every once in a while, I mean, I typically work with people. I find I attract in people that are in like their 30s, 40s, 50s. But every once in a while, I’ll get some 20-year-olds, or I’ll get someone on the other, like in the 60s, 70s. And I had this one girl. She was like 21. And she wanted, she was like, I’m sick of.

Delynn Miller (57:11.782)
just like my parents are telling me I need to go back to school. I’ve already done one degree. I don’t I didn’t like it. Like it’s not what I want to do with the rest of my life. So, they’re telling me I need to just go back to school. Then I found you. And I want to I want to do your program. Like this is how I like I feel like I’m going to get what I need from you. So, her parents were paying for it. And they got me on the phone. And they said what qualifies you to do this? And

Delynn Miller (57:39.378)
I just said to them, I said, honestly, I could tell you, but all the letters I have at the end of my name, but they don’t, they don’t, they’re not, they’re not going to cut it. I said, I know how to get people results. My awareness in myself, this universe, and what my purpose is here. This is what allows me to be able to do what I do at this next level. Right? And the fact is, is I’m getting the results myself. The number one thing I tell my clients, I’m like, never, ever, ever.

Delynn Miller (58:08.194)
take advice or get coached by someone that’s not getting the results that you desire. It would be like me going to my guidance counselor at 17 years old and saying, how do I find an amazing job that I absolutely love that’s going to help me earn millions of dollars? When she’s sitting there, clearly, I mean, I didn’t really tell that part of the story. She clearly didn’t love what she was doing. It was very obvious that she did not love what she was doing.

Delynn Miller (58:37.262)
And she’s not making millions of dollars. So, like, why am I going to take advice from her to tell me how I’m supposed to now go and spend the rest of my life? Yet she’s having kids come in there every day. Every day, kids are coming in there and she’s going, you should do this, you should do this. And parents are forking out tens of thousands of dollars on it for the next four years based on what that guidance counselor said. And where did she get that information from?

Delynn Miller (59:04.33)
Right? Like it just, and people are basing their lives on it. And then they get stuck in that rabbit hole of like, oh, I guess I’m supposed to do this. Well, I just spent all this time and money going to school to do this. So, I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do. And it’s like, I’m a firm believer that it’s all happening for us. And there’s a lesson for it. Like, I’m not mad at a lot of money and a lot of time that I spent going back to school. I’m not even mad at it. And I even forgive that guidance counselor for very misinformed information.

Delynn Miller (59:33.87)
However, we’re all going to make decisions based on our current level of awareness. So, if someone says, I want to do what you’re doing, it’s in them to express themselves through this industry. And I’m like, have at it, have at it. And if you find that there’s a gap that you can fill in this world, you owe it to yourself. You owe it to that feeling that you’re having inside of you to go fill that gap. Don’t let anybody else or anything else try to swerve you off that path.

Mudassir (59:59.326)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (01:00:03.062)
you go for it. Like, who am I to tell them not to do that? It’s their feeling, right?

Mudassir (01:00:08.994)
How important is self-awareness? What do you think about that?

Delynn Miller (01:00:13.11)
It’s everything. It’s everything. There, mic drop. End. Done. It’s everything.

Dave Miller (01:00:16.951)
Yeah.

Mudassir (01:00:20.732)
And why do you think a lot of people don’t have that?

Delynn Miller (01:00:24.186)
programming. We’re not programmed to have it. Like our society is very much set up where like this is what you do and all and I was a sucker for this for the first 30 years of my life. Like I, I did all the things in all the right order. And there was a right way to do something and there was a wrong way to do something. Right. But it’s just like when you look at how our education system set up, like people spend 25 years in the education system.

Dave Miller (01:00:34.136)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (01:00:54.058)
and are being groomed for mediocrity. They’re being groomed for mediocrity. Like go ahead and just do what everybody else is doing. And it’s like, when you’re programmed like that, and then like you have this urge to go outside of the box, you need, you’re only ever going to do what your current level of awareness is.

Dave Miller (01:00:59.81)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (01:01:17.604)
And you touched on that, I don’t know, like 10 minutes ago, you said like, what would it look like if our entire world was filled with entrepreneurs? What our entire world looked like if it was filled with people actually fully living their fulfilled purpose and not doing, you know, what they’ve been kind of programmed to do. Like I guess you always need technicians and people that want to do that.

Mudassir (01:01:26.494)
Yeah.

Dave Miller (01:01:39.136)
But I would even then say, like, if you’re working within an organization, be that person who’s a free thinker, be that person, like all organizations, all organizations should be created where they encourage entrepreneurial type of spirits and mindsets, just because maybe you’re not the business owner. Doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage you to think like the business owner. Um, I had read something interesting is, I don’t know, about a month ago, an experiment with fleas. I didn’t know this. Maybe lots of people do, but like a flea can jump like eight or nine inches.

Dave Miller (01:02:08.416)
But if you put it in a jar, a three-inch jar and put a lid on it and leave them there for like 10 days and you take the lid off, the flea will no longer ever jump more than the height of that jar because they’ve been programmed to only jump that high and they’ll never go further than what those limits are. And I think that’s a part with the educational system as we teach people to become robotic. Do as I say, just follow the methods. And again, I guess that’s.

Dave Miller (01:02:35.564)
going back to what I was talking about with university, they graduated university, is it’s people now, you can plug them into any organization because they’ve been groomed through this level of education to just open up the book and do what section 39, subsection two, subsection C says, and you follow those along and you could follow things step by step, rather than teaching people like really how to freely think on their own and actually solve problems.

Mudassir (01:02:53.726)
Exactly.

Delynn Miller (01:03:02.242)
Yep.

Mudassir (01:03:04.11)
Exactly.

Mudassir (01:03:08.822)
What’s the 2% club you guys have?

Delynn Miller (01:03:12.238)
So, we call ourselves the 2% club because we do what 98% of people aren’t doing. We spend every single. So, we spend every single day. So, we actually see our clients every single day. The people we work with, it’s not this, you know, touch base with you once a week or touch base with you, we see them every single day and we study with them. We study, they they’re studying themselves. They’re studying this universe and they’re studying their place in the universe every single day.

Delynn Miller (01:03:42.99)
And it’s that constant repetition. Like there’s only two ways to shift a paradigm and that is through sudden emotional impact, which typically it’s negative, so we don’t really wait for those things to happen or this constant repetition of an idea. So, they get in their mind what it is that they want and we have them focusing on it every single day and they have access to coaches every day through our study clubs. So, the 2% club.

Delynn Miller (01:04:09.502)
It just means that they’re working with a pursuit coach. And all of us as coaches, we come together and we pour into this club. So, we are offering webinars for them. We are offering, we have free events. We have like, we have, you know, the private Facebook group and the private WhatsApp group, and they get access to our study clubs and they get access to all the things. But instead of us doing it in silos, they get, we all pour into this group. So, it’s kind of like a BOGA.

Delynn Miller (01:04:39.594)
like it’s better than a BOGO. So, it’s buy one, get all when you get coaches. So, like when someone gets started with me and they get access to the 2% club, they get access to me and all the coaches that we work with. So, they can have different perspectives, um, and different levels of growth. But again, it’s you get unlimited access to all of this coaching, like tons of it.

Mudassir (01:05:07.774)
Okay, that’s very interesting. So, you both actually like emphasized on the importance of pursuing dreams like quite a lot rather than just like wishing for them. Just you got to pursue that. And probably the name came from the same idea, like Pursuit Institute. And you also mentioned that you guys don’t give the advices for anybody. So, when somebody would come to you who’s like struggling to take their first step towards like you know, pursuing their dream, how would you guys coach them?

Mudassir (01:05:37.79)
and how would you guys encourage them? Because that’s got to be different than just showing somebody a motivational video or something like that. So, how do you guys actually help somebody take their first step and then be on?

Delynn Miller (01:05:46.582)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (01:05:53.53)
So, we have a program, like a signature program that we walk people through and it’s called One Thought Away, which is very aptly named since we are always getting anything that we want. And before I walk them through that, that program takes six months to go through. And before we go through that specific program and it’s 12 steps, very sequential, I actually have them do another program that I created called The Power of Purpose.

Delynn Miller (01:06:20.994)
And that’s always the starting point is I want to help them to identify what is my purpose in life. What is the vision I have for my life? And then and only then can we start diving into any type of goal, right? But then what happens is as they start one thought away is they make a committed decision on what they what they want out of their life. None of this will maybe I’ll do this, maybe I’ll do this, maybe I’ll do.

Delynn Miller (01:06:48.406)
I don’t know and I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. And I don’t know what I would, we get them over that how. That’s not up to you. So, now we just, we dive into it. We just like make a committed decision of what it is that you want. And then there’s, it’s the becoming of that person. So, first step is always getting them on purpose. Most coaches, what they’ll do is they’ll go right into goals. What’s your goal? What’s your goal? And it’s like, but if I’m not…

Delynn Miller (01:07:15.502)
had I just went, had my coach just said that to me, I’d still be working in the hospital setting goals. When in fact, that wasn’t my purpose. That’s not what I was meant to do. Right? So, it’s like, let’s get you, let’s get you on purpose with your service. So, you actually, and I’ve identified a vision for your life. And then it’s so easy to make decisions from that space. And then for the next six months, I only have the making decisions from that space. The moment they decide it, it’s like you have a decision to make, which I mean, we’re making decisions.

Delynn Miller (01:07:45.694)
all day every day, you may as well be making it from your higher self, not, not where you are right now, because you’re going to get the same results.

Dave Miller (01:07:55.115)
Yeah.

Mudassir (01:07:55.134)
Okay, great.

Mudassir (01:08:00.662)
So, another thing is, so that is somebody who’s just starting out, right? Compared to somebody who has already had, like he built a business and now he’s just like burned out. I think that’s the most common problem among the founders, like in terms of mental health, like they’re just burned out. They’re working like constantly, 15, 16 hours a day. They’ve managed to screw their life. They don’t have a personal life because all they know is it’s just work. So,

Mudassir (01:08:31.142)
And I personally, on a personal side, I think a lot of founders need to have a support system or a mental health coach. The moment they start thinking about something, they just got to find somebody, because it gets so tough, it gets so lonely. It’s a difficult ride to be a founder, regardless of what the time is, what the economy is. So, if somebody comes to you who has built a decent amount of business, and he’s looking to expand, he’s looking to scale that particular business, but now he’s just like.

Mudassir (01:09:00.898)
burned out, have lost interest in every single thing. How do you guys help those people come back to the same job, find the passion, find whatever they love, and all the things that they have actually lost, how do you guys help them get back to it?

Delynn Miller (01:09:17.614)
still have that person go through one thought away. Because what that what it does is okay, they’ve already identified this is what I want to do but they’re not doing it in a way anymore that feels good. So, the fact is okay it’s already what you want to do so let’s just call that your purpose right? But the rest of their life I actually have I have my clients always do what we call the wheel of life.

Delynn Miller (01:09:44.266)
and it focuses on eight specific areas in your life, right? So that you’re not just pouring into work or finances, but you’re also pouring into spirituality and fun and friends and love and all of those eight areas. So, we, my goal by the end with everybody is that that wheel is your attend in every single aspect. And I promise you, the more you get to know yourself,

Dave Miller (01:09:58.456)
Yes.

Dave Miller (01:10:09.165)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (01:10:12.266)
And the more you get to understand this universe that you live in, the more all of those areas would expand. Like you literally need, Bob Proctor used to say, like when you do this work, you need like a telescope to look back on how far you’ve come because you don’t come out of it. You might come into it to grow your business, but you won’t come out of it doing anything the same. Like I can’t mom the same. I can’t wife the same. I can’t daughter the same. I can’t do anything because I’m not the same person.

Delynn Miller (01:10:41.902)
Like I’ve only expanded and when Dave talks about how he witnessed my growth and he just was steeping in it, the people around you can’t help but steep in it. Like I don’t coach Dave. I don’t coach Dave. I never needed to coach Dave. I don’t recommend it. Do not coach your spouse. It does not go over well. But this is where it’s like when you are growing you, every single aspect of your life will expand.

Mudassir (01:10:50.123)
Mm-hmm.

Delynn Miller (01:11:08.366)
So, if a client comes in and they’re just like, listen, I’m kicking ass at my business, but it does not feel good anymore. And I’ve lost what I once loved about other areas of my life, then it’s like awesome. Then that becomes the goal, right? So, see how at the beginning you let them set the parameters and then I’m like, perfect. And I’ll teach you how to get it. And the process is the same. Process is the same, whether someone comes in with a money goal, a health goal.

Dave Miller (01:11:31.788)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (01:11:35.586)
a relationship goal, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same process.

Mudassir (01:11:40.098)
Got it.

Dave Miller (01:11:40.888)
Money goals are great. I think a lot of people get into business because they want to make money on their own terms. I got a friend of mine who runs several very successful companies and I think he hates them all. I don’t think he loves maybe some of the challenge, but I know some of it’s like a big headache for what he does. And I think when you set, I have a new business that’s launching here in a couple months from now and…

Dave Miller (01:12:08.136)
I’m really tapping into this lifelong mission. Like what is that biggest goal that you can absolutely think of or create that may take you a lifetime or longer to actually achieve? And when you got something that’s so big outside of yourself, outside of who you are, outside of business, it’s such a bigger, grander mission, I think that’s when you don’t lose the passion for it or the desire for it.

Dave Miller (01:12:33.74)
You know, because I look at, you know, people, yeah, you can get burnt out working 12-hour days or anything like that, but we all have 24 hours in the day, eight of them, seven of them, whatever, dedicated to sleep. So, many people piss away the rest of the time, watching binge, watching shows on Netflix and doing all these other things, right? And I’m like, I’m not saying don’t go do that. Like sometimes like when I know that I’m getting, I’m like, hey, I’m kind of hit my max output peak here.

Dave Miller (01:12:57.084)
I need to go do something outside of the business world to fulfill me, right? Having goals outside of business is good. Having goals for your health or for your relationships with your kids, I think that’s a missing connection. People just get too married to the business and lose focus of why they are actually doing it to begin with.

Mudassir (01:13:17.066)
Absolutely. So, one of my favorite things that you just said is, every single time I work with any founder who’s just like, you know, had a product idea and they’re like, you know, we need you to help like validate it. We need you to just take it to the market or whatever. I’m just like, just one piece of advice, don’t get married to any idea. And the reason why I say that is, founders who are married to an idea.

Mudassir (01:13:45.886)
80% 90% of the time your idea doesn’t work out and they just go into this We are black hole They’re just like hard to come back because all they kept thinking is oh we had a crazy idea could be the next billion dollar Thing could be the next unicorn like this and that and they just had so much high hopes for it I mean yet having a good high hopes is always good and all that like positivity is what you need at this point in time But at the same time, you know, a lot of people get married to this idea. Like if like this has to work

Dave Miller (01:13:54.699)
Okay.

Mudassir (01:14:16.098)
Period, like this has to work. And in many cases, those ideas, they do not work. And right after that, the founders, they have such a big turmoil that they’re like, usually they end up going back to the same job routine because they’re like, this is not for us. And the reason was mainly because they’re not open enough to just like, okay, let’s just take feedback, be receptive of the feedback, be receptive of the failure or something like that.

Dave Miller (01:14:41.88)
Okay.

Dave Miller (01:14:45.24)
Take feedback or just because something’s not working doesn’t it just maybe it’s the way in what you’re doing It that’s not working or your idea, right? And all you maybe need is this this little, you know Two-millimeter shift that you know, we just need to like pivot or course correct and do something a little bit differently Doesn’t mean your idea is no good Right But you know, yeah, I think you also have to identify a time period Where if you’ve been doing it, you know, and it’s after two or three years and you’re still doing it You’re not making any money. It’s become a hobby

Dave Miller (01:15:16.56)
And sometimes you just got to kill the idea and go, okay, I got to do something else. If you get too stuck into the trenches with it and you can’t see outside of, you get tunnel vision, that can be very detrimental to an entrepreneur as well.

Mudassir (01:15:21.652)
Yeah.

Mudassir (01:15:29.922)
dangerous. Yeah. And I also think that a lot of people that I work with, they’ll come up and almost every other day, and they’ll like, we have an idea that’s going to change the whole world. I’m like, okay, okay, I was one of those people who used to think that, but like, why do you think that? So, and they’ll go, we’re just like, this is such a big pain point, and we’re trying to solve that, it’s going to help people just live a better life.

Mudassir (01:15:59.586)
Whatever. And the bottom line is, we do some validation study with them, some interviews and stuff like that, focus group study and whatnot. And we’ll come back to this thing like, that was not a problem for everybody. That was a problem for you only. People don’t think of that as a problem. Or even if they do think of that as a problem, they don’t think it’s a problem worth paying for. So, nobody wants a solution for that. So, that’s another important thing to think about when we’re doing that.

Mudassir (01:16:28.382)
All right, so we’re coming to the closure of the podcast, and I want to be very, very careful of your time. We do have this ritual on the podcast. So, every single time we have a guest, or guests on the podcast, we ask them a question that a previous guest has left for them, and we also ask them a question which we do not reveal, but we save that for our next guest.

Mudassir (01:16:54.894)
So, the question for, so I’m going to ask you a question at the end of the episode, which is obviously not going to be a part of this, but the question that our previous guest asked for you guys, left for you guys was, of all the things that you could do in this world, why are you doing whatever you’re doing? So, the question for you guys, is why are you doing whatever you’re doing? So, the question for you guys, is why are you doing whatever you’re doing? So, the question for you guys,

Dave Miller (01:17:16.716)
You want us both to give an answer?

Delynn Miller (01:17:17.722)
Well, this is me.

Dave Miller (01:17:22.232)
I think for both of us, it fulfills us. It gives us a deep, meaningful purpose to have an impact on humanity in the way that we do. And we have very big goals and visions. Delynn talked earlier about our one daughter having type 1 diabetes. We’ve got a big vision outside of our own business to give in a very heavy way to the diabetic community.

Dave Miller (01:17:49.656)
medical supplies that are not otherwise provided from them, unless they’re paying out of pocket. It’s one of the most, you know, it’s such an expensive disease for kids to have or for families to have to deal with, where there’s not always a lot of coverage. And we, you know, that’s a big part of our why is to be able to create that and give to that. But it’s honestly, it’s because we just, we believe so much in what we’re doing and we know how the work that we’ve done has had a massive impact on our own life. And it’s too good not to share.

Delynn Miller (01:18:18.198)
Yeah. You know, I think of how my life felt when I didn’t love what I was doing, when I didn’t love how I was spending eight, 10 hours of my day. And now I know that even, I mean, I could easily put it an eight- or 10-hour day now. And I’m like, damn, that was a good day. Like that it felt good, which means when I’m done doing it and m

Delynn Miller (01:18:46.97)
kids need me to do something or Dave and I are going on a date or whatever we’re doing so I can reach all my other goals, right? Because I have all these other goals that I, how I want them to feel. I just know the way I feel now is a million times better than the way I was feeling before. And I just keep thinking in my mind, I’m like, that’s possible for everybody. There’s a place in this world for everyone. And it’s like, it’s just, it’s finding your place.

Delynn Miller (01:19:16.342)
and then just like having so much fun being in that place. And when your place changes, it’s having enough awareness to go, oh, it’s time for me to pivot. It’s time for me to pivot right now. And it’s just like, that’s all I want for humanity. It’s like when you’re spending, you know, this round on this earth, are you, does it feel the way you want it to feel? Or is it feeling hard? Cause it’s not supposed to feel hard.

Delynn Miller (01:19:45.43)
It gets to feel easy. It gets to feel fun. It gets to feel light. And I, you know, and I always said that to Dave too, when he was policing, I said, you police because you want to police, not because you feel you have to. And that was just like hands down. And that’s what I say to everybody. I’m like, you, you get to, and I mean, I’m, I get to do this work and I say I get to, because it is such a privilege to watch people’s transformations going from

Dave Miller (01:19:45.472)
Yeah.

Delynn Miller (01:20:13.19)
unhappy, dissatisfied, burnt out to loving every aspect of their life and having it feel light. I’m like, that’s the best.

Dave Miller (01:20:22.881)
with what Delynn said there too, like I know when I was in that job, I used to go to work and with about three hours left in my day, I started doing this countdown, like when is this day going to be done? When is this day going to be done? 90% of the time it was like that, like is this day almost done? Like it’s time to go home. Whereas now the shift is I’m like, oh, I only have like three hours left before we kind of got to switch gears. I’m like, that’s not enough time. I want to keep working. I want to keep doing this.

Dave Miller (01:20:47.068)
And it’s a totally different feeling when it’s like, yeah, it’s after dinner. I want to work, you know, I set the boundaries where it’s, you know, but there’s a lot of times where I just, I want to keep producing and keep working. Cause I love what I’m doing.

Mudassir (01:21:00.411)
I actually have a follow-up question and after that I’m going to take the question for the next guest. So, how important is it to be happy in your life?

Dave Miller (01:21:10.92)
I would say it’s the number one thing. We’ve talked about like, our happiness is not defined by necessarily a number in our bank account or whatever, right? Like happiness to us is about what kind of experiences can we have in life? Like when it comes to my time to leave this world, I want to look back and go like I experienced life for absolutely everything it was. Every opportunity, right? I created opportunities for myself, created experiences for myself.

Delynn Miller (01:21:11.599)
It’s so important. Yeah.

Dave Miller (01:21:41.192)
saw the things I wanted to see, did the things I wanted to do. I love trip planning. Like if I could be a trip planner as like a professional, like if I had to create a side hustle, it’d be like just full-time trip planning. I love it. And I would do it for other people too. Anytime people are like, for friends, like, yeah, we’re thinking vacation. I’m like, here, let me help you all if you plan your vacation. But I want life to be full of experiences. And I think that’s truly what happiness comes down to. It’s not, you know, measured by anything else. It’s, did you live your life’s purpose?

Delynn Miller (01:22:08.863)
Yeah. And I think it’s important for us to be the change we want to see in the world. It’s not an accident that the moment I had a child, I started asking myself, what am I teaching that child? Because I mean, our kids don’t always do what I say, but they always do what I do. And if I can teach them anything…

Delynn Miller (01:22:33.522)
It’s to be happy. It’s to be.

Delynn Miller (01:22:42.865)
to know that happiness and to be able to just for them to know that they don’t have a set path. If your path is to go and do X, Y, and Z and that’s what’s going to make you happy, do that. And then if you’re doing that for 14 years and you decide well now I want to do X, Y, Z, go do that. And just

Delynn Miller (01:23:08.921)
Be happy with whatever you’re doing. And I want to know that I lived my life showing them that. Because we can say all we want. And you mean, that’s like the title of every good book, right, or every good movie is a pursuit of happiness, right? But it’s just like, you got to put your money where your mouth is and show them that you can be happy, even when everything’s not rainbows and unicorns. Like I was never more grateful for this work than during the two years.

Mudassir (01:23:26.582)
Mm-hmm.

Delynn Miller (01:23:38.841)
of the pandemic, because I literally, Dave was like, oh, you live in a bubble. I’m like, you know what? My bubble is like so, I’m so happy in it. I’m so happy. I don’t, I don’t really care what’s going on. All that stuff’s happening outside of me, but I know what it feels like inside of me. And that’s the best part.

Mudassir (01:23:59.742)
Awesome, awesome. Great chatting with you guys. I didn’t even know when we just spent so much time. So, before we go, I want to ask you guys a question for our next guest. So, if you guys can please just say that. So, yeah, off you go.

Dave Miller (01:24:03.138)
Thank you.

Delynn Miller (01:24:53.477)
Thank you so much for having me.

Mudassir (01:25:01.118)
Yeah, thank you so much for the time.

‍