017: Dorie Clark, Conversation 1, Make Yourself Known, full transcript

January 23, 2018 by Joshua
in Podcast

Dorie Clark

Is Dorie Clark the most friendly and approachable person I’ve interviewed? I think this interview will show that she’s in the running. It was a really fun conversation. We started talking about leadership, crucibles, if you need a crucible to become a leader. I don’t think you do and I think she agrees but I think also can help if you do have these challenges. And then we went into her real forte of how to become more authentic, how to make yourself known. This is what her books are about. And then how she developed her playbook that she teaches you how to make yourself known, how to contact people, how not to contact people. And when we switched over talking about the environment and her connection to the environment from her youth there she really started talking about how to set goals, how to make goals achievable and she set a six-month challenge for herself which is one of the longer ones that anyone has set, so I am really impressed by that. I’m looking forward to hearing how it goes. So let’s listen to Dorie.

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Joshua: We’re jumping right into this because listeners know that I have preferred to not do the talking beforehand because I find some of the best conversation happens at the beginning and the listeners won’t get to hear that. I don’t want to put someone on the spot. So I was asking you if it was OK. That’s why I started mid-sentence and so people are like, “What’s going on?” So this is the Leadership and the Environment podcast. It’s Josh, I’m here with Dorie Clark. How are you doing?

Dorie: I’m doing great, Josh. Thanks so much. It’s good to chat with you.

Joshua: You know I was preparing for this and was sticking stuff to ask you. If I hadn’t met you online, you have this international presence, all the big organizations from Harvard Business Review and The New York Times and Harvard, Yale and you know all the big stuff and your books are like number one by all these big places. But I didn’t meet you that way, I met you in person and you’re really approachable. People who listen to this, like Marshall Goldsmith is one of my mentors and Francis Heseltine. Like I don’t think he would object being called a showman. It’s like a very [3:14] guy. And it’s really cool…

Dorie: He’s an extrovert for sure.

Joshua: Yeah, for sure. He’s like, yes. And you don’t strike me as particularly at one end of the spectrum on this but you’re approachable, you’re friendly, you’re… If I hadn’t known I would have… Actually, I didn’t know at the beginning, I was like, “You’re just a regular person and that makes you to me more authentic and genuine” and I think a lot of people want that, they want more of that in themselves. Am I picking up something that other people pick up? And if so, is it something you’ve worked out or is it something that you’ve never worked out?

Dorie: Well it’s first of all, it’s a very kind phrasing of the question so I appreciate that. For me it is something that’s really important to make sure that however people come to know me whether it’s subscribing to my email list and getting my e-mails or reading my books or meeting me in person, it is very important that they receive a unified sense of who I am. I don’t want to be any different in my e-mails or books or in person. I think that for me when people talk about personal brands and authenticity and things like that which I write about a lot, I think that what I really believe in is no daylight and no daylight between a public and a private persona. And I understand that some people hold that dear that they liked to have, the private them. And you know that’s okay, there’s different reasons for that I suppose. But for me it’s kind of the opposite, I feel like real authenticity for me is making it so that there’s not multiple identities. Everybody gets the same Dorie.

Joshua: Were you always this way? Like did there use to be daylight? And now there’s less because I found that when I first started the more public I get, the more anxiety I feel. And that started from when I was just making presentations in class and college.

Dorie: That’s interesting. Why do you feel like it increased your level of anxiety?

Joshua: Well, I guess at the beginning like if I’m just talking to someone one on one it’s no big deal. There’s multiple people I feel like I have the… Well, if I act… The more genuine I act, the more I can be judged. And the more… Like if I act like a clown and someone laughs at me I can, ”They’re not laughing at me, it’s not the real me. They’re laughing at the facade that I put up”. I don’t think in these terms, but I mean now I’m like, but when I was…

Dorie: Right.

Joshua: And so I would, it’s much easier to put a false, a facade in front and then I don’t feel bad if things don’t go well.

Dorie: Right, right, that makes perfect sense.

Joshua: It’s acting to the fear that I feel. And you know the podcasters I’ve worked out it to become more authentic and in the podcast are being on other people’s cup podcast originally was a chance to, as I put it something similar to what you said was that, ”Either you’re going to be a complete fake or completely honest but anything in between is going to seem really weird”. And so, I had to go for full honesty, that’s what I try to do. I think I’m always a challenge.

Dorie: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. For me I actually think that, it took me years to really think about this and kind of piece it together. But I actually think my philosophy, it’s called sort of an ideology that I’ve evolved, actually comes from being gay because I think that if you were going to adapt successfully to being a minority as it were, you need to recognize early on that no matter what they are going to be some people that are judging you or that have critical beliefs, that you just can’t have anything to do with and you really have a choice at that point which is either you have to become really paranoid about, “Oh what are they thinking, what are they thinking?” and worry about controlling, information disclosure and all these things that are very psychologically taxing or do what I do which is, I came out of it as a teenager. And so I think to a certain extent it’s still even a little bit tempered with this kind of teenage rebellion which is like, “Oh no, you didn’t”. No one is going to judge me. I am going to set the terms of my identity, I am going to set the narrative and I think that’s it, at least for me I would say I think that’s been a kind of healthy adaptive mechanism that in some ways I was forced into by coming out but to a certain extent I actually think that that’s something that everyone, regardless of one’s sexuality, ultimately kind of needs to come to. Being gay sort of calls the questions sooner but I mean ultimately if we want to be successful autonomous adults, we have to reach the point where it’s like, “Who cares what people think. We just have to do our own thing”. And so I think that that is something that has perhaps evolved into being a strength.

Joshua: It’s interesting that you, what you talk about it as a strength it’s what a lot of people would call a crucible, like a challenge you have to go through because probably I would guess. I mean when you came out did you get friction from different sources that it was probably less easy than if you didn’t have to come out?

Dorie: Yeah, absolutely. I was coming out in the early 1990s so it was certainly a less accepting time. So there was friction, both culturally and with some people around. Although I think that to a certain extent my attitude of not wanting to take people’s crap may have pushed away people that would have been inclined to give me crap. So it’s not that I experienced the huge amount directly but certainly that was in the air with the expectation of societal disapproval. And so I think it is something that was a bit of a crucible.

Joshua: You know this raises a question that comes up a lot of, “Do great leaders, are great people require crucible to go through?”. And I believe they don’t but a lot of them sure do. I think there are people who are probably listening right now saying, “Oh darn, I wish I had something like that so I could have gone through some challenge”. For me I don’t have that which is this weird twist where they like…

Dorie: If more people want to be gay, I totally encourage them. Go for it.

Joshua: Well yeah but you know what I mean, it could be any number of things, you know it could be, you know you can be blind or it could be skin color, it can be whatever. And I don’t want people at home or anyone thinking, “I don’t have X, so therefore I’m at a disadvantage”. When X is something that, if they didn’t hear you say it they probably think it wasn’t helping. It wouldn’t help them.

Dorie: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that, the way that I think of crucibles, leadership crucibles as it were, is almost like it’s a day, it’s certainly not necessary but I would call it a hastening device. It’s just something that the reaction where if you’re going to be successful you need to surmount that challenge eventually and plenty of people can do that and learn the lessons and assimilate that on their own. But being faced with some kind of a challenge just brings it on sooner. And the trick of course is that for some people they are not ready for that challenge and so it goes badly. But if you do kind of figure it out, then it means that, whatever, you pass that level of that video game perhaps sooner than you might have chosen to do and that can be an advantage in some circumstances.

Joshua: So it doesn’t create anything. It reveals something or maybe realize it faster than it could have been real otherwise.

Dorie: I think that’s right.

Joshua: And if you didn’t have that occasion, it’s possible that you might go your whole life and never realize your greatness or your potential.

Dorie: Yeah, I think that’s also true.

Joshua: I feel like a thread in your work is that you want to help people bring that out and you want accelerate that by, I mean you’ve written that like it takes work.

Dorie: Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua: Action for the work, is that right?

Dorie: Yeah, I, in the books that I’ve written, Reinventing You and Stand Out and Entrepreneurial You, I am aiming them at individuals to try to help people figure out how they can get their ideas heard in the modern, very noisy, very crowded world. And I feel passionate about that because I’ve seen so many people and I’m sure you have too Josh, that have great ideas, they’re really smart, they’re really insightful but because they don’t know how to play the game let’s say, they don’t necessarily know how to promote themselves or navigate the art of getting known, their ideas languish and I think that’s a shame. I would really like to see the best ideas win and so in order to do that, in order to kind of create an equal opportunity zone, you have to educate and equip people with the playbook for how they can really do that.

Joshua: That’s really interesting because I feel like you sound like a coach in the sports sense of bringing out the best in their players and that means you probably bring to the table, you have a playbook that other people don’t have or you… How did you develop your playbook?

Dorie: Well, I started my career as a journalist and that kind of was what got me on the reinvention journey. I was, the first job that I had after graduate school was being a political journalist and I got laid off after just about a year of doing it so I didn’t actually have that much time to learn journalism but it was very influential for me just in terms of a way of thinking, a way of seeing the world, the methodology, certainly learning to write well and quickly and so that has really been the lens through which I’ve seen just about all my work since then. And so if I have a problem or a question that I’m trying to solve what I will typically do and I’ve actually done this for all three of my books is I will find a goodly number of people, usually 50 or so, and I will just interview them. You know people who I feel like have some unique insight into the problem and how they have overcome it. And so I will do all the interviews, get all the information and then spend some time assimilating it and putting it in order and structuring it in and seeing what patterns and trends emerge and then from that I can usually create a pretty good guidebook for people to help them figure out how to apply these principles to their own lives.

Joshua: So you said you had a passion. Is the passion, I think what you just described is the method by which you work like you trained as a journalist and became a journalist and that’s how you work. I feel like that’s what they’ll like the medium, the passions and seeing the results in other or getting ideas out there?

Dorie: Well I think the passion comes from me trying to solve a problem that I have which is, I started my business 11 years ago and like a lot of people that are coaches or consultants or just somebody who wants to make a difference in the world. I wanted to figure out, “OK how do I reinvent myself successfully? How do I stand out and get known as being among the best in my field? How do I build a really successful business that’s lucrative and very stainable?” And I wanted to figure these things out. And so I tried to pursue the answers out of my own curiosity and my own desire to succeed and build something meaningful for myself. But I also feel like some people really come from a scarcity mentality. And for me, I rebel against that. I get offended when I hear people hoarding information. And so I figured, if I figured this out for myself, I would like to be able to help other people figure it out too because they are not my competition. I would like to be helpful if I can.

Joshua: Sorry, what were you saying? I want to ask questions but I also cannot help but comment that what you’re saying is like, “That’s where I want to learn stuff from” as someone who has figured it out for themselves excesses, I mean you interview others and you get resources from lots of other places but you don’t just learn in an academic way because you’ve using it to solve your own problems. And when you talk about the problems that you’re solving I’m like,“Yeah, that’s what I want, I want to get my voice out there, I want to be more authentic and be myself,” so I couldn’t help but comment on that, like…

Dorie: Yeah, thanks.

Joshua: You’re welcome, I guess. I felt like I was just talking. I just jumped in and asking all these personal questions about you partly because it was the authenticity and genuineness that, when I think of you that’s why I think of, is of the people of your stature, you are approachableness is really high. And so I wanted to ask about that. Oh you know what? I have to tell an anecdote about…

Dorie: Yeah, do it.

Joshua: Just after my book came out earlier this year I went up to a party and you were there and it was Elise’s and it was the first time I saw my book on the shelf and I was like, I felt so proud. And then your book was there and I was like, “Oh, that book has sold a lot more than mine has” and it like brought me back down and then you were there and you were very friendly. So it’s not like, it’s just a very friendly thing. Actually, I felt like I was in a Woody Allen movie of being on the liberal side and having professors with books and stuff like that.

Dorie: Yeah, absolutely. Most of New York is like a Woody Allen movie.

Joshua: Yeah. Anyway, so that was just a little aside but also just you kind of around in a way that I don’t know if I’m giving people who might want to reach you too much an edition but you seem very personal, maybe you want to hear from them. Is that something, am I making you sound too approachable for people or you want to be not approachable?

Dorie: Well I guess like everybody you want to be approached by the right people. I certainly get approached by plenty of people that send messages on LinkedIn like, “Oh, hi Dorie, your work is great. By the way, here’s my book proposal. We don’t know each other but will you read it and critique it” or “Hey Dorie, we don’t know each other but I see that you’re connected to this famous person. Will you introduce me?” You’re just like, “Oh no, no. Come on, you’ve got to learn the skills a little better than that”. But if you have somebody who is an interesting, cool person and who is not immediately coming at you to hammer you for some give away, then certainly I do like connecting with people like that.

Joshua: Sorry if I put you on the spot and I guess you’d like to hear from someone to say like, “I did the five things from your book but the sixth one I can’t quite get to work. Could you help me with that?” Something like that probably would be more, you’d like to help them help themselves.

Dorie: Right. Right exactly. And you know also some people have really done some cool things. I mean I’m actually planning to write an article about this because it can be an art to figure out if there’s somebody that you have come across that you feel like it’s interesting, you want to meet them, you know what’s the right way to approach them so that you can kind of convey the message like, “Hey, I’m your peer”. You know, “Let’s connect” rather than you know some sort of weird thing where it might be blocked by gatekeepers or it might be coming off the wrong way.

And so one example that I love, this recent example, I was just in Denmark and I did some speaking engagements there. Anyway I’m actually as we’re doing this I’m wearing a sweater now that I bought in Denmark. And the reason that I bought this sweater is that a woman wrote to me a few days before I was going to be in Denmark and you know I didn’t go into it really knowing anyone in Denmark, it was my first time there. And so this woman writes to me and she says, “Oh, hi Dorie, I’m going to be coming to your talk on Wednesday. And by the way, I have 15 years of experience in the fashion industry and oh, I have this international MBA. And anyway, I’ve watched a number of your videos and I think I have a good sense of what your style is and so, Copenhagen has a great fashion scene and so if it will be helpful for you, I’d love to take you out shopping and you can, I can help you pick out some new clothes or if you want to go Christmas shopping and you’re looking for something in particular for your family or whatever, I can help you find unique things from Copenhagen.” And it was just nice. And she’s like no pressure, she’s like, “If that doesn’t work for your schedule, no worries. I’ll just come see you and say hi at the talk on Wednesday”.

And it was so nice, it was very nice and very thoughtful as low pressure and she conveyed why she was competent to do that. And also she made an interesting offer that was kind of compelling like, “Oh, it’s somebody who actually took the time to watch my videos, kind of analyze my style as it were”. And so as it turned out I actually did need to get some new winter clothes. So I didn’t know her at all but I was just like, ”OK”. So we ended up hanging out for a number of hours in Copenhagen. She did take me shopping and we picked out some stuff and it was really great. But that was kind of a creative take-in. a creative way to build a relationship.

Joshua: First of all, it’s amazing, it’s touching and to me it seems like, you write about standing out and how to make yourself heard over the crowd or how to be yourself. And if you’re creating a presence that across an ocean people are picking up on and are able to respond to it, I feel like you’re leading them, you’re inspiring them and through what you teach, through what you write about, although you do say it takes work.

Dorie: Yeah. Thank you. I know I feel very privileged that she reached out. It was really cool.

Joshua: I bet she felt more privileged. I mean we have to ask her. And that’s only an assumption on my part. But yeah it sounds like that’s, I mean that’s what people want to be able to do. It’s like when someone meets you that people seek you out, they want to help you. Who doesn’t want to live in a world like that?

Dorie: Yeah, absolutely.

Joshua: So, I hope you don’t mind if I switch also now to talking about the environment because it’s in the title.

Dorie: Yes. I invite people to take on challenges, to be on a second time and now that’s not a trivial thing to do so I wonder when you hear something like leadership and environment, when think about the environment, but is it something important to you? Is it something you care about? I mean not everyone does.

Dorie: It is something that I care about. You know I would never purport to be the best environmentalist because I know that there’s many people that probably do a lot better job than I do. But it’s something I’ve certainly been cognizant of for a long time. As we’re recording this I’m actually visiting my mom in North Carolina. And in fact, one of the more or the many perhaps infuriating things that I did as a child was because I was so interested in the environment. We, at my town of course, it’s like [20:48] North Carolina, when I was growing up they did not have kerbside recycling. And so you had to gather your own recyclables and take them to this special place for recycling. And so my family did not recycle but when I was like 8 I was like, “No, we need to recycle”. And so I made our family start recycling and then probably that there was really no gain because we had to drive in the car with gasoline to go drop off all the recyclables. But nonetheless it was important for me and I made sure to enforce this. And so I was very, very particular about lecturing my parents about, “this kind of plastic can get recycled but this can’t” and all of that.

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Joshua: So I see a high level of action, very young, high level of awareness because the netting out is, a lot of people don’t get to that stage of thinking that far and then, now the lecturing, I suspect you don’t lecture as much anymore, I’m not sure.

Dorie: I try to be a little more subtle.

Joshua: Yeah. You don’t strike me as like the lecture type. And so that’s what you did. What motivated you? Was it like telling your parents what to do? Was it cleaning the planet? Or was it being like others? Or what was the passion behind that?

Dorie: I don’t know, I mean it certainly wasn’t being like others, I mean nobody cared about this shit, Josh. No I just, I was very interested in the news when I was young and you know I’d watched the news, I still do. You know I mean I think for a lot of people, it’s like, “Whatever show me the boy, I’ll show you the man. Show me the girl, I’ll show you the woman” that kind of thing. I would watch the news obsessively. And I really, really liked it as a kid for whatever reason, I would watch CNN Headline News like every day after school, I would watch World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Like I was into it and so I think I was much more perhaps aware of many sociopolitical issues, the environment being one of them than probably most kids my age. And it was just a real interest of mine. And so all the things were extremely concerning, many of which I mean interestingly are not issues now. I mean there are things that because of legislation and because of scientific advances and things like that we were actually able to kind of fix which is great. Now of course we have perhaps even bigger problems of climate change but I was very, very cognizant of acid rain, of CFC’s and the ozone layer, all that kind of stuff was weighing heavily on me.

Joshua: Yeah I think both of those, I think cap and trade were things that made it like science I guess and then also economic and social solution. I’m pretty sure I haven’t looked him in a whole lot of detail. So it’s interesting, so it’s the news of knowing what’s going on and to me, I would have thought that might some still abstract but maybe the news. I mean when you hear about an ozone hole it’s kind of distant but to you it doesn’t sound, what sounds more, less abstractive is your connection to it through the news. Is that right?

Dorie: Yeah, I mean I don’t know. I feel like I have a theory which I would probably need to talk to some developmental psychologists about to actually see if it’s true but I think certainly it is true for me that, like this stuff that you pick up between, would say five and ten or five and twelve, just whatever happens to take place in the world during that like five to seven year window, it’s kind of like, it’s just a frame of like, “Oh, this is how the world is” and you can certainly go back and adjust it or correct it or whatever later as an adult but it is I thing that’s sort of the first, when you’re sort of, your consciousness is waking up that’s kind of the first thing when you’re looking around you’re like, “Oh, this is the situation” and so…I mean just think about all the other things too. I mean like look Chernobyl, that was happening, then rainforest deforestation of the rainforest, like those were all things that they just really felt like a clear and present danger to me.

Joshua: I’m just going through my head and think of things that stuck with me from those times. Certainly the music that I listened to when I was younger is the music I still listen to today, although I think I got to start listening to some new music. There is a sense of clear and present danger. Like I feel it’s been a long time since there’s been a generation who feels like, “We just have a beautiful earth everywhere” because I think we have a lot of beauty. But there’s a lot of acid rain. Well I guess the acid rain has been less of an issue, but as you said global warming or more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Well, if it’s a clear present danger I am hopefully not overstating it for any listeners, or if that’s how you see it or if that’s what kind of resonates with you I invite you at your option to take on a personal challenge. But I have to put a couple of things in front because I found some things that help is one, you don’t have to solve all the world’s problems all by yourself overnight with this thing.

Dorie: Thank you Josh!

Joshua: [25:14] They’re like, “Well, if I do this but the whole world doesn’t do their thing then it does matter”. OK, so you don’t have to do that. It can’t be something they are already doing and it can’t be something we tell someone else what to do because we have enough people telling other people what to do. And it does have to move the needle something. And so you know it can be simply raising awareness but that can be a middle step. And I think those are the main constraints and things that make it work.

Dorie: Yeah I think that’s great. And I think that taking on a personal challenge is a useful thing to do. I think that I’ll just share that something very, it’s very minor in the scheme of things. But I actually feel very good about it. I am a big fan of the achievable goal and what I mean by that is, I think this is more just like my personality than anything, but for instance I’m a vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian since I was 13 which was when I was still living in a small town in North Carolina and I knew then, I mean I still like, hats off to people that are vegans. I think that’s great but that is something that certainly if you live in a small town in North Carolina but also now you know the reality for me is I do, while I live in New York, I travel a lot for business and that is something that is just very hard to manage given, you know being a vegan, given how most of the world operates. And I realize that I could pretty much pull off being a vegetarian. You know I could do that. But if you were to take it one step further and be a vegan, it entails unless you are in a very specific set of circumstances, you know, living and spending almost all of your time in a place where that is relatively understood and relatively easy to manage it can create significant hardships. And so I decided that I would do what felt more sustainable to me over the long term which is be a vegetarian.

And so now here I am, you know whatever, twenty-five years later still a vegetarian. That’s something that I felt pretty good about. Another more recent and kind of small bore example of that that I felt pretty good about was I used to and I still do, there’s a Chipotle [honey block] and you know incidentally hats off to Chipotle, which is one of the very few places that is a legitimate just national chain, you can get it almost anywhere that provides healthy and protein filled vegetarian meals that you can get even in really, really random places. I’m grateful to them for what they do. But anyway, I used to go pretty often, couple times a week to Chipotle for lunch or dinner and anyway I would always, because they offer it for free, as a vegetarian I would get my burrito bowl or whatever and I would get it with the cheese and I would get it with a sour cream that they give you for free.

So I decided that I would not do that and I decided that every time I would eat at Chipotle I would make it be vegan. And so is there a certain level of sacrifice entailed? Yes, there is because the sour cream and the cheese are both free but the vegan alternative which is having a big scoop of guacamole you have to pay like 2.35 for it. So it’s a little more money but I decided, “You know what? It’s healthier, it’s better and I will be able to be more eco-friendly”. So now I’ve just made a rule for myself that when I am at Chipotle I am eating vegan because even if it costs a little more money it is a viable and equally tasty alternative. So that’s a small way that I’ve made a tweak but it’s something that means that over time, you know let’s say eight or ten times a month I’m now eating a vegan meal whereas I wouldn’t have before.

Joshua: You know, I’m borderline, I’m not yet vegan and what you say rings so true to me and it’s that last little bit can be really difficult although that last little bit is also to me is where you really find your values. It’s like, “Am I really going to live by my values or not?” And although I think the ones that [30:11] don’t charge extra for the guacamole if it’s a vegetarian one or vegan one.

Dorie: Oh, really? I need to start eating at your Chipotle, Josh. That’s great!

Joshua: Although if you got some fake meat sort of thing that they have, I forgot, was it sofritos or something like that.

Dorie: Sofritos, yeah.

Joshua: You know with that one you had to pay for the guacamole. But if it was beans, just beans then you didn’t have to pay extra for it. That’s what I remember.

Dorie: We’re hacking the Chipotle process.

Joshua: I’ll stop by there next time I’m around. Now I only go there for, on Halloween you get half price burritos. And so I put on my costume and go. I feel kind of silly saying that but that’s what I do. Now the things for this challenge, I made this rule which you don’t have to follow but it’s that if you take on a challenge for this year, it has to be a new challenge because when I have you on a second time you say how it goes. I thought you might be heading in the direction of saying, “I’m going to go for months totally vegan” but I wasn’t sure.

Dorie: Yeah, well I think what I’m going to adopt as another challenge is, you know because I was thinking about this in advance and I wanted to have something that seemed feasible to me to do. And so, I think that what I’m going to do, I don’t really think it’s reasonable to go vegan for a month because you know what, one of my favorite things, there’s not many things that I like, this is my favorite thing but I really like lattes, Josh. And it’s not like I have a lot of them, I have like one a day but therefore I do not want to commit to having a purely vegan meal for a month. However, what I did think about, because I was planning this out in advance, is that there is another restaurant which I patronize really frequently, probably going there a couple times a week called Bluestone Lane and I usually get breakfast there and typically it will be avocado toast with feta cheese and tomatoes and whatever and I have decided. Here it is, here’s my smack down. I’ve decided this is now going to be for me a vegan restaurant. And so every time that I go in the future I’m going to turn that into a vegan meal which means that I’m probably going to have about another let’s say eight vegan meals per month that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Joshua: All right. So now I want to point out that I don’t make a rule that you have to go full on anything. So it’s nice that you’re saying you’d like to go full on vegan but except for this one thing but that’s totally fine. I think that to pick one it’s moving the needle and as you said I’m a big fan of achievable things. And over and over again on this podcast I hear people, what makes a difference is not how big the thing is that they do first that they do something and that it’s this mindset shift like something’s possible that they didn’t think was. Not to say…

Dorie: Absolutely.

Joshua: But now I’m really interested in hearing what happens because you’re going to go to this restaurant and I predict you’re going to start interacting with the people there differently because you can be, well I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to happen but I’m kind of interested because I’ve seen a few people change their eating habits at regular places that they go and it tends to change relationships and things like that in interesting way.

Dorie: Cool, I will certainly keep you posted on all of this. I’m pumped to check it out and I know that it will make me healthier. I mean certainly since making an effort to eat more vegan I have noticed, I mean healthy, let’s be clear but you know like my cholesterol numbers dropped fairly significantly year over year, like it was actually kind of remarkable and like, “Wow” you know just a few tweaks like that actually can have that much of a difference. So, yeah it’s a positive step.

Joshua: I have to put out a couple of things that you’re doing that a lot of people don’t do but the successful ones do. Which is it, you’ve already picked up a few of the things that you know are going to be deal breakers or things that are not going to work. You’re not just acting on how you feel now. You’re saying, you know here’s something that is, if I try to do it, you know to cut out all dairy that wouldn’t work, I like the lattes. And so you anticipate the problems and you’re also involving people in the process because you saying the name of a restaurant but I think, well OK it’s the situation or maybe the people and because usually I try to have people think to themselves what challenges could come up because people in places, when you are with different people or you are in places you’re not used to, challenges come up that you can’t think of in a moment or at this time but you’re already doing that. So I feel like everyone should read her books because if you want to change that, then do it with someone who knows how to do it and does it effectively herself.

Dorie: Well, thank you.

Joshua: And it’s also a smart call. Did you say for one month? Was it…

Dorie: No, like forever.

Joshua: Oh forever. OK. So that’s even more a tip of the hat. And I like to have people on a second time to talk about how the transition goes for them. If you are up for it, how long do you think it will take before you could get a feel for how it’s working, what’s working, what’s difficult, what’s easy things like that?

Dorie: I don’t know, six months, something like that, like I feel like it should be enough time that that you know there’s some longitudinal track record.

Joshua: Well I want to have you on again and six months might be, that’s a long time but if that’s how long it takes then that’s how long it takes. Can I schedule you for another conversation?

Dorie: Sure. Yeah let’s do it.

Joshua: And do you want to do six months or do want to do, I can persuade you to a little earlier.

Dorie: I don’t know, maybe four. I just don’t want it to be like whatever we talking like two months. And it’s like, “Oh, yeah it’s going great, Josh” you know and I don’t think that I’m going to fall off the horse because I’m pretty good at maintaining what I’ve committed to but I want to have enough time so it’s even like convincing to [35:30] the commitment rather than you know going back.

Joshua: Let’s go for six months then. So today is December 8th and so six months would be May 8th.

Dorie: Cool, let’s do it.

Joshua: All right. And is this time we started at 11:00 a.m. [35:46]?

Dorie: We can certainly put it on a calendar, you know caveat my try… Oh OK, so I actually already even notice. So Tuesday, May 8 I am going to be teaching then but why don’t we put a note in the calendar. I don’t know like at the beginning of April and then we can schedule ourselves because I get a lot of like travel and speaking engagements and stuff and so that way we can make a note to schedule something where I know that I’ll be able to make the time. Does that sound good to you?

Joshua: OK yes, so I’ll put on my calendar say like April 15th will [36:16] it’s a Sunday, and we’ll connect to schedule the next conversation.

Dorie: Perfect.

Joshua: I’ll just put a calendar invitation on so you’ll get that after hanging up and…

Dorie: Awesome.

Joshua: I’m really excited to hear this goes and I’m really glad to hear that you’re like, “I’m in it for the long haul.” Hold me accountable. I want the listeners to hear the full story not just a quick little fun thing but a serious change.

Dorie: Yeah.

Joshua: So before wrapping up is there anything I didn’t think to ask that’s worth bringing up? Anything to share with the listeners? And also how to reach you and what order to get the books in and things like that.

Dorie: Yeah. Well, thank you Josh. I would say the best way that people can read more, get in touch etc. is on my website which is dorieclark.com. It’s D-O-R-I-E-C-L-A-R-K. I have more than 500 free articles from places that I’ve written for like Forbes, Harvard Business Review etc. And I also have a resource that folks might enjoy. This is actually one that I’m especially proud of called the Recognized Expert Evaluation toolkit. And so for people you know we started our conversation, Josh, talking about how people can stand out and get heard in their fields. And so for people who are interested in that I actually created a scored self-assessment to help people figure out where they are in the journey to becoming a recognized expert and which areas they are strongest or weakest in and where they can really move the levers. And so anyone could get that for free at dorieclark.com/toolkit and I hope that that’s helpful. And after the books Reinventing You, Stand Out, Entrepreneurial You – you can get them from Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc. and I really appreciate you having me on.

Joshua: Glad to have you. And now I want to share a little joke that I was looking at your reviews. And I was like I need a bigger monitor because I can’t see any non-five star reviews. They’re like, it’s like a pixel for the non-five stars. That’s really a lot of five star reviews.

Dorie: That’s awesome. Thanks to you.

Joshua: She must have lived her life as a journalist.

Dorie: Well, I am certainly grateful that people are enjoying it. That’s for sure.

Joshua: And any words for the listeners before wrapping up that…? Any expectations of what you think it will be like or if they, I don’t know, anything to share with them before, usually the sharing with the listeners comes on the second one after they’ve done that challenge.

Dorie: Yeah. Well, you know I mean I predict they will be fine because I think that half the battle in choosing your goals and having a level of self-efficacy is knowing yourself enough to know what’s a reasonable goal. And so you know do I like delicious salty, feta cheese? Yes I do. But do I need to eat salty, feta cheese all the time, do I need that every day? No. You know, come on American, you know like hey it’s like you don’t have to have everything all the time. So I think that’s having a little discipline in place and just saying, “No, I don’t do this year, it will be useful for me”.

Joshua: So I want to hear how that goes, I want to listen to this just before we talk the next time and see how that evolves and how that changes or maybe how that takes root and things like that. So thank you again. I look forward to talking to you again. I predict we will bump into each other a couple times between now and then but we won’t talk too much about it so the listeners get to hear everything.

Dorie: That’s right we will preserve the element of surprise.

Joshua: Great talking to you. I look forward to hearing how it goes and talk to you again soon.

Dorie: Cool, thanks a lot, Josh. Take care.

Joshua: Bye.

***

I love that she picked a six-month challenge which is pretty long and even when I pushed her that we could maybe do it shorter she said, “No, I want to make sure this one sticks”. And this is her forte. She knows how to help people through transitions and she’s gone through them herself. Some people have trouble doing these longer ones. I have a feeling she’ll make it happen. I think it’ll be inspirational. I’m also curious to see if she has challenges and how she makes it through.

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