Is it time to STREAMLINE your business and life?
Wouldn’t it be great if you knew how to be more efficient, and less complacent while facing the daunting obligation of “taking action ”? I had the pleasure of chatting my friend and fellow speaker Deborah G who has come up with an exclusive methodology to help you STREAMLINE your personal and business world.
Listen to this new episode so you can start to benefit from Deb G’s STREAMLINE methodology today!
About Deborah Gardner
An entrepreneur, author, speaker & competitive performance expert, Deborah G helps hundreds of businesses advance to new levels of success while working and living in the fast lane. Deborah G brings her first – hand experiences and expertise with an exclusive methodology, STREAMLINE, tha t proves how to be more efficient, and less complacent while facing the daunting obligation of “taking action”. A real – life wedding crasher, Deborah G is a longtime hospitality veteran that is better known as the “Triple Threat” due to her substantial expe rience as a meeting professional, hotel executive, and professional speaker. Plus, Deborah G is considered the “voice of business meetings and events” as the creator/host for the popular “ HOSPITALITY TODAY LIVE ” worldwide broadcast show.
A few of Deborah G’s recent accomplishments:
* CNN’s Top 75 Keynote Speakers Worldwide
* Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) recipient
* Meetings Mean Business Ambassador
* Voted one of the best speakers heard by Meetings & Convention Magazine
* Event Industry Council’ s Top 30 Influential Meeting Professionals
* Smart Meetings Magazine’s Top 50 Smart Women Leaders
* Meetings Today Top 20 Trendsetters That Made a Difference
* Founder of International Hospitality Women’s Day
* Crowned Mrs. Arizona 2020/2021 & Mrs. America 2021/2022
CONTACT: Deborah Gardner, CMP
DG INTERNATIONAL, LLC
www.IAmDebG.com
623 – 341 – 9077 (Cell)
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
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– Do you need to streamline your business and your life? Listen to this episode for some ideas with my guest. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the “Wedding Business Solutions” podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Deb G. on to talk about Streamline. Hey, Deb, how you doing?
– I’m doing good. Thanks for having me.
– Well, thanks for being on. You and I were having a conversation recently about something else, and then you told me what you’re doing. So for those of you who don’t know, Deb is also a speaker. You are Mrs. America. Is that it, Mrs. America?
– Mrs. Arizona, Mrs. America during the pandemic, yes.
– There we go, okay.
– Pandemic pageant.
– Pandemic pageant, okay. But that’s not why I’m having you on. That’s not why I’m having you on. I’m having you on not because you’re my friend, but I’m having you on because you were talking about streamlining. And streamlining is what? What is that?
– Yeah, streamlining is actually a focus path that is created through a flow of movement where it’s least resistant. And in business and in life, we deal with day in and day out resistance. So, we can never get rid of resistance. But how can you get a smooth flow through it so that you don’t feel like it’s resistant? And resistance, when we say resistance, we’re talking about what it actually causes is stress, fear, being overwhelmed, anxious, burnout. So, all those feelings that we have throughout the day, that’s part of resistance. It causes resistance. So, streamlining is just a method or way of looking at resistance differently.
– All right, so for the people that are listening. These are people all over the world. Actually looked the other day ’cause somebody asked me, “How many countries are people listening from?” And according to Apple Podcasts, it’s 105 countries, Which is pretty cool. Mostly in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia. But also in many, many other countries around the world. What are some kinds of resistance? The folks listening in, these are wedding and event professionals mostly. Not all, but wedding and event professionals. So they have their personal lives, they have their business lives. So give me an example of, what is it and where’s that coming from.
– Great question. For your audience, resistance has a lot to do with anything and everything that they’re dealing with when it comes to taking on a task. And when you’re planning a wedding, you’re planning an event of some sort, the resistance builds up the more creativity that you become. I mean, we love being creative in this industry, but that creativity can cause resistance. For example, if you’re trying to do a new way of presenting, let’s say, a tabletop display. Maybe it’s a bowl of goldfish. There could be resistance from that bowl because you don’t know if those goldfish are going to be alive when the event starts. Or do they need to be fed, are people going to feed them their food? I mean there’s things that can build up from resistance just based on that bowl with that goldfish that comes to be the centerpiece of a table. But there’s other types of resistance, too. Dealing with clients, dealing with the bride or the bride’s mother or dealing with, “Is the band going to show up?” If they’re late, there’s resistance. So, we have resistance like shooting at us from so many different angles, whether it’s a wedding or an event of some sort. It’s just, again, how do you manage that?
– So, what’s the difference then between stress? ‘Cause what I’m hearing with stress, although it’s funny when you say a goldfish centerpiece, I’m thinking the little crackers. That’s where my head went. I must be hungry ’cause I’m thinking Goldfish crackers. Well, that would be a pretty cool centerpiece maybe for the right type of event.
– Yeah, just sprinkle ’em around the table.
– They make different colors. But I’m hearing stress, stress from, “Are the fish going to be alive?” Stress from, “Are the flowers going to be okay “’cause it’s really hot?” Stress for, “Is the cake going to make it to the event “in the truck?” I hear stress, you say resistance. Are they the same, are they different?
– Good question. I think resistance actually is what you have first because you’re being aware of something that’s coming, a problem, an obstacle, a roadblock, and that’s what causes stress. So when people say they’re stressed or they’re fearful of something or they feel anxious about something, you almost have to back up and say, “Okay, so what’s causing that?” It’s resistance. So, that resistance comes from… Let’s say you think that something bad’s going to happen during the wedding. That’s building into resistance. And resistance is what causes that stress.
– Okay, so the resistance is there, but it doesn’t have to cause stress. And that’s the way you approach it, right? Is that what it is? I see the resistance. Is it stressing me or am I handling it in another way? Am I getting that?
– Correct, absolutely. And, see, this is something unique and different that we don’t think about. We think, “Oh, I’m just stressed. “I’m just having this “anxious feeling.” But it’s like you got to get to the bottom of it. You got to get to the deeper end of it. It’s like, what is causing that? Well, it could be your attitude. It could be the way you feel that day, or maybe you heard some news that just set you off in a different direction of your day. And all of a sudden you’re feeling like there’s resistance all around you. And that’s where everything starts building from there. So, it’s a unique way of looking at it.
– So, you came to hear me speak when I was in your neighborhood in Phoenix. And one of the stories I told in “Your Attitude for Success” was about a salesperson who told me, when I was at The Knot she said, “I’m having a bad day because everybody I’m talking to “is in a bad mood.” But it turned out that she was the one that needed to change her situation. I’m kind of hearing here that the resistance was inside from her. She was externalizing it and saying, “These other people are all in a bad mood,” whereas later that day she was in a fine mood and made three sales because she now perceived it differently. Did I get that?
– Correct, correct. She handled it.
– She handled it, right. But it’s also, when we approach a situation, we can see the resistance and add stress to it, or we can see the resistance and say, “Okay, I got this. “I’m going to be able to take care of this.” The resistance doesn’t go away. Like the cake still has to make it to the venue. The flowers still have to stay alive. I have to play this song and download it when my signal’s not that great, or whatever these things are. Or, actually when you came to see me speak, what was the first thing that happened when I got on stage? The clicker wasn’t working.
– Yeah, it wasn’t working. And it’s like, what do you do? That was your resistant. And some things are in your control and some things are not. And that was not in your control. You handled it like a pro. And of course the professionalism of audio visuals, they’re on it. And they corrected it. That helped you not be as stressed, because you would’ve had no PowerPoint slides through your whole presentation. So, it helped you mellow out and calm down back to getting to what your job was to do. And that was to present for a fabulous group. Resistance can be a tease. It can get your blood boiling. It’s just a matter of understanding that it’s not going to go away. And sometimes it’s in your control, and sometimes it’s not. Now, let me give your viewers a different perspective. How I came up with this is, as a professional swimmer since I was seven years old, I looked at resistance when diving in like a swimming pool. No matter what size or shape, when swimmers, and I know some of your viewers swim and they’re diving in or they’re getting in the water. Here’s the thing. For professional swimmers, when we dive in off the block. I mean, Alan, there is nothing, I mean truly nothing but pure resistance. There’s over 660,000 gallons of water in a 50-meter Olympic-sized pool. There’s nothing but resistance. And here we are diving into it, one race after another, looking for the greatest impact with the least resistance in order to increase our speed so we can win races. So, looking at that perspective, going, “Wow, we all are diving in every day toward resistance.” And so it’s just a matter of how you handle it because it’s not going to go away. It’s there every single day. And there’s three things that everybody has to deal with that is part of that resistance. And no matter what role, title you have in this world, everybody deals with. And it’s pain, uncertainty, and grind. Those three areas we have to deal with every single day. And resistance is all around that. So, again, it gets back to, how do you manage it whether you control it or not?
– And, again, this is attitude. This is everybody with attitude. So, you said pain was the first one. And I’ve had this conversation many times with people ’cause I’ve had some health issues. I’m sure everybody knows somebody with health issues. And the funny thing is, you notice when you feel worse. You don’t notice when you feel better. Because, in your words then, the resistance is reduced. When you feel better, the resistance is reduced. I notice I have a headache. I don’t notice I don’t have a headache. It’s not there. And I think one of the best definitions I ever heard about being healthy is healthy is when the mind is unaware of the body. If you’re not thinking, “This hurts, that hurts, this is whatever,” you’re healthy ’cause you’re not thinking about those things. You’re not thinking. But when you’re like… And some of you know those sounds ’cause we make those sounds. That’s when you notice. If you’ve over exercised and you’re sore and a few days later you’re not sore, you don’t go, “Oh, I’m not sore anymore.” You just go back to business.
– Exactly.
– So, there is pain. Okay, what was number two?
– Uncertainty.
– Okay, so talk about uncertainty.
– Well, and think about it, we are in a very uncertain world right now. We don’t know one day to the next what is going to be happening. So, there’s a lot of uncertainty around us which delays our decision making or alters our decision making around uncertainty. So, it keeps us on our toes, which builds resistance just from that. So, uncertainty is in our world every day now, and we have to try to manage that as well.
– And for event professionals, there’s uncertainty on every event because you have too many people involved, you have too many moving parts. And you can get stressed about it or you can say, “Hey, we got this. “We’re pros, we can handle this.” And when things come up, like in my case, the clicker not working or the… What was it? Oh, the event, right after you left. I was speaking at lunch. I was supposed to do a 45-minute kind of stump-the-expert thing. And they kept coming to me and saying, “The buffet’s taking longer, “the buffet’s taking longer. “Can we start 15 minutes later?” “Sure.” “Can we start 15 minutes later?” “Sure.” And 45 minutes became 15 minutes total of the presentation. That was it, the 15 minutes total. But again, not stressed. And they’re stressing. And I was like, “Hey, nobody knows how long it’s supposed to be but us. “We’ll do what we’re going to do, “and that’s it.” And I think, again, uncertainty is every day you wake up. And that’s a good thing. That was the first good sign. We woke up. And then what’s going to happen? “How am I going to handle this?” I spent a lot of time this morning working on something for my podcast. The software that I used to put it up there, Buzzsprout sent me a thing saying, “Hey, we now do mid-roll.” Mid-roll for those of you don’t know what it is. Pre-roll is the little recording I put before the episodes. Post-roll is the recording after. Mid-roll goes someplace in the middle. And I recorded this thing, and I put music and I did all this. And I go upload it and it’s not showing up because it didn’t tell me that it has to be at least 23 minutes long, the episode, for it to appear. And my personal episodes are seven or eight or 10. And I spent an hour working on this and trying to get it right, and, “Why is this not working?” Resistance, right? And now it’s only going to appear. Actually, those of you listening to this episode, you will get the mid-roll ’cause this is more than 23 minutes.
– Oh, nice.
– So, it wasn’t totally wasted. First, I thought it was totally wasted. I was like, “You know what? “It’ll appear on these episodes that are longer. “It’s fine.” I’m not going to sweat it. I’m not going to sweat it. Okay, what was number three then?
– Number three is grind.
– What is that?
– Oh, boy, do we grind every day. And you know, I have to tell you, the wedding and event industry are grinders. I mean, they will do everything and anything to perfect what they were hired to do. And they go above and beyond in anything they do. I know grind is part of their everyday process. There’s rewards to it, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s just a matter of, again, you don’t know what’s going to happen. So, what do we do? We grind it. We grind it and make sure. We’re always trying to have a positive attitude, that it’s going to work out and it’s going to be okay. A good example of that is, back in college when I didn’t have a job because I was swimming, I was practicing all the time on the team. But there were times when you practiced so much and you’re working out so much, you’re always hungry. And the soggy food at the dorm didn’t really feed me enough. So, I was always hungry. So, I picked up on the fact of actually crashing weddings. And so, yes, I am a real-life wedding crasher. So, in college I would go from practice and dress in my good outfit, as best as I could as a college kid, and I would walk over to a church and crash the party. So, I felt really guilty about this later in life because it’s like, those people really grind out putting this together and here all of a sudden there’s a person that’s supposed to be on one side of the family and feeding their face. It’s almost like that movie, “The Wedding Crasher.” And it was so true. It was so easy for me to do, but it was the only way that I could eat is by crashing a wedding. I’ve seen weddings since I was in college. Many of them, many different types. And I can tell you the planners, they were grinders.
– The other thing that comes to mind with me with grinding is all of those other things that we have to do to get to the things that we want to do. That’s where my mind went when you think about that. I remember a speaker friend of ours. It was Waldo Waldman. And we were at one of our speaker events. And a bunch of us just sitting around kind of in the lobby, just hanging around talking, maybe by the bar drinking or whatever. And he said, “I hate my job.” And we were like, “What? “What do you mean you hate your job?” He goes, “No, don’t get me wrong.” “I love speaking. “I love being on stage, I love speaking. “I hate my job. “My job is everything that happens before that. “It’s the selling at the meetings, “the responding to the inquiries.” You guys listening know what I’m talking about here. All those things except the part that you love that is the part that you want to do. So, you have to do all this other stuff. The grind of the travel. We have the grind of the travel. Our social media life is the exciting one. There’s a picture of you, me, and Frank Kitchen in Phoenix. And, “Hey, here we are. “This is great.” But I had to get to Phoenix, and that was because I had been in Vegas at a conference before that, and then I went to Florida from there and I was away for 15 days. That’s the grind.
– It is.
– That’s the grind. Which could add stress, right? Which can then add stress. So, how do we change this? How does Streamline help us change this so that it’s not… The resistance isn’t going away. But how does Streamline change this? How do you help people do this so we’re not so stressed?
– Good point. Well, I have actually developed an exclusive methodology called the Streamline Method. That, again, also comes from the perspective of my swimming background. Because once I saw that it works in the water, I started testing it on land. And so in water, it’s all about… When we go off the block and we hit the water, what we do is we go to a certain depth and where we find these air pockets that are actually allowing us to move faster. And it came from a study of dolphins. Dolphins, they’re very fast. If you’ve ever seen them, how they swim on top of the water, how beautiful and sleek and well proportioned they are. But underwater they are like bullets because they have been able to find these air pockets underneath the water to allow them to go up to 57 miles per hour. And I know it’s been questioned before, “Well, what about a shark? “Can’t a shark go any faster?” It’s like, no, they’re actually six miles slower than an actual dolphin. So, dolphins can outswim sharks pretty easily. And of course, a lot of times like, “Well, what about the fastest human being, Michael Phelps?” It’s like, well, Michael Phelps is two miles slower than a shark. So, who’s going to be shark chow, a dolphin or Michael Phelps? It’s going to be Michael Phelps. But that’s where it all came from. So from the study, we did extensive study from that study to see how business and life can work with the Streamline Method. And it turns out it’s all about moving. It’s about keeping things in motion. When you’re dealing with pain, uncertainty, and grind, you have to keep moving forward. And to do that, we came up with three steps. Because you don’t want to do a sit-and-stay. If you sit and stay, you’re going to become complacent. And streamlining hates complacency. If you’re complacent, it’s going to kill you. You just can’t sit and stay. And it was very hard to do during these past couple years. Now it’s time to get our mojo and start moving forward. So to conquer pain, uncertainty, and grind, you’ve got to utilize the Streamline Method. And there’s three areas. They are step, feedback, and respond. That’s how simple it is. Taking your first step, knowing what your core value is and allowing you to take that step. Because a lot of people are like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to plan on doing this.” But then they think about it, think about it, think about it, and nobody takes a first step. But it’s not so much about how to take a first step. It’s what allows you to take that first step. And then what allows you to take that first step is, what excites you? What motivates you? What’s your passion? In other words, what’s your core strength? In swimming, our core strength comes right from the gut. And have you ever had that, Alan, where somebody would say, “Oh gosh, I should have listened to my gut”? So, it’s like we don’t listen to our gut enough, and that is where our core value, that’s where our worth is in order to know. And if you have that, you can apply that to everything that you do, every decision you make because you know confidently, that’s your core strength and you know it works. And a lot of times you have to look to your past and go, “What worked for me and what didn’t? “Whatever worked for me, “that’s what I got to keep doing over and over.” And when you attach that core strength to the first step of what you want to get accomplished, that’s where momentum starts picking up easily. The second one is feedback. Now, this one is really difficult for people because a lot of people don’t like feedback. And yet we’re so afraid of it that where we take these steps and then we get to the feedback part, it’s like, “Ah, no, I’m not going to go there.” And then we stop. But yet feedback today is so important. That’s what AI is doing right now. If you think about it, ChatGPT is in a test mode right now because they want our feedback. They’re collecting feedback as we are testing it right now. And that’s brilliant because AI doesn’t even have all the answers right now. So, there’s a lot of teachers, there’s a lot of mentors. That’s why coaches are very important. Because you don’t want to swim alone. And having somebody to come along with you in the feedback, second part of that methodology, it’s amazing what you can gather instead of swimming alone and making decisions on your own and finding out, “Oh, I’m going to probably fail or make big, huge mistakes.” Things like that. I mean, how many times can you put a red sock in a laundry load of whites?
– This is why I asked for feedback after you saw me speak.
– Right, exactly. And I was so happy that you were open to that because I’m like, “Oh yes, I would love to give you feedback, “good, bad, and the ugly. “Whichever way is going to help you improve the next time.” Seeing somebody that has a different knowledge level or experience or expertise or perspective is key because we can’t think that we’re all just perfect. And so you definitely embraced that feedback portion. And hopefully you take what you want from it, and then you move on. But without feedback, it’s really hard to get to the third one which is respond. And that’s actually the best part. Once you have all that feedback that you need, now it’s like, “Okay, my decision making “is going to be a lot clearer now and easier. “I know how to respond.” And that’s where you’re in control. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be in control? But if you don’t do the steps beforehand and you just want to get to the destination instead of enjoying the journey, it’s hard to be successful that way.
– So, streamlining, reducing our stress, taking action. Taking action also I think motivates you to take more action. Because when you see that, “Oh, that wasn’t so hard,” or, “I was able to get through that,” or, “I get through that grind, “get through that slog,” you get that perspective. You use swimming, I use martial arts ’cause I learned a lot of things with martial arts. Mental training, all that kind of stuff. It changes our perspective. I’ve jumped out of a perfectly good airplane one time. Well, that changes your perspective. It’s like, “Well if I could do that.” And by the way, half the t-shirt, it says, “Skydiving, what’s the worst that could happen?”
– Well, and I can relate to that, Alan, because I remember learning how to snow ski when I was younger. And I was taking a lesson, a group lesson, and then the cute instructor said, “Who would like to go up and ski with me?” And of course I’m like, “Me! “You’re so cute, I’m going with you.” Well, as we were passing midway point, he was asking, “Oh, so this is your second time you’re skiing?” I go, “Yeah, this is my second time ever.” He thought for the season. I’m like, “No, this is ever.” So he is taking me to the black diamond, I’m crawling down the mountain while he already took off. But I tell you what that did was that the next time I went back up on the chair to go halfway, it made it so much easier. It really did. So, you have to make hard decisions to get where you want to go. And that Streamline methodology is just one step at a time, and it just guides you right through it. And it’s the best way to take action. And then, like you said, you’ll start taking more action and you’ll get that momentum going. It’s really, really very effective.
– So, we could talk forever, but we don’t have forever. If people wanted to find out more about you and more about how you might be able to help them with Streamline, or just read more about you. ‘Cause you’re quite interesting. Your background is… I’m not going to go through the bullets. It’s going to be in the show notes. You got to read all this stuff that Deb has done. So, where would people find out more about you?
– Oh, definitely. Well, now that Streamline is an exclusive methodology just released two months ago, you can find me at Deborah, or actually www iamdebg.com. Iamdebg.com. All my contact information will be in there. Social media, LinkedIn. I love to connect with new people, especially your peeps.
– Terrific. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for this conversation. I’m glad that this became a side conversation to our last conversation.
– Me too.
– And so go in to the show notes, you’ll see iamdebg.com. You’ll see Deb’s contact information, direct you to her social, all that kind of stuff. Find out more about it. Deb, thank you so much for joining me today.
– Oh, thank you. I really appreciated this. You are a fantastic speaker, fantastic businessman, and really enjoyed the show at the same time.
– Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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