IAM155- Entrepreneur Helps Women to Break Through Their Breakups

Dorothy at Dorothy AB Johnson specializes in coaching single women between 25-30 who just went through a breakup from a financially stable relationship and now want to find financial stability on their own. She has her Master's in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and is certified Life Coach with The Life Coach School.

• CEO Hack: Meditation & Scheduling everything. You know when everything is getting done.
• CEO Nugget: Taking massive action towards what you are trying to do.
• CEO Defined: Taking massive action to provide tremendous value to the world and making sure you are in alignment.

Website: https://www.dorothyabjohnson.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorothyjohnson/
Free Breakthrough Session: https://www.dorothyabjohnson.com/work-with-me/

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dorothy Johnson of DorothyABJohnson.com. Dorothy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dorothy Johnson 0:37

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem, excited to have you on, and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Dorothy, so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Dorothy at Dorothy AB Johnson specializes in coaching single women between 25 to 30, who just went through a breakup from a financially stable relationship and now want to find financial stability on their own. She has her Master's in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and is a certified Life Coach with The Life Coach School. Dorothy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

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Dorothy Johnson 1:07

Yeah, I'm so excited.

Gresham Harkless 1:08

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question I had was just to hear a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Dorothy Johnson 1:14

Yeah, awesome. Sounds good. So about two years ago, my relationship of almost seven years ended over a phone call when I was out of town one time. And when I went to go pick up my stuff from the house, we had just moved in together. A month later, he was already dating someone else. And so that was a really hard experience for me, and very heartbreaking. And probably one of like, the most painful but also pivoting experiences of my life. And I had really kind of at that point, I had really kind of planned my life around him and our kind of our life together and really built that up.

So when that ended, I just felt very kind of lost, betrayed, and very much heartbroken. And so that experience really catapulted a number of life events that really changed me for the better. I had stopped drinking alcohol, and I completely, like turn it around in my fitness realm. And I started modeling, I started doing all of these things that I wanted to do, like travel around the world, things like that. So I started, I almost kind of like revamped my life and started from scratch.

And it was very scary at first, but it turned into one of the most beautiful things that could possibly have happened in my life. And at the same time, I had kind of gone down the road of self-health. And I came up the other side of that with really deciding that my purpose on this earth for this iteration is really to help women through these pivoting yet painful moments of their life to make it an experience of a lifetime, rather than an ending of a journey. And I really want to help them make the life of their dreams and empower them to break through their breakup and not just survive it but really thrive from it.

Gresham Harkless 2:47

That makes perfect sense. And obviously sorry to hear you had to go through all of that. But like you said, it kind of sounds like by you going through that not only have you been able to empower yourself, but now you're reaching back to also help out and empower others, which is pretty awesome for you to be able to do that.

Dorothy Johnson 3:00

Yes, exactly, exactly. It all happened for a reason.

Gresham Harkless 3:03

Yeah, exactly. And so now I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper in here, like how you're helping to support these women that might be going through the breakups and what are some of the things that you're doing to support the clients?

Dorothy Johnson 3:13

Yeah, absolutely. So as a life coach, I really just focus on, helping women break through their breakup. I offer one on one coaching, typically in the form of a program where we have weekly content and concepts that we cover, as well as I send them homework to focus on for the week. And then they're one on one coaching sessions with me or really to get down to the actual specific examples that they're going through and apply it within their life.

And so it's typically through that one on one coaching sessions, where we're able to have major breakthroughs, as well as they're able to, like ask their questions on the concepts and things like that. I have a weekly blog, as well as a blog on the website, where you're able to get all of that content for free. And then I offer a number of free resources, we just actually created something called the breakup first aid kit, which is super fun.

And that's kind of like a seven-day email series, kind of just coming from a breakup. What do you do? How are you going to handle it? And it almost just jumpstarts you into exactly what I think that you should do based off of my previous experience, as well as my previous client's experiences. So I love doing that. It's almost like I'm a breakup coach.

Gresham Harkless 4:23

Yeah, that's what it sounds like. And I love the name that you said the breakup first aid kit.

Dorothy Johnson 4:27

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 4:28

Yeah. A lot of times, you know, anytime you go through breakups, or any type of difficulty in life, sometimes you feel like you're alone. And it helps to be able to know that you're not the only one that's gone through that, but also that there are other people or things you can read or whatever resources that kind of help you kind of go through. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart. Do you have an example for you or your organization?

Dorothy Johnson 4:52

Yeah, absolutely. So I really teach my clients to self-coach themselves. So even though I'm a coach, I'm teaching my clients to self-coach using a tool called The Model, and this model was created by a woman named Brooke Castillo, but so many of us are really raised to believe that our feelings are caused by the circumstances and people around us such as you know, I don't know if you've ever heard this when you were growing up, but like, oh, did sally hurt your feelings, and things like that, really. But the premise of the model is that our feelings are caused by our thoughts, and really our interpretation of the words being said to us, or the circumstance that we're in.

So your thoughts, create your feelings, your feelings, create your action, and your action creates your results, meaning that no one or any circumstance can ever really make you feel a certain way. And you're fully responsible for the way that you feel and the results in your life. And when you learn that you can really generate any feeling in the world to generate any result that you want in your life, your opportunities, then become limitless.

So I teach my clients that model and how to properly use it and effectively self-coach themselves through different experiences through that throughout their life to really take that responsibility back.

And so they learn to treat the root cause, which is our thoughts, rather than just treating symptoms, which often lead to temporary results or no results at all. So for example, I don't know if you've ever experienced a breakup, but like for myself. In previous breakups, we like I don't know, I used to have friends being like, oh, let's just go out and have a drink. Let's do this. I know for myself that I was in so much financial trouble, like understanding how I was going to live on my own and things like that. Then I just opened up a credit card and tried to deal with it in a number of ways.

And I was constantly changing my action and looking for a solution outside of myself when all I had to do was really turn inside and look at the thoughts that were creating my feelings. And I was personally creating all of that pain, as well as those negative results in my life. And once I understood that, and started using the model to adjust that and understand that those thoughts were a choice, and I got to choose whatever I wanted to think then my feelings started being different.

And it moved away from betrayal and loss and hurt and pain to being grateful for that experience, which also led to new results in my life, such as building this business and everything like that. So it was so great. And so I really think that my secret sauce is really teaching my clients to self-coach themselves using that model that treats the root cause rather than the symptom.

Gresham Harkless 7:26

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love I heard you say it a couple of times the word empowerment because I think that's one of the biggest things because like you said, a lot of times. You can't really always control other people's actions or controlled circumstances, but you can control your thoughts towards those actions or how you react to them, and kind of sounds like so that kind of sounds like that's what you kind of hope, as you say. The coach and clients coach themselves to some degree so that they understand that, they can make that switch, or they can cope in a different way when they know, a breakup happens or anything might happen badly in life.

Dorothy Johnson 7:55

Exactly. And that's exactly what it was 100% can never control what anyone else does, or what they say like that's totally them. And so being able to self-coach yourself through situations that are hurtful, such as I don't know, for myself, it was like, I had a lot of thoughts around like, oh, how could he do that? How could he date someone so soon? How is that okay?

And finally, when I changed that thought that was driving so much pain for me, I changed it to like who am I to say what he did was wrong, because clearly, it happened for a reason? And clearly, it's led to all this amazing travel, it led to me becoming a model that led to me building this business. Who am I to say that was right or wrong, which creates a feeling of gratefulness versus all the pain that was being caused by my own thoughts?

Gresham Harkless 8:38

Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, I haven't been through a breakup or two, it definitely can't be something that takes a lot from you. But to understand that didn't necessarily happen to me, it happened for me. And that helps you to kind of propel yourself towards the parts that you can appreciate in your life.

Dorothy Johnson 8:52

Exactly. 100%.

Gresham Harkless 8:55

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that you feel makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Dorothy Johnson 9:06

Yeah, I love this question. And you say one, but I'm going to give you two answers because I have two. So, meditation is my first one. And it's just because it's become a daily practice for me for over two years now. And it's one of the most pivoting things that I've done in my life. And just building that habit around meditation has been so helpful for me. But there are so many resources out there that I wanted to bring something a little bit different here, where I want to talk to you about scheduling.

And I think this is something that gets overlooked very often and so easily, but I literally schedule everything in my life. So like my downtime, my getting ready time, the time it takes me to tidy around the house sleeping. And by doing this, you always know when something's going to get done. You specifically have a date and a time at which something's going to be completed. And you have the ability to like at the end of the day, you're able to like lay down your head and be like, Oh, I worked hard. Even if I didn't get anything done. I know that I worked hard because it's all mapped out. And it's all laid out exactly as like when it's going to get done.

And it also helps you like constraints and always keep your values and priorities at the top. So if you have like a new project that comes on board, you are able to easily recognize that you've chosen that and when exactly it's going to get done, and like what might be pushed because of that, but you're actively owning your schedule, which I think is just so important. And so, like, it seems to be overlooked by a lot of people where I'll have people come to me being like, Oh, I don't have any time. And I'm like, but you do, please tell me like exactly what you've done for the past 24 hours. And like what's discussed that.

Gresham Harkless 10:42

Yeah, it makes sense. And I think a lot of times, probably when you put it down on paper, or electronically, you probably get an idea of how many hours you have and how you can kind of manage that time. But I love the fact that you talked about making sure even not just your work hours, but also your me time or the time that you're going to work out or whatever it might be you put that into your schedule, and then you can know, if you want to add in a new project, you just have to figure out how to move time.

Dorothy Johnson 11:06

Yep, exactly. 100%. And it's even like when you schedule your downtime, and the other times that like sleeping and things like that, it also helps at least with my clients I've seen, it helps their mind adjust to, okay, I've scheduled this downtime in so that means I can be present, I don't have to be worrying about all these other things that need to get done, I can sit down and I'm present at the moment. And really here with my family or my friends, whatever it is that I'm doing, I can be fully present. And I don't have to be like buffering with like worrying and things like that.

Gresham Harkless 11:37

Yeah, that makes sense. Because if you get it out of your mind, and you have dedicated time to take care of it, then you already know that, as you said, you can be present in whatever you're doing.

Dorothy Johnson 11:45

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 11:46

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Now, now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. So if you could happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Dorothy Johnson 11:56

Making mistakes is like massive action for me, like I spent so much time in the beginning, just planning and strategizing. And you can do that all you want, but until you actually do something you like aren't moving forward. So I think it's very important to take massive action toward what you're looking for, and like learning by trial and error.

And I've also found that if you're not failing, you're not you're probably not doing it right. Because the more you fail, you're doing a lot more to get to where you want to be because you'll probably fail like 17 times before you figure out exactly what works. So I feel like that's probably my best advice.

Gresham Harkless 12:33

Yeah, I love that. It's always like that. I think the parable goes fall down seven times, get up eight, as long as you get up keep getting up, no matter how much those failures happen. If you're taking massive action, you might fail on a higher level, but you're doing so much action that you'll still probably be more successful than the person that's just waiting to take one action.

Dorothy Johnson 12:49

Yes, exactly. 100%.

Gresham Harkless 12:52

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of being a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Dorothy, I want to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dorothy Johnson 13:02

I would say taking massive action to provide tremendous value to the world. But all at the same time, you're able to maintain 100% alignment with who you are, who you want to be, and how you want to show up because you're your own boss.

Gresham Harkless 13:16

There you go. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Just like along the lines, what we've talked about this whole entire time, it's just getting an opportunity to be empowered to make your life what it is and control what you can control, which are thoughts that she said become your actions become everything that manifests itself in your life.

Dorothy Johnson 13:30

Yes, exactly. Mm-hmm.

Gresham Harkless 13:32

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Dorothy, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and our listeners know, and also how best they can get a hold of you.

Dorothy Johnson 13:43

Yeah, that's awesome. Um, well, first off, I just want to say thank you so much for having me on. I'm super grateful for the opportunity to speak with you today and all of your listeners. And if anyone is going through a breakup or knows of anyone who's just recently gone through a breakup, I do offer free breakthrough sessions. And you can get those on my website at www.dorothyabjohnson.com. And I also have an Instagram if you'd like to follow that. And my handle is dorothyjohnson and it's two O, so it's dorothyjohnson.

Gresham Harkless 14:14

Awesome. I will have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you. But again, I appreciate you Dorothy, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Dorothy Johnson 14:21

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Outro 14:23

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co

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