Understanding Fear and Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone – Joey Drolshagen | Episode 21

 [00:00:00] Hello? Hello. And welcome to another episode of the quest for new inspiration. My name is Katie Maschler. And as always, I am here to share an inspiring story with you guys. This week. I got to sit down with Joey. Joel. Shagun. As an executive life coach, Joey has helped hundreds of individuals transition out of their jobs and move into entrepreneurship was incredible success. I hope he inspires you as much as he inspired me. 

Joey Drolshagen: Hi, it’s great to be here with you today, Caitlin. And you know, my name is Joey Joel shaken, and I’ve spent over the past decade, traveling the world, speaking coaching, and really helping people to live better lives, you know, listening to. Historian. And there’s people that things happen.

Events happen in our life and we grabbed hold of that and it just changes the entire avenue of our life to where we couldn’t [00:01:00] be without that event happening. And then there’s other people that take that as beating themselves up and stuff. My, my whole purpose of my life is to inspire and motivate millions of people to live better lives.

And I’m grateful to be here with you. Well, that 

KT Maschler: is right up my alley. That is perfect. do you have like, kind of just a reason why you chose this as a career or like kind of a path? 

Joey Drolshagen: Yeah. When I was younger in my later teens and stuff, I thought I was going to be a minister or a pastor. I mean, I always had that desire to help like that, you know, and at 22 years old, I heard a speaker by the name of Jack Bolan speak I’m from Detroit, Michigan.

He was up in Detroit. And I don’t know what he said. Like, I don’t remember the words he said, but I just remember igniting this inside of me. And I knew with all of my being, my every sense is I, that I had that my purpose of my life, the desires of my life with, to inspire and motivate people to live better lives.

And I became a student that very day. [00:02:00] 

KT Maschler: That’s awesome. Okay. So your is awesome, 

Joey Drolshagen: but it took me almost three decades to step into it because of being raised in Detroit, Michigan, I was conditioned that a man gets a job and supports a family and hopefully lives long enough to enjoy some retirement. So even though I had like dual life thing going on.

Well, really, you know, I had this dual life going on is, is I right away, started a career in corporate America that lasted 28 years up to a vice-president of sales. And I was building very successful territories. I helped multiple organizations that were in bankruptcy, come out. The other side, brought back into profitability and I was really good at what I did.

You know, so that right away was confusing. Like why I must be meant to do this, even though I got this whole other side of me, we, we, we have,

so for 28 years and then like you and your moment, I had that moment, I went through a divorce, a surprise divorce [00:03:00] after 19 years. You know, which, which, um, impacted my entire life. I had a nine year old son at the time, you know, he’s 25 now and I didn’t know what was going to happen and all that. And then within a year or so of that, my dad passed away a cancer.

And then after a 56 year marriage, my mom didn’t want to be alive without her other half. And she, she passed away of pretty much natural causes and I found myself an orphan and I was alone. And I couldn’t stand the life I was living anymore. I had already abused food and alcohol and gambling and things like that.

Trying to be okay, doing what I was doing. And, and at that point, when all that happened like that, it was just, I didn’t want to be alive. I didn’t want to continue to live the way I was living. And at that point now I have 20, some 25 years of knowledge of coaching, of growing of expanding. And a lot of it was mindset, but when all that happened and I dove into it and I went through the [00:04:00] misery and stuff is when I started to realize my mindset is as positive as it can be.

And I used to think that I could positive think my way into the life I wanted, but it never worked out. And it’s when I went to that next level and that conditioning, I told you about that a man gets a job and supports a family. That’s what had been binding me that whole time. It was never my desire. It was never, you know, I mean, it came out as, is self belief in myself and stuff like that and the fears and all that stuff you deal with.

But it was that conditioning that every time I got so far out with pull me back into living that conditioning of a job of, uh, you know, I mean of a paycheck type of a thing. And when I understood that. It was like a breakthrough. I worked at shifting that conditioning. And as I did within six months, now, this is after 28 years.

Within six months, I had my first of multiple certifications in coaching. I had three clients I was working with at the time. And that told me what I was doing [00:05:00] was repeatable. I resigned from corporate America. And then I moved down here to the mountains of South Carolina, where I’ve always wanted to live.

I mean, it was like, there’s no way I would ever go back. No, wait. No. 

KT Maschler: Okay. Well with all that being said, how do you get that? You know, motivation, you’re having all these people coming to you for needing coaching advice and with negative situations they need help with, how do you kind of turn that into motivation and motivate.

Joey Drolshagen: From the first time I worked with somebody, I right away work on their self-talk. Right? Like whenever I’m doing a workshop, I’ll always say, how many of you, how many of you guys would ever speak to another person? The way you talk to you? And everybody always laughs and I get the humor, but it’s so damaging.

So our self-talk in ourselves thoughts. And then the next thing I do, whether I’m working with an individual [00:06:00] organization corporation, it doesn’t matter is I get into what I call dynamic vision roadmap, where we create a dynamic, like a, a mighty vision for what it is you want to be, do have create experience in a lifetime.

Once you do that, there’s motivation built right in. No, what’s something you would love to do in your life ahead of yourself. What’s one thing, 

KT Maschler: run my own podcast company 

Joey Drolshagen: right now. Think about taking that God and building that up to putting you in a place where you can see it. You can feel it, you can, you know, all of your senses lean into it.

Wouldn’t that automatically start exciting you more about that? What? Most people, they saw many people don’t know how. But a lot of people that know how it just seems like effort or they’ve had disappointments or they’ve had things like that. And one of the key things is fear. Fear has robbed me of so many years of my life because I would be, I would be in the study mode, but to actually step up that fear would be [00:07:00] like a block, like a wildlife hit up against, you know, and understanding how to work through that only creates more of that vision.

So if you think of what we’re talking. We’re getting the mindset the way we speak to ourselves and things like that. We get a dynamic vision for what’s possible. And I’ve taken companies who were bankruptcy working one week out of every month. And we started turning that around with a vision of what we wanted to be like.

And within three months, new owners came in and put $12 million into the business to get it back going again and such. So when we get that. Right behind it. We have to get the heck out of the way of that vision. We can’t be focused on how we’re going to make. And that’s the other thing. A lot of people get black-white how am I going to make it happen?

What am I going to do? You know what, and that’s the other thing to inspire. A lot of my clients is we start backing off of that. We start backing off of making it happen and just getting the excitement into that vision and allowing things to show up out of the blue. You know, all of a sudden you [00:08:00] overhear something or you get this, you know, thought of this idea.

So it’s a combo of all of this stuff, combined, walking through a process that’s developed to specifically identify that underlying conditioning, but also sparked that vision and moving into that vision. 

KT Maschler: Wow. That, that’s amazing. I love that so much. Definitely. I can relate to the fear aspect, for sure. For sure.

Especially right now. I’ve been looking for just a new job to like move forward in my career and just like the, the kind of fear of not being able to. A do what would actually make me happy and fear and landing in a position that like, won’t actually make me happy. It has me in this like weird limbo situation.

But yeah, 

Joey Drolshagen: I understand what you’re saying. And part of that whole thing, when we look at it, you know, I’ll tell people, I’ll say, you know, our fear is so tall, we can never get over it. Right. And it’s [00:09:00] so far side to side, we can never get around. But most times when we go through our fear it’s paper thin, you know, but what happens is we get these thoughts, like what you said.

If I end up in a job that, you know, is, is I don’t want a place. I don’t want to be, you said different words, but we look at that and we look at that as being a definite possibility. But with that, we don’t see that other side. If I get into a place and it’s not, for me, I’ll find someplace else. It’ll be a stepping stone into where I’m supposed to be.

You know, and we don’t follow those through, but everybody who’s ever done any successful achievement has had to face fear. But when we understand fear, isn’t telling us, we can’t, it’s truly just a step outside of our comfort zone. Right. Cause we don’t know it it’s it’s unchartered territory. And so there’s going to be fear there, but as we step out into it, the greater, the fear, the closest we’re getting to our greatest, you know, to the edge of our.

KT Maschler: that’s perfect.

[00:10:00] 

KT Maschler: So when you are inspiring all these people, it obviously takes a toll on you personally. What kind of. Kind of motivation. Do you use for yourself to keep up like this inspiration? Cause you’re an inspiration to just people in general.

So who do you go to for inspiration? 

Joey Drolshagen: Oh, I work with coaches, different coaches, not the same one over and over and over and over. And you know, and part of the whole thing I do with my coaching is, is I’m not one of these people looking to build an empire out of my clients while at work. I only work with eight clients at a time start to finish.

And I do that because I know people [00:11:00] are going to run into that conditioning in those patterns, paradigms, things like that. And you can’t schedule those two coaching sessions, but when they run into. I want to help them shift those as quick as we can and get them moving. So they get more out of our time together overall.

So I only work with eight clients at a time. I have, I’ve had coaches in my life. Three decades now, not always the same one. I’m working with a coach right now. And one of the things I tell my clients is my whole goal is to get you to where you don’t need me in your life anymore. I’m not a lifelong, you know, what turns into a crutch and things like that.

I’m here to help you get to a destination. And then that path, when you’re there is going to unfold for you in what you know, what’s next. But I continue to work with different coaches. I work with one over the last four months now to help me with my. With COVID and the readjustment and all that, something I’m completely, remarketed how I’m doing and honing in on who I serve, but also who I don’t serve, you know, and doing things like that.

So I continued to work, grow and expand in my life. 

KT Maschler: I [00:12:00] also have my own, uh, personal coach I’ve talked about, or I guess she’s an executive coach. I’m not really sure what her title would be, but she I’ve talked about her in a previous episode. And just with. Me trying to facilitate moving into a different career.

She has helped mountains. Like I honestly think a personal or executive coach is seriously, so, so, so impactful to anybody’s life. So I’m so in awe of everything that you are doing for not only your clients and just like what every personal coach is doing, like I, you guys are doing amazing things. 

Joey Drolshagen: I feel like I’m blessed with what I get to do, you know, w with serving and you asked about my inspiration, but like I’ve helped people who were major professors at universities and stuff walk off there. And for the last three and a half years have been traveling to all the national parks in the United States, but staying there for months at a time, she’s, she’s monetized a blog.

And so she has [00:13:00] finances and she’s exceeded what she was doing financially with that I’ve helped business owners. Go from 1.5 to $6 million, you know, an experience a hundred thousand dollars, a new growth within three weeks. Like all these things that happen to these people is so inspiring to me. I, I feel like I’m so blessed getting to be involved.

I had a teacher who was burned out from teaching and came to me and we started working together. When we did her vision, her vision was to buy a short school bus, convert it to a hair salon, go to industrial parks that people could walk outside and get their hair. Within a year, she got a larger bus and put a boutique in the front with a haircutting station in the back and just loving her life.

Like, it’s amazing. So you can imagine getting to be a part of this and people’s lives is inspiring. 

KT Maschler: Yeah, I love that so much. I love that story. Last couple of questions. Do you are there any other resources or kind of practices that you kind of rely on besides having a coach? Because you know, not everybody has [00:14:00] access to a coach.

Some person of that magnitude. 

Joey Drolshagen: Absolutely not. I’m really big into reading. You know, I used to, like, I was at points where I would be reading three to five bucks over the time, and now I’ve been at 0.2. I haven’t read much at all, but I typically, every morning in my morning practice, I’ll have something I’ll read, you know, for me, I’ll read stuff in the Bible and things like that.

And, you know, but. Yes, absolutely. I have, I have things like that. I have associate, you know, associates of mine who are doing the same types of things I’m doing, where we bounce things off of each other and we stay in communication. It really is like, it really is. Like, when I talk about like our network, the thoughts we entertain, the, the, the words we use, the people we hang out with, it’s having that network of like-minded people, you know that.

So it’s like a continuation of living this life. It’s not something that gets turned on and. Does that make sense? 

KT Maschler: Perfect. Okay. So I have a kind of interesting question just based on your earlier conversation. So what you mentioned, how your [00:15:00] life was 20, 30 years ago, whatnot. What would your younger self think about what you’re doing now?

Joey Drolshagen: Oh my God. So, cause it’s what, it’s, what I’ve always wanted to do. And going through, like you said, there’s fears is everything else is all the hurdles of, of opening, truly opening that up, you know, to step into living the way we truly desire is different than dabbling around with it. And to the younger me looking at it would just be odd, like, just so.

KT Maschler: That’s perfect. That’s I love that. Okay. So any advice that you would kind of give, to say a 25 year old, like myself just looking to not only just grow their life, but like grow their career grow just in generally as a person. 

Joey Drolshagen: Yeah. The one thing I would tell them is is this is the more you can stay in the beginner mind.

No, because we’re all taught in wall condition that you [00:16:00] have to have the answers. You have to know what to do. You have to know how to fix it. You know, if you can stay in that beginner mindset, which all it really is is, you know, everything, you know, well look and seek. How do I add to that knowledge base?

You know, being able to do that well, I mean, Explodes growth. It explodes potential what’s available when we get like that. And every client, the very first one-on-one session I have with them, I will bring up, I have a part, I bring up the mindset because it opens that up. And then the other thing I would say right behind that is we’re often taught, you know, you look for the paycheck, you’re going to get you look for the money.

You’re going to have you look for the house, you know? And I just want to say based on. Knowing what I know now and helping kids who are 20, 21 year old, I had a client come to me. I had coached him in youth hockey and he called me about two years ago. He said, coach, you know, this should be the time of my life.

But all I’m doing is sitting around smoking weed and playing X-Box all day. And I can’t see him living like this. He was thinking about quitting school and everything else within a year of [00:17:00] us starting to work together. He developed this program, that’s in dealerships now on how they handle their warranty and stuff.

And he’s a multi-mode. And he’s continuing to expand and he is loving what he’s doing, living in that creativity. Now we were talking earlier if I adopt technical stuff like that, I wouldn’t love that, but, but he does and getting to see that. So, so if you could set aside and just know whatever your is, truly your passion and your purpose following that will make you more money than any other avenue.

KT Maschler: That is resounding words. I love that so much. I will put that in a quote and probably put it up on my wall or my whiteboard somewhere. I love that.

Joey Drolshagen: There’s a one thing I would like to get in there is if anybody wants to get ahold of me, all they have to do is reach out to coach with joey.com, all one word coach with joy.com and they can schedule a free 10 minute call where we get on the phone and just talk about what’s going on.

Where do you want to be sparks some insight inspired insights, as far as moving into that. 

KT Maschler: [00:18:00] Well, thank you so much for taking the time today 

And that is it for this week’s episode. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. 

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