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Interviewer: Mark J Carter

Interviewee: Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD

Everyone faces emotional downturns, especially entrepreneurs. We can get caught up in a negative story. We can get caught up in an emotion that keeps us from achieving our goals. It is possible to get to that healthy place where you can feel happiness, joy, and the full spectrum of positive emotions.

Sometimes you’re going to feel anger, sometimes you’re going to feel sadness or defeat. You can come back to the joy of living and take your personal and business lives to the next level with the right strategies. I discuss some of those strategies in this episode with my guest, Dr. Dorothy Martin-Neville.

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD, is a speaker, author, consultant and master coach. She has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network as well as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, NBC, and ABC.

As a psychotherapist, Dr. Dorothy (or “Dr. D”) was in practice for 25+ years. As the founder of four companies, Dr. Dorothy has knowledge of the challenges facing leaders in business and in life. As a Business & Life Coach, her focus is on Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, and NLP.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

When Dr. D works with folks, she asks questions such as what’s that bad place about? How did you get there? What’s the story you’re telling yourself in that moment? When you’re in a bad place you’re always telling yourself a story.

You need to get to the root cause of that story. The story could be you’re focusing on one incident in your life and that’s the filter through which you see everything. So, if you were abused as a child you’re going to see abuse everywhere in your life. If somebody doesn’t return a phone call, they’re abusive. If somebody doesn’t recognize you at a networking event, they’re being abusive and so on.

We create filters through which we see the world. If you’re in a funk Dr. D’s first thought is to examine what’s going on in your life, what is it you’re caught up in? If you can look at what you’re caught up in and begin to put that in the big picture you can get context for the situation. You’ll see there’s some legitimacy to what you’re saying but there’s a whole other big picture around it. You can choose to focus on that problem piece or see it in the perspective of the bigger picture. That will help you begin to shift your focus.

Shifting Your Focus to Shift Your Story

Dr. D trains folks to do a reality check. Let’s say you’re going through a divorce. All the sudden you’re caught up in betrayal, abandonment and other similar feelings. Ok, that’s what you’re experiencing, and legitimately so. How can you get beyond that? You have the option of spending the rest of your life in that space. Or you can recognize that’s a horrible thing that’s happening, it’s not what you’ve planned for your life but it’s there. How can you get through it and come out on the other side? Where do you want to land when you reach the other side?

Answering those questions will, again, shift your focus to the bigger, more positive picture.

Challenges in Your Personal and Business Lives

When you’re an entrepreneur it’s impossible not to have problems affect both your personal and business lives. Your personal life affects your business life, and your business life affects your personal life. You need to separate the life you’re living from the reality of who you are. If you’re consumed emotionally with what’s going on in your personal life that’s time you’re taking away from your business life. Emotionally it has you in a bad head space personally instead of focusing on your business. At that point your business is paying the price.

Dr. D’s objective is to support you to put things into perspective. You need to chunk out time in your day to only focus on your business and compartmentalize your personal life. Then in the evening you can focus on your personal life and compartmentalize your business life. This will keep your world stable. You must give yourself permission to focus on one area of your life at a time.

In this episode we also dive into topics such as:

• How to successfully and safely compartmentalize the areas of your life.

• How to embrace emotional intelligence in your life. • How to break the pattern of telling yourself destructive stories.

• Ways to stop thinking about the negative “What If’s” in your life.

• How to recognize negative patterns in your life and separate from them.

• How to stop digging an emotional hole and climb out instead.

• Why it’s ok to admit, “I need help” and get the help you need.

• How to pragmatically get the dream life that you want.

• How to prevent yourself from slipping back into the proverbial hole once you climb out.

• The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to get out of a funk.

…and other golden nuggets of advice!