Making It – Episode #160
From Stage Fright to Leadership Legacy (Danny Ceballos)
Danny Ceballos: I’m Danny Ceballos, and you’re listening to Making It. I run a boutique consulting and coaching firm called Unleashed Consulting, where we help managers and leaders across sectors become the best bosses that they can.
I’m pretty blessed. I grew up in a pretty supportive home with divorce, with alcoholism, with some other kinds of stuff, and still a supportive, loving home. You know, an important part of my journey as a kid was being a gay kid and not able and not wanting to come out until I was 25. And this was, you know, this was quite a few years ago. So there was a lot of terror as well not because of my home, but because of what’s outside my home. There was a lot of fear. When I discovered high school theater, I went full throttle into that, did a ton of that. When there were Halloween occasions, wore some pretty outlandish things.
In high school, I would be ridiculed. There was a lot of that. So I think I was a brave kid. When I was a kid, in my preteens and early teens, I was very much into magic. I was a magician. First, it was just a little fun. Then I was doing shows at retirement homes and hospitals and parks, and I was Dazzling Dan the Magic Man. That was my moniker. There was an occasion where I was doing a show, and I was doing it at a campground, and I was very, very, very nervous. I was with my mom, and I ended up backing out of it. I was just so terrified.
And I’ve thought about that as I’ve gotten older. And I’ve always been a trainer and an educator and a facilitator, so all my professional life. And I do it really well. I really love doing it when I’m doing it. But I’ve always had incredible stage fright, and it’s really challenging for me. And there have been times that I’ve needed to back out because I’ve been so ill. It wasn’t until maybe the past few years that I recognized where that fear came from. I’ve tried hypnosis. I’ve tried beta blockers. I’ve tried everything to mitigate that. And it wasn’t until I really started thinking about, oh, my God. I think this actually came from that experience, that Dazzling Dan the Magic man experience.
And it framed my mindset. I’m also an actor, and it’s the same thing. So all that’s to say that, you know, I show up now with, I think, a deeper understanding of the root cause of this particular issue. And for me, that’s important because I believe in root cause analysis and kind of working with that one piece that makes the biggest difference. And just the recognition of what happened for me, I mean, it was really quite big. I mean, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about when I was Dazzling Dan the magic man.
But knowing that and recognizing it and doing what I need to do to get myself into the space of turning the nervousness into excitement and moving towards curiosity as opposed to fear, all of that really helps me to step into my genius and to really do what I do really well without feeling like I’m going to die. I wish I had a handle on these things and I think I do. But I have to again, kind of bring myself to that place of channeling fear into excitement. I do a lot of work in something called positive intelligence, which was really understanding how we sabotage ourselves and then what to do with mitigating our saboteurs and deeply engaging with our deeper, wiser all myself. And I do that. I do all those things.
So the work that I do is in Unleash Consulting, we are building better bosses. That’s our tagline. We’re unleashing exceptional performance in folks so that they can be their most authentic and most effective selves as managers and leaders. And I’ve been doing that kind of work way before I started my own business. I was a facilitator, trainer, coach, and I was in a corporate environment. And my last boss was incredibly challenging for me. We were just not able to see eye to eye on leadership and management issues.
And it was incredibly suffocating and just awful. And finally I said, I have to leave if I believe in what I do, which I do, which is folks bring their best and effective selves when they are in a place of psychological safety, recognition of talents, focusing on strengths, not weaknesses. All those things. I wasn’t none of that. 50% of folks, when they’re quitting their jobs, they’re not quitting their work, they’re quitting their bosses. And that for me, that became my mantra. It became my north star.
There was so much talent and passion in this world, especially in my clients and the organizations that I work with, that it’s a waste for the world when all of that can’t be out there. So I want to work with managers and leaders so that they themselves and their people are able to bring their best, most effective, most authentic selves to their work and change the world. I’m really motivated by the idea of how my legacy will be and how I will change the world is in changing others so that they can do their work more effectively, more productively, happier, more engaged. And ideally, it’s work that’s also changing the world.
I’m at a place now where a lot of things are in place that are wonderful. It’s leveling up to the new challenges, right? So I’ve made it to level six and I have not made it to level seven yet. And I’m intimidated by it and enthralled by it and attracted to it and excited about it. And my make it at this point is I’m squeaking and I’m okay, it’s okay. I have enough evidence to know that work will come. In fact, just yesterday, two gigs came in. So I’m going to be good. So I’m at a place now where, again, in this work that I do, in positive intelligence, we talk about surfing, right? And I feel like I’m surfing now as opposed to fighting, as opposed to struggling, as opposed to drowning. I’m surfing.
I’m leaning into it, but I’m trusting that I know how to swim and I know how to surf and. And I’ll be fine. And that’s, for me, that’s making it. You know, I had a terrible, terrible accountant that I just fired. A wonderful woman who took me out of some bad stuff, but brought me into some new bad stuff. But one of the things she did teach me when I was really kind of panicking about things is you have to understand the cost of doing business. Not every cost is the cost of doing business. But that for me, that’s making it that I understand that there are peaks and valleys. And, you know, when I’m in a valley, there will be a peak, and when I’m in a peak, there will be a valley.
So it was figuring out what the work was. It was so how am I going to do this thing where I can have coffee with my friends and lunch and vacation in Hawaii and where all the things that everybody keeps telling me happens when you start your own business, right? And none of those things happened right away. Right? There were some really lean times at the beginning. Really lean, like looking for change in the car seats, like mac and cheese again, like college student again. You know, I was in my 50s, right? Or I was 50, something like that.
So to get past that and through that, there was shame. A lot of times shame comes up, I think, in the work that we do when we’re not doing what we should be doing. And then, you know, within a few years and it happened rather quickly. Can I make six figures? Well, I did. So it’s leveled up. It’s leveled up. You know, I had a great year last year. This year is not looking great, but I know it’s there, right? Like a major half a million-dollar year is what my next making it will be, you know, and I’m working with my coach now on figuring this out. How can I get to the place where I’m, you know, I’m making $500,000 and I’m working four hours a day. So I’m, you know, I, that’s, it’s a big making it.
One of some common mistakes is the notion of the should storm, right? Where we’re comparing ourselves to what others are doing or how well they’re doing. And that’s a huge, huge mistake. You know, that’s a mindset issue. There’s a lot of performance excellence, performance coaching, performance management that I think we borrow from and business development. And one of those things is, you know, we’re not competing with others, we’re competing with ourselves. And it’s the same thing with accountability. I think we get confused with our accountability to others, which is great, but what’s more powerful is accountability to ourselves.
And when others can help us hold ourselves accountable to ourselves, that’s what a good coach does. So it’s, it’s reframing those kinds of things and recognizing that your experience, your journey is unique. It’s as unique as you are. There’s a humility that I think we need to have when we’re starting our own business. Really, it’s a lead thyself journey. And the work that I do with managers and leaders, we start with that. It’s an inside out job. We got to lead ourselves, understand ourselves.
So I recommend making sure that you are doing what you need to lead thyself every year, right? It’s about surrounding yourself with folks that are successful, that are wise, that are empathetic, that are lovely to be around, that are fun, that are, you know, playtime. And actually that’s been my latest kind of thing for this year, is that I will not do anything unless I can joyfully engage with it. If I can’t joyfully engage with it, then I have to think really seriously, can I do this? Do I want to do this and that? That includes client engagement, it includes going to the gym, it includes marketing, it includes networking. And it doesn’t have to be ha ha ha, fun, but joyfully engaging, right?
So what can I do to change my attitude? What can I do to be myself, which is really playful and be okay with that, right? So I don’t have to be the stiff whatever that I think I’m supposed to be at business networking events. There’s a truism in business that says 20% is the work, what we do, but 80% is the mindset. And so I constantly working on my mindset and scaffolding around my success. So there’s some new stuff I’m doing now with my nutrition and my health because I’ve been waking up feeling gross in the morning. Part of that’s my aging. Part of it’s I’m eating poorly at night, I’m having too many cocktails.
You know, health is one thing, but how it affects my business and my ability to be present and energized and focus during the course of the day. So again, this is this personal journey of how can I scaffold around my success? How can I protect my success? Because it doesn’t happen the same way for everyone. Every year I pick a theme, and this year is plan. What was the plan? I can go to my calendar and I see a plan, right? That came from my deeper, wiser self when I was planning.
So one of my coaches, Lori, she said things that I constantly remind myself. Always be in a place of choice. You’re not in a place of choice. You’re in a corner. Is that where you want to be? So always be in a place of choice and no more yucky work. Right? Which is, I think, a close cousin to joyful engagement. So I’m embracing Dazzling Dan again.
I’m Danny Ceballos and you’ve been listening to Making It. You can find me at www.unleashedconsult.com. That’s www dot unl e a s h e d c o n s u l t dot com. You’ll find the link in the show notes. And by the way, when you click on my website, you’ll see an option to get a free resource from me called the Ten Commandments for making any meeting powerfully productive. I think you’ll like it and I hope you’ll sign up for it.
Melinda Cohan: Making it is part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and Once Upon a Business. To catch the great episodes that are coming up on Making it, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave us a comment or a starred review. It’s the best way to help us get these ideas to more people. Thank you, and we’ll see you next time.