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The Cost of Proving Yourself: When Success Still Isn’t Enough with Dana Diaz
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Hook:
What if everything you’ve been working so hard to prove, every achievement, every role, every sacrifice, still leaves you feeling like it’s never enough? Today we’re uncovering the hidden cost of proving yourself, and how self-talk can become the very cage that keeps you from living fully.
Today I’m joined by Dana Diaz—a writer and advocate who has lived through abuse, broken free from toxic narratives, and is now helping others reclaim their worth and voice. Together we’ll explore how the pressure to prove yourself can spiral into self-sabotage, and what it takes to finally break free. Dana is a Bestselling Author, Global Podcast Guest and Motivational Speaker /Founder of Dana S. Diaz Enterprises, LLC
At The Second Voice, we explore the inner conversations leaders rarely say out loud.
If this episode resonated, it is likely because the second voice is active in your leadership too.
Hosted by Luisa Hogan, leadership resilience strategist and founder of Vermelho Consulting.
Luisa works with founders, executives, and senior leaders who carry real responsibility and want to lead with steadiness, clarity, and self-trust under pressure.
Her work focuses on nervous system regulation, leadership identity, and the inner dialogue that shapes how leaders show up when things are hard.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
What if everything you've ever worked so hard to prove, every achievement, every role, every single sacrifice that you've made still feels like it's not enough for you?
00:00:13
Speaker
Today we're uncovering that hidden cost of trying to prove yourself all of the time and how self-talk can become the very cage that keeps you from living life fully. Welcome back to the Second Voice podcast where we uncover the conversations that leaders don't say out loud.
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm Louisa Hogan and I'm your host and today I'm joined by the wonderful Dana Diaz and she's a writer and advocate and she has lived through abuse, broken free from toxic narratives and is now helping others reclaim their worth and their voice.
00:00:48
Speaker
And together we're going to explore how the pressure to prove yourself can spiral into self-sabotage what it takes to finally break free from that because Dana has an incredible story which I'm hoping she will share very much ah of today.
00:01:04
Speaker
She's a bestselling author, a global podcast guest, and a motivational speaker, and the founder of Dana SDS Enterprises. And thank you so much, Dana. I am so thrilled to have you here as part of this podcast today. I'm so excited to talk to you.
00:01:20
Speaker
Likewise, I think that as we were saying, this is long overdue and i am just so grateful to have any opportunity to be able to share any part of my story that will maybe resonate with somebody who needs to hear, you know, some advice or some guidance or just to know that they're not alone in this world with how they feel.
00:01:40
Speaker
Amazing. Well, I think listeners are in for a real treat. But before we delve into all of that, tell us a little bit more about your background. Tell us a little bit more about your journey and how you got here to this podcast today through that whole journey.
00:01:54
Speaker
Well, um yes, I was an unwanted pregnancy, um was abused physically, verbally, emotionally, every which way in childhood, Then going out into the world saying nobody's ever going to treat me that way again. i fell right into the lair of an abusive narcissist who I spent 25 years with and had a child with. um You know, I guess I just am that person that always wishes and hopes and thinks I can help somebody be better and be more than what they think they are. um But it was actually at the point, it was right about when COVID hit back in 2020, I had just been diagnosed with a lung syndrome and autoimmunity um after suffering dozens of physical symptoms that I didn't realize were related to the stress of living in fight or flight mode for 40 years.
00:02:49
Speaker
years of my life. So um I had a journal that I had kept hidden under the couch cushion in the basement. um During that time when I was locked in a house during COVID with a man who trigger warning who was planning to kill me. So it was It it was hard, but I took that journal, expanded the stories, and that book is an award-winning, best-selling book that led to two more books, 300-ish podcasts, and now I'm speaking and blogging and writing magazine articles and doing the thing. But it's amazing i that...
00:03:26
Speaker
I thought I was the only one. And I thought if I just reach one person, but I realized that this is a message that so many people need to hear in some way or another, because the, what you were talking about proving yourself, Oh, that, that, that, that resonates very deeply within my story right from the beginning. So. Yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
What, uh, at a Terrible story. I'm sorry you went through that, but I'm also grateful that you're here to share that and you've taken that story and you're using it for good and you're helping others who have gone through that.
00:04:03
Speaker
But I'm really interested and in all of that, how, you know, through all of that, you've had voices telling you who to be and who you are and shaping you.
00:04:15
Speaker
And you're able to, you've been able to pull yourself out of that. So tell me more about that, because this is a podcast about self-talk and the voice. Like, how do you, how do you maintain positive self-talk through something like that? Do you even, and how do you get out of it?
00:04:30
Speaker
Well, I think especially when it starts as a child, like it did for me. So, I mean, i was probably four or five years old the first time I remember being told, you know, we had to straighten my curly hair because nobody could know where we were Hispanic and stop rolling your R's because, you know, the white kids at school, you know, don't we don't want to be different. And then changing my name, the whole thing.
00:04:54
Speaker
It just was so much. i All I was hearing from the time I was little was it wasn't okay to be who I am. And I couldn't wear the frilly dresses grandma sent from Puerto Rico. i had to My mother was always putting me in gap polo shirts and straight jeans that, you know, even back then I was a little curvier. And, you know, i just didn't, I wasn't like the other kids, but my mother was always trying to make me conform.
00:05:19
Speaker
And It's really hard when you start your life out basically being told and being led to believe that it's not okay to be you. And then actually, you know, my stepfather actually told me he was a he was brutally verbally abusive, would tell me that I wasn't even supposed to exist. I shouldn't have even been born. Nobody will have, you know, so...
00:05:42
Speaker
It was like I was all wrong. I mean, literally, i i that that just got internalized in me, in my heart, in my mind, even though I was like, yeah, but I'm here and I'm going to church and they're saying, well, God says, you know, he created you in his image and all this. So all these conflicting messages. But I think that What I finally realized, and I think it was when I was a teenager in the beginning and and then it developed as I got older, was just that uneasiness that you feel.
00:06:14
Speaker
I think so often we don't listen to our bodies ah or even just the unease in your mind that says something doesn't sound right or this does not feel good.
00:06:27
Speaker
And we dismiss it. We excuse it. We tolerate it. Sometimes we even enable it because then our own minds, you know, our brain, I mean, we could get into the neuroscience of it. When when we're told something repeatedly, it doesn't take much time.
00:06:42
Speaker
for our brain to to look around at the at the universe around us and find all the evidence to support that. So then you start to believe it. And oh my gosh, I'm the common denominator. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I'm not supposed to exist. Nobody does like me. I'm not like everybody. And you have this endless loop playing.
00:07:00
Speaker
But the beauty of it it is that that same repetition can be used to create new beliefs. Because I knew that that unease I felt, you know, the little things in my stomach and my mind, you know, just the distress, it was telling me, no, something's not right. Why is it that some people think I'm okay, and others are telling me I'm not even supposed to be?
00:07:23
Speaker
So it's just a matter of stopping, taking that pause and saying, okay, what is real and what isn't? Because more often than not, I find that things we believe are false truths that our brain just subscribes to because that's what we've been told or it's what has been implied or Sometimes it's just societal expectations, gender roles, cultural, you know, expectations as well that influence how we believe, but it doesn't necessarily mean that what we believe is true.
00:07:56
Speaker
who I mean, that's that's incredible to me that you could feel that unease from such a young age and you could sense that something was off. And I can't imagine how hard it would have been then to go into a marriage for so long afterwards that was kind of reinforcing some of that. So, you know, what was happening for you there? Like, tell me a little bit about that journey and, and you know, what kind of self-talk was happening for you in those days?
00:08:27
Speaker
You know, it was it was a strange thing being married to my ex-husband because I didn't know what a narcissist was back then. You know, we didn't have that language necessarily for that personality type.
00:08:40
Speaker
But he could manipulate situations and even words and twist stories to make me feel... Although I would argue that nobody can make you feel anything. You have to have that insecurity already embedded in you. But it it would be, it's the gaslighting, you know, twisting things so that you believe that other people's version of who you are is who you are.
00:09:07
Speaker
You know, their narrative is dictated to you, their narrative about you. So I bought into it, but but the the the aspect that i can't explain or pinpoint is that His family, i mean, talk about lovely people. i I fell in love with his parents. They were the parents that I didn't have.
00:09:28
Speaker
yeah And I fell in love with his sister and she became my best friend and his, oh, his grandma and grandpa just stole my heart. So I found my i found family. i found a sense of belonging and he was the price I had to pay for that.
00:09:43
Speaker
But he loved me sometimes. And then he didn't other times, yeah you know, so there was that push and pull. But I think, well, I don't think I know that because of my childhood, because there was no love. I understood that just because mother and stepfather said, I love you, their actions were, did not support that in any way, shape or form. Um,
00:10:10
Speaker
So I disbelieved the words and and understood the actions. But because that chaos was familiar to me, again, I always go back to the neuroscience. Our brains are not wired for our comfort and for us to be happy. Our brains are wired for familiarity.
00:10:28
Speaker
And chaos was familiar to me. In fact, in my childhood and during my teenage years, my mother actually told me multiple times that my stepfather wouldn't be abusing me or mistreating me if he didn't care about me so much.
00:10:46
Speaker
So I was not only experiencing i love you and then hands being put on me, I was being told that that's what love was, even if it didn't feel good. So I sort of, i hate to say, I accepted that in my marriage. And I also was still struggling with insecurity and low self-worth, low self-esteem, because it's one thing to know that something doesn't feel right and to know that you're being mistreated. But when you've endured it for so long, you know those those feelings are still there. that's That's a whole other beast to overcome. Yeah, you must still carry some of that with you.
00:11:26
Speaker
Very much Very much I mean, you how did you get the confidence then, you know, to to leave, to take the next steps for yourself? Because a lot of people listening to this would be, and who may be in this situation, may be thinking like, I'm so i'm stuck here and I ah can't leave. And especially hearing the language that you're using, which was, this is normal. This is what it's supposed to be.
00:11:51
Speaker
how How did you transition out of that? I know that you felt some unease, but you know what what was the what was the turning point for you? The turning point for me was i was the physical illness was just getting increasingly worse. And I had a doctor's appointment, the neurologist sat me down.
00:12:12
Speaker
um at that point, I was carrying a backpack oxygen machine um which didn't make sense because to give people some perspective, i'm I'm one of those weirdos that ran five miles a day and ate apples and hard-boiled eggs for lunch, you know, very healthy. So it did not make sense that I was having breathing issues. All these physical, neurological, cardiovascular, all these different problems did not make sense.
00:12:38
Speaker
um the doctor sat me down and and told me that my body was shutting down, that it was doing all it had to do, sort of like a generator to keep my lungs and my heart to keep going, um but that everything else was basically shutting down because the stress, i mean, when they say stress can kill you, apparently it really can. And I just remember laying, he said, there's no pill, there's no surgery, whatever it is in your life that is causing you all this stress,
00:13:08
Speaker
It's literally toxic. You have to get rid of it. I didn't need anyone to tell me. I knew it was still the relationship with my mother and stepfather. It was my you know very dysfunctional ah relationship with my then husband. um But I remember laying down that night and thinking,
00:13:29
Speaker
I don't, this life is not, it didn't even feel like mine. It just, it wasn't what I wanted. it was never, i it was like one of those things, like, how did I get here? Because this is not anywhere near what I thought my life was going to be like. And in that moment, I remember thinking, what what do I want? What did I picture for myself at this point in my life?
00:13:53
Speaker
because it wasn't that. And I knew right off the bat, I knew that there was three things. and i that my next question to myself then was, well, can I have what I want? Can I have the life I want in these circumstances?
00:14:09
Speaker
And the answer was an affirmative no. There was no way. Um, So, I mean, for me, that was it. I mean, you can only give so much of yourself and then on top of it, sacrifice your health and possibly your life.
00:14:26
Speaker
And it's ah sad to me that that was the deal breaker for me. But I think that we can all think that, you know, like people say when they're married, oh, if they cheat on me, that it's, well, trust me, you'd be surprised what you will tolerate when you have children and a life and a family and, It's not as easy as saying if they do this, you're out.
00:14:47
Speaker
But for me, that was the final straw was I'm not sacrificing my life for this man or these people. And it's all got to stop. But the interesting thing was I was surprised, shocked, actually, that when I finally spoke my truth,
00:15:07
Speaker
The abandonment. I mean, everybody seemed to side with the people that had abused me and I lost. I mean, when I say I lost multiple sides of family, I have very few relatives that actually still speak to me.
00:15:24
Speaker
And it was a terrible period of mourning. And I still feel the grief, especially around the holidays. It's very hard to see everybody celebrating. And it's like I never existed. And it's so hard to think that you you can be discarded so easily.
00:15:40
Speaker
But the thing is, when you have lost everyone and everything, there's nothing left to lose. Yeah. So you have to just- Accept Accept your life but you know that's what gave me the courage to stand up and just keep putting one foot in front of the other because I'm like, well, I might as well go ahead and do what I want to do now and live the life I want to live because- It doesn't matter. Nobody's going to care. Nobody can tell me. Nobody is here to you know dictate anything. And i I can't upset anyone anymore if they're not here. And it's a very sad thing. i mean, it's something that, you know like I said, the grief is always there, but i am I'm healthy again. I mean, at at the at the worst point, I was down to 93 pounds. And I mean, I was skeletal to the point that it was scaring people when they saw me. And now I'm a healthy weight again. I you know i i don't even know the last time I needed my breathing machine. you know and And I'm i'm happy. like My heart is content. I'm physically and emotionally safe now, able to have the space and the time now to you know kind of unmuck all that stuff from the past. But It's a beautiful thing when you when you are free, when when you're released from all of these things, because all that talk that people use to you and about you, all those words,
00:17:06
Speaker
they do have the power to take over our lives and basically determine every action, inaction, reaction that we have. And it's not just in our personal life. It bleeds into our professional life. It bleeds into every role that we play as as mothers, as partners, as, you know, at the school, at wherever. And so it's really important for us to honor ourselves and really live a life that aligns with who we are and what we want for ourselves. Because You know, I i wish that families came with that inherent social, um you know, attachment that everybody could get along and everybody's aligned. But the reality is, is, you know, family, as we talk about it, is biology. They are the the mothers, the vessel that brings you into this world. But when you are here, you may not get along with siblings. You may not get along with parents. People may not want you in their family, and that's okay because we have the beautiful, ah you know, especially with the internet, we have the beautiful option of creating our own family and finding our own people. And how amazing is that? I mean, we all want to be surrounded by people who encourage and support us. And and those opportunities are ever present now with social media and all the opportunities on the internet.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I mean, look at how we met, you know, we've met through the Thrive Summit. You know, it's just ah we are very lucky to live in a world like that. And I so relate to some of what you're saying, you know, in terms of, you know, I left a previous marriage and I lost a lot of friends and family through that.
00:18:43
Speaker
and And I still feel the grief, you know, my ex-husband's brother was one of my closest friends and I haven't spoken to him since the day I left. And it was, it's just an awful time and it's not a good thing, but you do have to have boundaries and it's okay to have those boundaries. And as you say, honor yourself.
00:19:03
Speaker
And, you know, and, and as you say, even with family that are blood family, you know, it's okay to have boundaries. I've spoken to so many people who are in those toxic relationships with family members. And the reason why they're still there and they'd handle it is because, it's, you know, it's my sister, it's my brother, it's my mother, and I can't, I can't abandon them. And sometimes for the sake of your health, you have to do that, right? Because you just, you can't, you can't sacrifice your health. You can't sacrifice your life and your own family's life. You pass that down onto to your own children.
00:19:37
Speaker
You know, it's just something that you need to let go of sometimes. So it's so true what you say. Yeah. and And that's what I find mostly when I talk to people is they say, I can't, or if it's not, I can't, it's I shouldn't. And I have removed those words. I mean, we want to talk about self-talk.
00:19:56
Speaker
If you're grown, if you're an adult, you can, whether you should or not is up to you in and your moral compass and based on your values. But you're the only one that i I think now that I understand that I have choices and that I am allowed, I give myself permission to make those choices. People may not understand them. People may not agree with them.
00:20:19
Speaker
And you know even with regard to you know people that I have dissociated with or that have exiled me, i just say that's their choice. They have that option, just like I have the option of deciding you know when I meet people, do I want this person in my life or do I need to keep that person at a distance?
00:20:39
Speaker
You know, you have to learn to give yourself that permission. You do have choices. You can actually do whatever you want to do. I mean, I would say within the bounds of the law and out of respect for human life and and so on. But, you know, as far as the decisions we make for ourselves, you can, you know, whether you choose to or not is up to you. But when I reframe everything now as I can, but what would I like to do? What would be in my best interest? what is best for my mental and emotional and physical health. you know it it kind of changes the way you perceive those things so that it takes the shame and the guilt and that should. I always say should and shame are the same, and I don't need any more of that in my life. So I just i just look at things a little differently. like How can I honor myself in this? Am I going to
00:21:31
Speaker
resent myself if I do this? Am I going to resent that person if I commit to that? you know And it's okay to say no. I think people need to get real comfortable saying no, because like you said, setting those boundaries, it's very difficult when like somebody like me being told I wasn't even supposed to be, oh, I chased approval. like you would I was the overachiever.
00:21:55
Speaker
Honestly, anybody would have been thrilled to have me as a daughter and probably still would have ah yeah But I didn't get the approval from the people I wanted the approval from, and I never would. And that's the kicker.
00:22:08
Speaker
They have that choice to make that decision for themselves that they don't want to approve of me no matter what. But I had to choose what was best for me. So you have to set the boundaries. Because I think that when you set the boundaries, you sort of find out ah in ah in ah in a not so nice way, who's really for you and who's not. And it might surprise you. But when you say no, people that love you will respect that you're saying no and know that you would say yes if if you could and wanted to. But I kind of live my life like a toddler now. Like if I say no, maybe I just don't want to. Maybe I just don't feel like it. And that's okay. Yeah, 100%. Okay. I love that.
00:22:51
Speaker
Tell you, with ah a daughter i have a daughter who's four years old, so the toddler years are still fresh in my mind. I would love to live like a toddler. Sounds amazing. It really, if you think about it, though, think of how children are so present in the present moment.
00:23:09
Speaker
yeah They can be so happy, you know, coloring in a coloring book or playing with you. And maybe you say or do something that hurts their feelings. They might cry. They might be upset or get angry with you.
00:23:23
Speaker
But once they sense that you're sorry and they forgive you and they give you a hug, whatever, then we move on. It's it's forgotten. we're going to live in the present moment and move forward. And we lose that as adults. And I i mean, i joke about it with my husband about I just want to be a toddler again. But I think it's an amazing thing because they're in the present. They're not worried about the past. They're not holding grudges against you for taking the red crayon instead of the blue one. You know, they're And they're not worried about the future. But as adults, it's like we're almost, you know, programmed to worry about everything all at once. And it's no wonder the incidence of depression and anxiety and and suicidal ideation and all these things that. we burden our hearts and minds with. But yes, live like a toddler. Say no when you want to. Forgive easily. Just come from a place of love, but loving yourself first so that you honor yourself. Express how you feel.
00:24:22
Speaker
If you want to be a whiny baby for a minute, be a whiny baby. It's okay. Get it out because I'll tell you what, all that suppression of emotions, that's what made me sick. That's what made me sick in the first place because I stuffed it down. Because I was trying to be a good girl and get everybody's approval, even as an adult. But suppressing all my emotions, it it it manifested physically. And it always will. It'll come back and get you. 100%.
00:24:47
Speaker
hundred percent I want to know more about the approval stuff, you know, and proving yourself because I can see why that manifested in you. oh yeah. You know, and you were a high achiever, you know.
00:24:59
Speaker
Tell me more about that. How were you trying to prove yourself through everything and how how does that look for you now? Well, I mean, back then when I was a kid, it was in everything. i was very competitive, but in a nice way. I wasn't you know a mean girl, but you know i was I started playing viola in grade school. It's like a bigger violin. I was first chair, but it wasn't enough to be first chair in one orchestra. I was first chair in two orchestras. Then I did solo performances. And you know then in dance, i had I just had to be the best. And I would practice and try. like I would not stop.
00:25:38
Speaker
My grades, honor roll, everything. I just had to be the best because this was the thing. They're going to be proud of me. They're going to be happy. They're going to be pleased with me. And it was never enough, ever, ever. Even when I graduated college, my stepfather said, well, that's a kindergarten education compared to your brother's doctorate.
00:26:00
Speaker
i thought my gosh but I wanted to go to get my master's and maybe even my doctorate, but he told me he wasn't going to pay for any more schooling. So it was like, I just couldn't win. And I think that You know, somewhere after college, you know, just realizing like I could win a Nobel Peace Prize and it would never be enough.
00:26:21
Speaker
It would never be enough because people want it in their minds. You can only be as much as they want you to be. And I hate to say for me, my mother and stepfather, I couldn't be anything.
00:26:35
Speaker
I couldn't be anything because then that would challenge, you know, oh who I needed to be to them for them to be okay with what they were doing to me, if that makes any sense. yeah you know Because if I was this wonderful little girl that you know followed all the rules as I did, and I never smoked a cigarette in my life, I didn't drink, I didn't go to parties, I was in bed by 8 p.m. even in high school and college, I really was a good kid.
00:27:06
Speaker
But that that would go against in their minds, like how could they abuse a good little girl, a good daughter? make them the bad person, right? Right. They would have to face that accountability. So you know for some people, you just you know you see these memes, you know you have to be the villain in some people's stories. And you know sometimes i I think, my gosh, maybe that was my purpose here was just to agitate everybody with my presence. But- You know, i really it's almost a superpower now. Like now I just say, you know, you're welcome because, you know, whatever it is, I'm here to show you that you have trauma. And I'm sorry, but we all do. Whether you've had abuse in your past or not, there has been something in your life that has deeply affected your heart.
00:27:52
Speaker
And if you don't face it, it will keep coming back. you know, self sabotaging behaviors that you, you know, display to other people, people and demonstrate in relationships, or, you know, it's going to be repeating these same dynamics in relationships you have with people.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy. And, you know, I I think some of what you talk about, so many people would be feeling, you know, that sense of needing to prove yourself all the time. Perfectionism, it manifests as perfectionism in some. It manifests as like, I'm never enough. I'm not lovable. There's so many different ways that manifests.
00:28:30
Speaker
ah do Do you still feel that need to now, like in what you're doing, or have you managed to break out of that cage? I have nobody else left to to to give me approval except for myself. So I guess in that way, I don't chase approval. But the interesting thing is that feeling of not enoughness, if that's a word, um that still arises. Because like, for example, when my first book was published,
00:29:05
Speaker
It should have been an amazing feeling. I should have been, you know, full of joy and and proud of myself. And because all of my accomplishments, I mean, my whole life had always been diminished, unacknowledged, um or you know, or put down in some way.
00:29:24
Speaker
It's like I didn't want to make a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. A lot of people publish a book. you know like I couldn't celebrate my achievement because I had been programmed, like trained that I wasn't supposed to achieve much and it wasn't a big deal. So that sort of carried into that.
00:29:41
Speaker
But I think it does manifest sometimes into not being enough. Like, well... Maybe other people aren't celebrating this, you know, or giving me recognition because I don't have people to say I'm proud of you. I have to be proud of myself. But, you know, sometimes you do want other people to recognize it and say, oh, good job, or I'm really proud of you for doing this. And, you know, when that doesn't happen because i have the absence of people in my life, it it does start to feel like, OK, should I do more? Should I, could I have done better? But it goes back to, like you said, the perfectionism.
00:30:15
Speaker
And I was always that way in my professional life, you know, so it's interesting because I was always that girl that even at a very young age got promoted into management positions and I was the responsible one. And I was the one that was very efficient and, you know, got the work done and met the numbers and all the stuff and And people that were older than me that had been in, you know, those ah places of employment for much longer would get very upset, you know, and I wasn't trying to necessarily compete with them. I was just, I think, trying to prove to myself that I was enough and that I was capable and competent and all these things I was led to believe I wasn't.
00:30:53
Speaker
um So yeah, it still shows up. I think that, you know, I've only been out of my first marriage for five years. So I think in the five years, I've come a very long way. But I think healing is lifelong. It is a daily effort. And there are days like admittedly, yesterday morning was not a fun morning in this house. Because when you're tired, or you're not feeling well, and healing And being this healed version of yourself requires more effort.
00:31:25
Speaker
Well, sometimes you don't have the emotional capacity or the physical capacity to give that effort. And, you know, but we have to give ourselves some grace and just say, you know, we're here, we're present, we're aware and just do better next time.
00:31:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's amazing how that can, you know, that, that pursuit can keep you small and keep you from actually achieving because it's never good enough, you know, and it's funny, you know, chasing good enough for other people eventually becomes never good enough for yourself. Right. yeah And so you don't allow yourself to actually fly and be free of that so that you can chase the things that feel good to you and that inspire you because it might not be the enough thing, right? So it's amazing how that can that can hold you back.
00:32:19
Speaker
And I love how you say, you know, it's like, you know, give yourself grace and that's a lifelong healing. I know for myself, things pop up randomly out of the blue. I'm like, where is that from? And now got to work on this new thing. And I didn't know if that was an issue. And now here I am working on this thing. It's funny how it does that in life, right? It's just, it's lifelong. Oh, yeah.
00:32:41
Speaker
But you know, it's a beautiful thing too, because I think as we peel back the layers, you know, ah and work through things, it just, I always liken it to if ever anybody listening has ever dug up a rose bush, I remember I did that once, or at least I attempted and those roots go down forever. I think I probably was six foot down in the ground and thinking, okay, it's gotta be the end somewhere. And it never Yeah. And I feel like that's what healing is. You just keep peeling back and then it exposes more. But the good news is that the safer you feel,
00:33:15
Speaker
the more comes out of your subconscious for you to work with. So it's like, okay, you've you've gotten to this level. So now we're going to give you a little more, we're going to add to that. You know, I always say it's like that tap on the shoulder, like I'm still here. thought We forgot about you. We're coming back to bite you in the butt right now.
00:33:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's, it stays with you, right? And it does, it does tap you on the shoulder. But you You definitely can come out and and be a new person and and explore new things. And I love that for you.
00:33:49
Speaker
so and so tell me now, like you've you've left you've left that awful marriage. You're five years on. You're in a new marriage, I think I heard you say. I know. It's wonderful. Never what I thought I was done. I thought I was done with men, everything. just I was going to go be alone in the mountains with a dog or something.
00:34:10
Speaker
and No, in my defense, my husband, I've known him and his family for roughly 20 years. and And, you know, I knew him for, for very, you know, quite a few of those. So it was just a friendship and ah you know, a trusted person that it just, i I didn't realize it was like, oh, there you are. I never saw you that way, but here we are. And it's really been amazing because,
00:34:37
Speaker
The way I put it, I think there's a little Winnie the Pooh Bear meme about, you know, you could borrow my, I forget what it is. i think Piglet says something to Pooh Bear about, you know, you can borrow my hope or borrow my heart, you know, until you find it within yourself. And that's sort of how I feel about my husband now. Like I liken it to like, you know, he he was kind of my crutch until I could walk again on my own. um You just sometimes need to surround yourself with people that encourage you and uplift you, especially after me you know, in my situation, having a lifetime of people putting me down, keeping me small. I'm not supposed to be anything more than nothing. So having somebody who's, you know, what I love about him is,
00:35:25
Speaker
he doesn't ever tell me like, Oh, you're pretty or my beautiful wife or any of that fluffy stuff. You know, he'll leave the house in the morning and say, okay, go, go save the world. or he'll come home and say, how's my little writer? Like he sees, he sees me, he sees the things in me, the qualities I have and what I'm contributing, not just to his life and our life together, but you know, to society as a whole. And,
00:35:52
Speaker
it's that encouragement that I need. I always say it's like fertilizer to a flower. Here's me and my gardening analogies again, but sometimes you need other people to help you fertilize your own heart.
00:36:04
Speaker
and And it sounds silly, but it's that self-talk. There are times i I thought it was funny when I was working with a coach, she would have me go to a mirror and say out loud, I am, you know, I am smart. I am pretty. I'm whatever it is, you know, you could go through the thing and i'm like, oh, this is silly. I remember seeing a spoof like this on Saturday Night Live when I was a teenager and I would laugh at that, you know, like this person's mental. But here I am in front of a mirror telling myself all these ah trying wonderful, encouraging things. But you know what?
00:36:37
Speaker
It worked. And there are moments where I feel down and I'll let myself have a little cry. I've learned to let the emotions move through my body, get the energy out of my body,
00:36:48
Speaker
But I also then pause and breathe and sit with really uncomfortable emotions and tell myself it's okay to feel this way. i'm ah I'm entitled to feel this way. It's all right. But it's going to be okay still anyway.
00:37:01
Speaker
this This moment, this situation does not determine who I am or what my future can be. It's going to pass. We're going to get through it and all will be well.
00:37:13
Speaker
What a contrast to what you had been through, right? That voice that you hear, that you're saying to yourself now, because That self-talk that you've got, there are people who have not been through the things that you've been through and don't master that kind of self-talk that you're using on yourself now. And I'm a huge, as you know, believer of self-talk and what we say to ourselves because it rewires our brain, you know, and it sounds silly. It does sound silly. And a part of it is you have to believe some of it to make it really work.
00:37:45
Speaker
But repeating it to yourself actually does rewire your brain. You know, the neuroscience of it is there. There's there's all that work there. So yes um I love that you've been down that road and and in five years you've just come out the other side and you're happy. And I can see you talking about your husband and you're glowing, you know, and that's such a lovely thing, such a lovely thing to see.
00:38:05
Speaker
yeah um You know, if you, i mean, you've given so many amazing tips and tools through all of this, but if you had, you know, a a couple of like really easy tips that you could give people to shift some of that self-talk about winning approval and not being enough, what would you tell them to do?
00:38:31
Speaker
The first thing you have to remember that you know other people's opinions of you are not you know the be all end all. You are the only one that gets to decide who you are. And even if you're not exactly who you would like to be right now, you can right this second decide to be something and somebody else. i I always liken it to an etch a sketch that we used to play on when we were kids. Shake it up, clear the board, start over. It's okay.
00:39:00
Speaker
where we don't We're not born into this world and lead a life of perfection. We can change our minds at any time and decide what we want. it And I'm a big believer in in the neuroplasticity of the brain and the neuroscience behind it.
00:39:15
Speaker
Decide what you want for yourself. Ask yourself that question like I did. What do I truly want? Because you know in your heart what you want. and you know who you want to be and what kind of a life you want to lead, ask yourself those questions and be honest, and then decide, how am I going to get there?
00:39:33
Speaker
How am I going to get there? Because once you have a vision of it and you start thinking about it, you know there's the brain and the neuroscience again. You're going to start seeing things in the world around you. Your brain's going to start picking up, looking for evidence that, oh, I can have that.
00:39:48
Speaker
Hmm. OK, let's entertain this a little bit more. So start thinking, have that forward thinking. Think of what makes your heart happy. Make those little deposits. If it's painting your nails red or having, you know, bubble gum or a pint of ice cream for dinner, whatever it is, fill your soul because you're You know, one of the things my great grandma, who she she was my heart, she was my everything when I was a little girl.
00:40:14
Speaker
She knew I was struggling. and And I was very young when she said, you have to believe in yourself and you have to know your truth about who you are, because at the end of your life, you're all you have.
00:40:28
Speaker
And it sounded depressing back then. And I never fully understood it until, you know, the last few years that she was basically telling me I have to be my own best friend.
00:40:39
Speaker
And, you know, I talk to myself, we have staff meetings together, me and my my own voice. this is a love it but but But they're good. You need to have that relationship with yourself.
00:40:50
Speaker
yeah And it has to be solid because if you can't be your own best friend, if you can't be your biggest cheerleader, you're always going to be looking for other people to validate you.
00:41:01
Speaker
yeah And if you're relying on other people, you're going to be very, very disappointed. Yeah, so I love you. Call it your staff. I call it my boardroom. I had a boardroom in here and I've got i've got the person. I'm not that fancy. My boardroom, I've got the person who's like the risk, of the person who sees the risk all the time. And then i've got the person who's cheering me on.
00:41:22
Speaker
And it's it's a very confusing boardroom at times, but I've learned to be the deciding CEO in all of it, you know, the chair of that. So yeah i love that you've got that too. And I love your grandma. Your grandma sounds so wise. It just reminds me of ah something a friend of mine told me a long time ago and it stuck with me. where she said everything that we have in this life is borrowed, everything, our relationships, our stuff, everything. You can't take any of it with you, nothing.
00:41:50
Speaker
It's all borrowed. And when you start seeing life like that, you start realizing, oh, what's worth, you know, losing sleep over? What's worth, you know, losing time?
00:42:01
Speaker
You know, it's yes if your time is borrowed with the people you love, spend the time with them because that's it that's that's what you've got right so i i love that and i love i love your grandma's wisdom there yeah so what's what's next for you what are you working on now like to tell me about dana enterprise like tell me what you're doing what's next for you where where is your self-talk taking you now what's next Self-talk, I've been focused on speaking to live audiences because I think I'm just a big believer that we all are very different and we all learn in different ways. And we are all going to hear a message in the way that we receive best. And some people will read my books and get the message and change their lives.
00:42:46
Speaker
Some people will read my blog. Some people who will listen to this podcast and something will resonate. But there's something to a live audience too. So I'm working more on speaking to live audiences. I'm very excited. I have ah several ah talks I'm giving in 2026 already. I'll be traveling around the US mainly. um But I'm also rolling out. I never thought I would do this, but I'm in the process of developing something online, a guided sort of self-development to help people just take back that control over their lives. If they felt a little lost or uncertain, or just like I did, not feeling like you're living a life that's really what you what you want and that honors who you are, it sort of helps them clarify. you know i i liken everything to the to the car, getting in the car, taking the driver's seat, setting the GPS, like where are we going? What do I want? What life do I want for myself?
00:43:44
Speaker
And then let's put it in gear and get there. And I help them you know, go through the boundaries and and alignments and different things, um you know, that will help them get there. So I'm really excited about that because I know there's people out there that are just going through the motions. And as you just said, for me, at least time is a core value because we don't know how much of it we have.
00:44:07
Speaker
And so to think about wasting any of it, being unhappy or living for other people or through other people boy, we just, we got to all take the wheel and just go live.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I so love that message. I love that message. And I love the way you speak. I'm so glad that you're doing more speaking. Let's get you to Australia. Let's think of a way that we can get you to Australia. I've always wanted to come to Australia. I might never leave though. I don't think they'll let me stay long, but I i wouldn't want to leave.
00:44:40
Speaker
Well, I'll tell you a tip. Everyone goes to the East Coast, but Perth is a hidden gem. Sorry, Eastsiders, I know that you're going to disagree with me, but Perth West Australia is a beautiful place. So you got to stop over here first, that's for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. So where can people find you? If people want to connect with you or find your work or find out more about you, where can they go?
00:45:01
Speaker
Absolutely. I always direct people to my website, danasdiaz.com. Everything is there. Link to the socials are there. i really like hanging out on Instagram though. So if you want to find me, that's a good place. um But everything's on my website. So, um and I do encourage people to share this episode as well, because I think it's important. Sometimes if we tell somebody something, it it doesn't, resonate, but if they hear it from somebody else, just like a child, you know, we're all sort of children in that way, that we need to hear it from somebody that we don't know sometimes to to have it land the right way. That's so true. That's so true. You've got to hear it from somebody else because mom doesn't know. no um Mom doesn't know.
00:45:47
Speaker
Oh, well, well i I have just loved talking to you, Dana. You are truly an inspiration and i i could get so many wonderful insights from you for days, I think. So I'm looking forward to connecting with you more over a time. And I really hope, wish the best for you because you deserve it. You're incredible how you've turned some really tragic situations into something that's doing such good for the world and you you deserve to be proud of yourself. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your story and your self-talk and your voice.
00:46:23
Speaker
um For me, what I found out of this podcast is that the pressure to prove yourself keeps you inside a cage. And I love that you, i've written so many notes here, you know, shouldn't shame shame are the same and live like a toddler. um And i'm I'm going to take those away with me. So thank you so much. Beautiful.
00:46:42
Speaker
Thank you. You're welcome. And to everyone else, thank you for joining us today on the ah Second Voice podcast. I hope you'll join us next time. We have more incredible guests lined up for you And I hope that you also take some of these messages from today around not looking for that external approval, living that authentic life for yourself, putting in the GPS and going in the right direction. If you need help with that, connect with Dana. She's incredible. And we will see you next time.
00:47:11
Speaker
Goodbye.