A Former Dominatrix’s Guide To Conquering The Self-Doubt In Your Journey Of Becoming An Author With Dana Pharant

 

There is so much wasted potential and knowledge in this world because of the imposter syndrome. Oftentimes, in our journey towards becoming an author, we reach that point where we start to doubt ourselves and think of retreating. Learn how to move past that and unleash the value you can give to the world. Robin Colucci interviews Dana Pharant, a business performance coach, in this episode. As a former dominatrix, Dana reveals how we can start owning our power and overcome the doubt and questions along the way. She shares some great strategies that can help us continue to write, break through writer’s block, and employ our books to expand our brand and business. Join this conversation to conquer the self-doubt that is in the way of you becoming an author.

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A Former Dominatrix’s Guide To Conquering The Self-Doubt In Your Journey Of Becoming An Author With Dana Pharant

I have with us Dana Pharant. Having built a seven-figure business without sales calls and as a former dominatrix, Dana knows all about owning her power and being unique. She has worked with clients for over many years, helping them as she puts it, keep their head out of their ass so they can scale with ease. She’s the author of five books, winner of multiple awards, and a woman who treats her own personal development like an extreme sport. These days, Dana is a business performance coach for those who love to play full out. During this interview, we will discuss some of the self-doubt and questions that come up, as we’re moving through the process of becoming an author and Dana’s got some great strategies to deal with them, as well, as much more so sit back and enjoy.

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Dana, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Robin. I was so excited to get to spend some more time with you.

I am so excited too and I’ve been looking forward to this call and this interview. There are so many things that I am not only sure that I want to learn about and hear about from you, but I’m positive our readers want to as well. Maybe we could start off by talking to me. I’m so curious about how you got into dominatrix work and also how you transitioned. What sparked you to transition into business coaching, because I find this so fascinating.

They seem very radically different ideas but there’s a lot of overlays. I need to give a little bit of background in that I grew up in a cult. When I left that at eighteen, I had to go on this journey of self-discovery and self-healing to get the crazy in my head to settle in and be normal, as far as normal can be. For me, I discovered the most profound healing in the most unusual place, which was the dungeon and that was what sparked me to want to go on to learn how to be a dominatrix to transition to the other side of the whip, so to speak.

Exploring all of that changed who I was. It changed how I showed up and how I moved. My ability to hold space and be in control in a room changed down at a molecular level. Concurrent to being a dominatrix I also was a massage therapist and built up a seven-figure massage supply outlet store. I’ve got all these things going on. I hate sitting still. When I started to hit a bit of a road bump in my business with the store and we had to restructure everything, it gave me the chance to step back and realize that I had completely separated these two skillsets. One of running the business and being super nice and one of being in my power and being in control because I had learned to keep all of that.

It’s like, “Don’t talk about it. Keep it all a secret,” but I also completely compartmentalize all of that power. When I went through the restructuring with my business, I realized at that point that this was what was needed. We needed that dominatrix energy to come in to be leaders. I call it this and there’s a lot of people that call it a different language but that’s the journey for me. It’s seeing how valuable being in your power, being willing to stand up, be unique and be seen. All the things that we need to do as business owners all come together in that package.

I want to interject something here because as I was listening to you and I was thinking about this idea as a woman. I really think that what you’re saying is speaking directly into some of the challenges that women business owners face in particular and this feeling of, “I know I need to be powerful to run my business but maybe it’s more important that I’m nice,” and this tug of war that can go on. Say a little bit more about this dominatrix archetype in a way because it’s not only the action of it but there’s something about embodying a certain archetype. Can you talk a little bit more about how that can inform you as a business leader because I think that’s so interesting?

Let me dispel a couple of myths because Hollywood is where most people get their ideas on what a dominatrix is. Hollywood is so great at portraying everybody’s profession. Ask any lawyer or ethnicity. Hollywood is terrible at portraying anything. Hollywood picks up on this sensational piece of where it looks like the dominatrix is in charge. She gets to boss people around and does whatever she wants. That’s not what’s going on. In reality, there are some bad sessions but what’s happening in a good session is, I would sit down, and I would spend a good four hours negotiating with my client. At that point, we’re peers and we’ll say, “What do you want? What do you not want? What do you want to try? What do you don’t want to try? What are your potential triggers? What words do you like?” Also, diving into it, because it’s different for everybody.

From there, I step into a place where I’m going to hold all the power. We’re going to pretend that I have all the power so we can play out the scene. You pretend that you’re submitting and we roleplay those, but in actuality, the person who’s the submissive has the ultimate control. They always have the final stop. What’s happening is that they are in charge and I’m in a high-level service position, but I’m willing to step in and hold that power. This is where the correlation comes in most effectively to business. We, as business leaders, have this position of power so to speak, but it’s not power over that it looks like in the first place. It’s a power of with, and we know from countless experiences and examples that the most effective leaders are those that raise their people up. They elevate everyone to be with them, not under them. That’s the bridge that I make in those two pieces.

Also, still being able and willing to stand in the power that you do have, right?

Yes. It’s not a choice between, I’m either going to be nice or I’m going to be powerful. It is powerful to be nice and at the same time holding your power and holding your “boundaries.” I don’t love the word boundaries, so I put it in quotes. When we hold our position of, “This is what’s okay, this what’s not okay, and here’s how I expect you to treat me,” then we can continue to be nice to people and be firm that when they cross those lines, we step in and say, “No, that’s crossing the line.” If they continue to cross the line, you’re out. That’s where we can get to be nice to us, as well as other people. That’s one of the things. For women in business, it’s like if I’m being nice to other people, that means that I get to be crapped on or walked on but it’s both. It’s not an either/or and you should never settle for an either/or.

We needed that dominatrix energy to come in to be leaders. Click To Tweet

Being nice is probably a terrible term. You can be firm and polite.

Sometimes you’re firm and you say nothing. It’s just being firm. It’s holding your space, “This is who I am.”

I started to ask you about this idea of something that comes up so often with authors across the board. From the brand new person who’s just getting started to the highly accomplished international award-winning and in their career person, everybody encounters, at some point, this feeling of an imposter syndrome or the fraud factor is another way of putting it. Often, this can block someone at various points in developing their book and I’ve seen it happen everywhere from the first steps to anywhere in the middle and even right up to the end. People encounter what one of my former business coaches eloquently termed the terror barrier. You’re like, “I’ve gone this far but now this looks scary,” and you start putting the brakes on and pumping the brakes. I’m curious, in your experience, what are some of the observations that you’ve made around working with people breaking through these kinds of barriers.

This leads me into one of my rants, which is, the majority of people when you get to that terror barrier, so many coaches and so many well-meaning people will say to you, “Change happens outside the comfort zone so just push through it.” I’m sorry, but that is completely counterintuitive to how your brain works. When we look at the neurology of our brains, approximately 70% of the population is wired in a way in which we are more strongly motivated to move away from pain than towards a goal and this is what you’re seeing with all the writers. I would say, predominantly, they are going to be away from people, so they want not to have a penalty of not getting paid, which allows them to write their book or do something else.

It’s that goal of, “The book will be finished.” That’s not enough of a motivation to move forward. It’s not enough of a motivation to say, “I’m going to move into this pain and this discomfort and push through it.” Where I like to go is I always like to spin things. I love to look at things differently but the biggest thing I would say is to stop calling where you are a comfort zone because it has never been a comfort zone. I don’t know about you but when I want to lose twenty pounds or whatever, it’s not comfortable. Is it comfortable?

Having twenty pounds is not comfortable.

I put on that COVID 25. That was not comfortable. I’m not going to say that’s a comfort zone and this is the problem is when we label it a comfort zone, we can’t push ourselves to go through it but if we change that we say, “Where we are now is more like a piss-soaked bed.”

I would know, as someone who got a puppy.

You know what I’m talking about.

He’s not allowed on my bed for this reason. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

If we think of that, it’s warm and squishy and comfortable for about 30 seconds then it smells, it’s cold, it feels clammy, and it feels awful. That’s where we are. That’s the supposed comfort zone. No, if we look at it that way and say, “Where you are right now is the piss-soaked bed but if you get up and you get into the shower, you’re going to feel better.” This is the change that we need to make in the wiring of our brains in saying, “We need to set it up so where we’re going is the pleasure zone, is the excitement zone, and where we are now is the pain zone because people are motivated more strongly by moving away from pain.” That’s my big rant about that. I say that there’s no effing comfort zone.

I love that because it’s true. It’s a misnomer. It’s more comfortable not to have your book done. It’s not, especially if you’re waking up every morning and you’re like, “I got to work on my book,” or you’re going to bed every night, “I should have worked on my book,” or you’re waking up in the middle of the night. Is that your comfort zone?

I would say if you want to work with how the brain works, there are two things to consider. We look at neurology and I love studying neurology. I’m geeking out on it. One, make sure that you’re physically moving. This is a downside for most authors. Get yourself a treadmill. You do not have to be running. You can have a walking pace. Half an hour every day will get you moving because it gets that whole dynamic of, “I am moving.” The other thing is to nudge yourself in five-minute increments, “I’m going to write for five minutes.” When you get into five minutes, you go, “I can write for five more minutes.” You can five more minutes your way into completing the entire book.

 

That reminds me of a personal trainer I had for a while. He was the best motivator I ever had. I remember he would make me do these HITT training things. It was before they even called it HIIT training. He would be like, “Come on 100 RPMs on the bike for two minutes. You can do anything for two minutes,” and it’s true. What can you not do for two minutes? You can tolerate quite a bit in those little increments.

There’s been a lot of scientific studies to show that incremental training is far more effective than trying to bite off a big chunk. You’re working with how your brain functions as opposed to trying to fit into other people’s ideas are far more effective for busting out of those things. The third layer with this, I would say is you need to, at the end of each five minutes, celebrate. I do mean it. Get up and shake it so that you reinforce for yourself, “I did five minutes of riding. I didn’t die.” What that’s going to do is, reinforces for your brain that this is good behavior. This is the carrot and we’re moving away from the pain of not writing the book.

This is the recipe to beat writer’s block as well. Never mind the fraud factor. This is brilliant guidance for breaking through writer’s block. Thank you and I’m sure our readers will thank you too. This is great advice. It’s so interesting because writer’s block, in my opinion, is also a myth. The question is because it’s not anything in the way but, but the approach and the mindset about it.

That’s it. It’s what I call your monkey brain. Your monkey brain gets in there and starts talking to you and says, “That’s crap.” One of the tricks for it that you probably already know is that let yourself write five minutes of crap. Write absolute garbage, “This is crap. I don’t know what to say. This is stupid.” Type those things in or handwrite them or whatever your method. In doing that, how the brain works, frees up. The monkey mind has now had its voice. Now you can stick some duct tape on that thing, tape the monkey into the back of the bus and now go on and write because you’ve already gotten rid of the crap and everything you’ve after is going to be better.

That brings up another point that I’m going to add to your point because one thing that I have found in my own writing, as well as clients, is that usually your actual opening line for whatever chapter or whatever it is that you’re writing, usually it doesn’t show up until you’re anywhere from 4 to 5 paragraphs in. One of the biggest mistakes people can make and one of the biggest causes of writer’s block is trying to write the perfect first line before you write everything else. It’s similar to what you’re saying but even after you get past the monkey mind, write 4 or 5 paragraphs before you try to edit anything. Don’t worry about how great the lead is because that first opening lead paragraph probably hasn’t been written. You go and you see it and you go, “There it is.” You cut and paste and move it up.

It’s so in line with what I’ve learned about copywriting and it’s the same thing. If I’m writing posts or sales copy, you write all of it and you come back and you write your subject line. You write that hook at the beginning, but it’s not until you’ve written the content that you go, “This would make the perfect opening for all of these pieces.” The lessons and learnings can translate over and across the barriers.

Yes, and they translate so well. Tell me, what is one of the most interesting things in your mind that translates from your dominatrix work to your business coaching work? What is something that you find an interesting translation in your experience?

One that I have a lot of fun with is this concept of surrender. I’ll explain briefly. Inside of a scene, and we call them scene because very often, there’s no sex involved, which again is contrary to what most people think. Inside of a scene what the submissive or client is looking to do is they want to be able to get to the place where they let go of everything. They let go of their worries and their concerns and quite often, these are high-powered people. They have a lot of responsibility so they need that time where they can let go and completely surrender.

I find that for most business owners, and particularly women, God bless the women, but they can be control freaks. There’s a need to surrender to being able to listen to our intuition, our inner knowing that inner wisdom, those nudges, that inspiration, those things require us to let go of control. It’s much like what we were saying about the opening line. Let go of needing to control the opening line. Get busy writing it, and boom, something will pop off the page. That’s surrender. That’s that moment of allowing yourself to be open and present. For me, that energy is vital for people not only for stopping the whole burnout and overworking but also as a balance and finding those key pieces of where you’re going to lean into next in your business.

Another thing that you said earlier that ties to that too, is that movement. How often is it that we get our best ideas? I don’t know about you, but a lot of my best stuff comes when I’m walking on the beach or you’re doing something else. That ties into that surrender because you’re not trying to figure it out.

When you’re not pushing at it, then it can drop in. It’s so incredible. For me, it’s a shower. I live where there’s lots of snow in the winter. I can’t always walk on the beach.

It’s not a picnic to walk on the beach a lot of days in Connecticut, either.

We need those balance points. We need something where we’re stimulating our brain differently and all the processing that’s going on is happening in the background and the light bulb goes on.

The most effective leaders are those that raise their people up. They elevate everyone to be with them, not under them. Click To Tweet

We have our next idea.

The next bestseller.

I know you have a couple of books out.

I do.

Is there anything in the future?

I’ve been tossing around what book to do next. I’m probably going to take another stab at my Badass Intuition. That’s an intro book that people can pick up, so if you go to BadAssIntuition.com, you can grab a copy of that. It gives you the six-week process for starting to be able to trust your intuition with practical and tangible tools. I wouldn’t mind expanding that and making it the beginner and diving into more of the advanced and getting into some of the woo-woo and the magical side of intuition. That would be fun to play in.

That sounds enticing.

Other than that, I don’t have any concrete plans now but who knows? I’m sure there’d be more books.

Let’s switch to the business of authorship and put that hat on. I know a lot of our readers are writing a book to help grow their brand and their business. Share with our readers a little bit about how to do it because there are so many ways to do it. What are some of the strategies of how you employ your book to help expand your brand and your business?

I would say that my primary book, which was the one that I put my most heart and soul into is Become a Badass in Business. That’s my primary one. That one I crafted with the reader in mind saying, “I want them to walk away with tools. Even if they never work with me, I want them to have a good basic understanding of here’s a whole bunch of tools that you can do to get yourself into more of this space of the inner dominatrix, into being that badass.”

Woven in there, I was intentional about seeding it to work with me. When I talk about certain things, I may intersperse a little bit of client stories or showing them how they can take it further. A lot of it is woven through the story. That’s the first thing. It’s to be intentional when you’re writing it. For me, my books are always for sale when I’m speaking. I’ve been using the books to get speaking gigs. Sometimes the books are promotional. Maybe we package it in and we say, “You’re going to pay me this much for speaking and it’s going to include so many books.”

There are so many ways that I’ve played with it. The first book that I wrote was what I was getting out there, speaking or promoting myself at tables, fairs, and things. I had something for the table. I’m like, “What am I selling?” It was boring, so I needed something for the table. That was quick and dirty, get it out there. It’s a book to have. It’s a table maker, so to speak. I would say those are my key ways. I did the Amazon bestseller promotion. You have that title and making use of those pieces and money continues to trickle in.

I always remind people in every chance I get that it’s not the book sales, where you’re going to see the return on investment. It’s people who’ve read your book and who reach out to you. Your strategy is great, like using actual client stories because it helps the reader. It’s a great soft-sell technique because it helps the reader imagine themselves in that position or relating to that client. It’s always good to use examples of people that you loved working with.

 

Exactly, so you attract more of them.

It’s more of the same.

I would say that a book that is done strategically right from the writing through to how you’re promoting it and how you continue to use it is a fantastic tool, no matter what. For me to be able to say, “I have five published books,” that also has a certain amount of credibility. Even though it’s quite simple to self-publish, it’s still a lot of work to write a book. To say that I have five books under my belt also puts me on another level when I go and apply for speaking gigs or when I go to get on podcast interviews. People look at that and go, “This is not somebody who’s done a one and done book, one compilation or they wrote one page.” It’s a little more intensive and it says, “There’s more substance in there.” There’s a lot for credibility.

Did you notice a shift from before you were an author to after you became an author to how people responded to you in your seeking speaking gigs?

For speaking gigs, definitely. There’s a huge difference. It’s always twofold. In that, I saw myself differently because I’d put that effort in and I completed that. I presented myself differently and they saw me differently. Did they see me differently because I presented differently or did they see me differently because of the book? It’s a bit of a chicken and egg deal here but either way, it does work.

The most powerful is when you’ve worked hard enough on the book, you put enough of you into the book and enough of your inquiry into the book that you have, in fact, transformed. That is the most powerful aspect of becoming an author.

The Badass in Business book was that for me. It took eighteen months to write it. I would spend a weekend writing and I’d have to take a month and do therapy and spend another weekend writing because I bared my soul and I talked about things that I hadn’t been public about. It’s not anything bad. I had spent so long in the closet with that, that coming out and realizing, “My family might read this. I outed them.” There was a lot to be looking at internally. It was definitely an internal transformation.

I’d love to have you speak a little bit more to that because I know that comes up quite a bit especially with people who are writing memoirs, but not even necessarily memoirs. It comes up even in a business book if you’re sharing about your background and when there are some of the people who might not come across as so great who are still alive. How did you navigate that?

I need to preface that I have an unusual family. Growing up in the cult, half of them are not speaking to me. That half I don’t care. I don’t think they would ever read the book. The other half is a strange relationship. We don’t talk about it. It was more of my own internal. I’m like, “How am I going to feel knowing that there’s a possibility that they’ll read it. Also, knowing that having the title saying, ‘The Inner Dominatrix Guide to Become a Badass in Business,’ they probably are not going to pick it up but I still needed to become okay with that happening.” What I came to was that I softened some things. I softened some truth. It’s not that I lied about it, but I decided to tone it down a little bit, so when I talked about leaving my father’s house and moving into my mother’s house, my mother is a sex addict and alcoholic or was. She’s clearly not practicing the sex addict anymore. She still drinks. She’s a bit older.

Not for lack of trying though.

No. The pickings of men get a little bit thinner at her age. I made a reference to sex, drugs and rock and roll in the house rather than labeling it and saying, “This is this is what it is.” For me, that felt a way to make peace with it. I spoke with a lot of people because there was a lot of discussion around what is your intention? What do you need to say? What does the audience, the reader need to know? Because they do need to get that my childhood was extremes. Cults, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It doesn’t get more crazy extreme than that and this is part where I hope people see me as sane, but to realize how crazy I was and how much I’ve transformed. That was what was important. It was evaluating for me what needed to be in there as opposed to where I have this desire to tell the absolute truth about everything.

You navigated that so well for someone who is a first-time author, especially. My mentor was a world-renowned journalist and I remember there were a few times when we were working together and we’ve learned things about people that were definitely interesting and titillating but the standard was always, “Is it essential to the story to include it?” There were things that we left out because they would have caused unnecessary pain and they were not essential to understanding the story or the or even the character. Thank you for sharing about that, though because I know this does come up for people and it can be something to wrestle with and something that can feel scary.

It is what’s going on in your mind and in some families, you’re going to need to navigate that differently. If you care about maintaining a relationship with your family, there may need to be a discussion about, “This is going in the book, because it’s an important part of my story and you now need to deal with your stuff about that, because that’s not my stuff.” Your stuff about being outed is your stuff. I’m going to be gentle. You could have some input, but I’m not going to stop saying what I’m going to say. I can word it differently but I still need to say it.

People are motivated more strongly by moving away from pain. Click To Tweet

Does everybody hear how great Dana is at laying boundaries?

I should hope so. As a former dominatrix, I should be good at this.

You walk the talk, young lady.

Years of dealing with bratty submissives in the dungeon who were constantly trying to push the boundaries, you get good about, “No.” No is a complete sentence in my world.

That is something interesting that maybe you could speak to. When you are working with high-level and powerful people as clients and it’s interesting because even if you’re not in a dominatrix situation, I work with that level of people as well. In my experience, without the whip, or at least a visible one, but they want me to be in control. They want their coach or whoever their facilitator is to lead them. They are so relieved and grateful.

It’s true. I do find the higher up you go, as far as people who are accomplished or whatever, they’re looking for somebody who is stronger than them and can hold a bigger container than them. It’s like, “Have you got me?” It is basically what it is. They will test you to see and if you cave on those things, then they’ve lost respect for you. Not to say that you can’t win it back, but they’re looking for it. The reason that they’re pushing you is to find out where those limits are. It’s like a teenager. They’re always looking to find out and reinforce, “Is it there?” “Do you mean that?” “No, I’m going to try that again, I don’t think you mean that.”

“Let me test you one more time.”

“Just throw it out there. Maybe you don’t mean it.”

I think that is important to know especially for people who are getting started in coaching, which is also part of our listenership, people who are thinking, “One day, I’m going to do a book but right now I’m developing my skills as a coach as a leader.” This is an important lesson. I remember being both delighted and surprised. When I would start to get these clients and be like, “No, this is what we’re doing. We’re doing it my way because I don’t know if your way works.”

If you’d like to test your way on your diamond and your time, let me know because we’re doing this.

That’s how we do it here. Also, to get that how much they were literally relieved and you get older as a coach too because you realize, “This is who I need to be to help this person get what they want, as well. They’re counting on me to be strong.”

I learned this lesson. I don’t think I’ve ever shared this, but these are some good juicy bits. In my first pro dom client, I was not as firm on some of the boundaries and things and I let him lead. Afterward, I reached out to him because you check-in afterward, “How was the session?” He’s like, “I was hoping you’d be more firm. You’ve got to put me in my place.” I’m like, “Damn it.” I lost him as a client and it stuck with me from there. I was like, “I’ve got to be firm.”

That’s probably the hardest thing for people to lean into and in the end, is the biggest thing that we need to lean into. This is how I’m doing the book process. You’re either onboard or not on board. I had a client come back to me who, the first time around, wasn’t committed to a full package, so it was a pay-as-you-go. He farted around in his sessions. It drove me crazy and I’m like, “You could get so much more out of this. You’re wasting your time. What are you doing?” I couldn’t hold him to the task. He came back and I’m asking him all kinds of questions. I’m like, “Why do you think you’re ready? Why is it going to be different?” I’m like, “I’m not ready to take your money until you show me that you’re ready.” He’s been a delight to work with this time around. It’s such a breeze because I put a firm ground using boundaries. I get my tongue to work.

What have I not asked you that I should be asking you?

We’ve covered some great stuff. How can I help your authors or would-be authors so they can get their book out in the world and get their voices heard? What do they need?

What do you think they probably need, based on your experience?

The biggest thing that I see with authors is that piece of, “It’s not good enough. Everybody’s done this topic.” It comes down to doing that inner journey, that inner exploration of, “What am I awesome at? Why am I awesome?” This takes time. I gave this assignment to my group program and I said, “This may take you a year to do to map out ten things, ten specific things that make you awesome and why people would want to hang out with you.”

As you develop that list, you start to own it and reinforce it. There’s this process that I take people through with being able to work with their inner children. We create a whole sanctuary so you can play and it’s reinforcement like reparenting, so those messages are the messages that are going into your kids and saying, “I’m awesome, because,” and you have that list. “I’m awesome, because,” so you’re leaning on those messages and continuing to put the duct tape on the monkey mind. That would be the assignment that I would leave for you, the reader, would-be author, or current author is to start to make your list and have that piece to lean on anytime you feel you’re less than or not good enough. To go back to that list and say, “Yes I am, and here’s why.”

That brings us full circle from where we started, which was thinking about the imposter syndrome, the fraud factor, and how we get over ourselves so we can start writing, finish writing, go through publication and start promoting the book, which is probably a whole other show.

If you get stuck, call me because that’s where I get your head on straight so you can put these things into place.

Dana, thank you so much for sharing so generously with us. It has been an absolute pleasure having you here with us.

Thank you, Robin.

Important links: 

• Badass Intuition
• Become a Badass in Business
• https://DanaPharant.com/

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