Our guest, Deana Mitchelle is the President of Genius & Sanity. She’s an entrepreneur, mental health advocate, speaker, coach and best-selling author. Let’s get to know more about her and her book, The Shower Genius. Deana also talks about her mission of reducing suicide rate by founding Realize Foundation.

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Podapalooza! It sounds hard to spell, but it's easy to say and it's so much fun!!

Welcome to the official Podapalooza podcast. That's right. We're the official podcast for the hottest newest podcasting event out there. You can take a look at more information about Podapalooza at www.Podapalooza.com. It sounds hard to spell, but it's easy to say and it's so much fun. Let me tell you about this podcast. So we are interviewing our particular is a featured podcasters That's right, I've heard of loser our feature podcasters are gonna be interviewing VIPs all throughout the event. And each podcaster is going to be featured on this podcast so you can learn a little bit more about the show. What makes them tick, why they started their show, and they're gonna give some great tips to how to be a great guest on their show. You too can be on their show when you go to Podapalooza.com. Buy your VIP ticket. All right, let's do this.

Hey, hey, Podapaloozians Michelle Abraham your host here and I've got Deana Mitchell with us today. Deana actually won our grand prize at the last part of Podapalooza , which is super awesome, and why we're having this interview. So this interview is going to be showcasing Deana but also know that Deana loves pod palooza. So tell us about Podapalooza in your experience, Deana, how crazy of an event.

I've been thinking about starting a podcast for a couple of years. And I have kind of an informal YouTube channel where I do interviews for my nonprofit. So that was been my practice. But it was so good to be there with all these professional podcasters and learn more about podcasting and hear about their shows, and their content and all that stuff. So thank you for having me.

You're welcome. And were you a VIP, did you get to go on and be interviewed on other shows? I did. So you got to go on to Yahoo, SAS watch the mainstage speakers and during the day and got some great information from them.

Yes, yes. And like I said, it was interesting, because there's so many people with so many different topics and, and how they spend that and how they find guests. And it was all very interesting to me. Yeah,

I love it. And I know you're still thinking about a podcast, which is super cool. And I love I love that you have a what you call practice podcast, because we've kind of like started saying this recently that podcasting is like evolving out loud, in so like, you know, calling your first few episodes of practice is good, because then it takes the pressure off, like having to be perfect, right? We've got this thing and amplify you it's like, you're not embarrassed by your first few episodes. You waited too damn long to put them out there. Right. So that is that's exactly that's it have a good time of practice, Todd. So now you've just launched the book. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about your books called the shower genius.

Yeah, I know that the name is confusing to people, I think. But to give you a short overview is that it's all about how self care and putting yourself first can actually help you grow a business and actually make you more productive. So that's the bottom line. But it came about because I close my business after COVID happened. And I was at home in the shower, and I would have these ideas and I'd get to my desk and I couldn't remember them. I put a whiteboard in my bathroom. And that's where the name came from.

I live in here, do brainstorming in the shower on your whiteboard. That's brilliant. Do you write on the glass? Or do you actually write on a whiteboard? Actually had a whiteboard? Cool, do you then take the whiteboard with you to your office, then

I would take pictures of it. So I have pictures of all the things I've I've wrote on it. But it just helps me remember the main idea. And then when I add to my desk, I could brainstorm more about you know, I made more notes. But I closed my business of 10 years and I didn't know what to do with myself. And I was starting a nonprofit. So it was having all these creative ideas and 72% of people out of eight countries surveyed said they have the best ideas in the shower.

Interesting. I love it. Man. I think that's such a cool, clever name for your book. And I hope you name your podcast the same too, because I think that's super cool. Tell us a little bit about your nonprofit.

Yes, it's called the realized Foundation. And we our mission is to reduce suicide rates using human connection. And we do that through conversations community and personal stories. So we publish the scars and stars books which you see behind me. We've published two of them and we're going to do two a year. And they each have Around 20 people telling their story of overcoming adversity in the books and they both been bestsellers so far. And the other thing we do is to create our community is we do very Two events. And so we took a little break from those when we were launching the first books, but now we're, we're going to do them again. So we're probably going to do for at least in 2023, and we just had one last Saturday.

Wow, that's so cool. Well, congratulations. It sounds like it's going well. And it's like such an important, such an important movement. I think it's really, really great that connection and community and personal story think, oh my gosh, that can just change someone's life in a in an instant. And I'm going to talk to you after this recording, because I got an idea for you actually, it has something to do with those stories on the podcast. Yeah, I think that would be so amazing. So anyways, I'll talk to you about after we stopped recording, because I think it would be super cool to secret for the rest of you guys listening, can hear about it now top secrets.

The other big thing is that, you know, I am a suicide survivor that didn't speak about it for 23 years. And I didn't speak about it because I never felt like it was okay. And I think that if I would have read a book, like one of our books and read somebody's story that was similar to mine, and I had a link and I could actually reach out to them, I think it would have been life changing. So that's the whole point is to meet somebody in that safe space of their home or wherever it is that they know they're not alone and that were there. And maybe there's not somebody close to them in their life they could talk to, but they can come to our events and talk to

us. Amazing. Wow, I'm so so grateful that you started the organization. I think it's a meeting such so much so so much needed in the world for sure. What were you doing before you what was the business that you were in before the pandemic?

Why spent 30 plus years in the hotel, restaurant meetings and events, a cool industry. So I started in restaurant when I was in college, then I worked in hotels for 15 years. And then I owned what we call a DMC or a destination management company. Um, the last 10 years before COVID. And we did you know, we we did logistics for high end corporate events all over the state of Colorado. Cool. And that was, you know, that's what I knew. That's what I was, I thought was my zone of genius, but I think it was just my zone of excellence. Right? Finding my zone of genius. So it's, it's something that I missed some days. And the other days, I'm like, yeah, the reason I wrote my book is because I spent so many years not putting myself first and not taking care of myself.

Yeah. Now your the shower routine is I love it. And I love I just love that you're bringing this to like the, the microphone of like how our business can be more productive and can actually thrive and can actually grow, when we take care of ourselves. And when we focus on our personal care. Because as an entrepreneur, I think we are kind of like, it's very masculine. And it's like very ingrained. Like go go go go go to the grind kind of thing. And like if you take time off, or you're not busy, like you're not doing things, right kind of thing is kind of the mentality and the attitude that I have feelings that I've gotten from the industry, that industry, but like the the profession. And so I love that you're bringing this to the table and your book.

Yeah, I think, you know, my parents were entrepreneurs. So I grew up in that same environment that you're talking about, it's like you, you're so driven, and you push yourself so hard. And then you feel guilty if you go get a massage, or you feel guilty if you take a vacation. And my husband and I had planned this big, we didn't really have a honeymoon. So we planned this big trip for our fifth anniversary. We went on that trip in year 18 of our marriage, oh my gosh, because we were too busy to to make it happen. And so the the book is actually a framework of 12 steps of like, how do you get from that I'm working 18 hours a day, I'm stressed, I can't focus, I'm overwhelmed. You're like in that in that place where you're pushing yourself so hard that you can't even accomplish what you need to accomplish. And you feel guilty about it, too. working less hours, producing more and having a life outside of that, that business. And how do you create that for yourself? And I was doing that before COVID And so during COVID I was processing, how do we, you know, while I was starting a nonprofit and doing all this research on mental health, I was like how can we apply this more to entrepreneurs and leaders who are killing themselves to be successful? It's just you can't, you can have both.

Yeah, that's so important. I know you think about like, sometimes I've had to check myself and like, Wait, if I had a nine to five job, I'd be working a lot less than I am right now. Whereas, like, went into this to have like, the freedom and the flexibility. You know, and then it's like, wait a second, my 2023 mantra is, me first. And me first being like, no appointments until I've done my self care in my routines in the morning and had a breath, and then can go to ever everyone else's agenda. So I'm with you on that I'm gonna have to order your book. And I love it. Because I think it's so so genius.

And it's, it's, well, the name of my company, my new company is genius and sanity. And I think it's, it's, it's those two things that we need to focus on, we need to focus on our genius. And not all the things we need. We think we all have to do ourselves. And you know, and really focus on our sanity. And we do have a free Saturday quiz. On my website, where you can, you can take that, and some people are scared to take it and other people are now what's your website? It's just Deena brown mitchell.com. And you can you can find it there on the shower genius page. And we're planning to launch a course in the first quarter of 2023. Cool,

I love it. Sounds awesome. And I hope you're coming to join us a paddock police on January 17. That's our next one coming up. And Dennis has been so much fun getting to know you a little bit more. And what you're all up to and you're just doing amazing things in the world and want to thank you for for that and I can't wait to hear more.

Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome.

All right. pottuvil Izzy and sia January 17. At our next part of Palooza until then go out there and make sure you register as a featured podcasts our featured speaker or come on in as a VIP and come get interviewed on a bunch of podcasts. All right, until next time, guys, take care.