Shownotes
Welcome to Unlocking Your World of Creativity with today's guest, Diana Kokoszka
- Diana shares insights from her new book, "Becoming More," and discusses the power of training the brain to think differently for enhanced creativity and success.
- Neuroplasticity and Thought Patterns: Diana explains how repetitive thoughts create neural pathways, likening it to walking the same path across grass, and emphasizes the importance of breaking old thought patterns to foster creativity and growth.
- Creative Problem-Solving: Diana shares her journey from a struggling single parent to a successful real estate agent through innovative approaches like door-to-door networking and creative marketing strategies.
- The Role of Mentors: Reflecting on her mentors like John Maxwell and Zig Ziglar, Diana emphasizes the importance of learning from both successes and failures, highlighting the value of mentorship in personal and professional growth.
- Overcoming Challenges:*Diana candidly discusses facing financial setbacks and emphasizes the importance of resilience, mindset, and facing challenges head-on, rather than avoiding or denying them.
- Abundance Mindset and Legacy: Diana advocates for cultivating an abundance mindset, combating scarcity and doubt, and shares practical techniques from her book to retrain the brain for confidence, gratitude, and success.
Key Pull-out Quote: "No one succeeds alone. Every single person that has ever made it big... always had others that helped them... It's not the circumstances we're in that make our life journey. It's the decisions we make around the circumstances we're in that cause our life journey."
Listeners are encouraged to explore Diana's book, "Becoming More," and her upcoming events for practical strategies to unlock their creativity and achieve personal and professional growth. Join the journey of unlocking creativity in the next episode!
Transcripts
Welcome back, friends, to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. And just in the last few episodes, we've been from Detroit to Oslo, LA to Zurich, Dallas to London. And we've talked to creatives ranging from poets and violinists to architects and a live event producer, even a furniture designer and an internationally known singer.
Today our travels take us to Austin, Texas, and we'll land in Austin and drive a little bit outside of Austin on Lake Travis. And we're talking about training and creativity to become more. And my guest is Diana Kokoska. Diana,
welcome. Thank you so much. It's what a great opportunity to add value today.
I know many things about you. You add value every time. So thanks for letting me join you.
Thank you. And we're going to be talking about Diana's new book, Becoming More. Diana, thinking about the inspiration behind the book, and what readers can expect when they pick up a copy. One
of the things that I learned at a very young age is that we train our brain how to think for us.
And by having the same thoughts over and over again, Mark, we are actually like cutting a rut. In our brain to think a certain way and automatically we think that way, much like walking across the grass. If I keep walking across the grass in the same place, pretty soon grass doesn't grow.
I've got a rut. I'm instantly going to take that way because it's shorter, it's faster, and I love it. Then, if I take a different route, And put grass seed down it'll grow back. That's like our brain. When we have a thought, it travels along an axon, a neural pathway, if you will, and nerve cells that fire together, wire together.
It's fast. It's short. We automatically think that way to change our thinking, we must think a different way cutting a new neural pathway and neuroscience, as tells us nerve cells that no longer fire together, no longer wire together. So we're training our brain to a new way of thinking, a new way of doing things, a new way of being a new habit, if you
will.
Yes. It's a great metaphor, this idea of a pathway, and I think of your own path quite remarkable going from a successful real estate agent to training other successful real estate agents in the Keller Williams Realty Group and their MAPS coaching program. Maybe you could walk us through the creative process that you went through to really, build the curriculum of what it takes to be successful in your field.
Thanks for that question, Mark. When I started real estate, I really couldn't afford to go to real estate. It was a PBS auction I was watching one early morning because my child was sick, and they auctioned off a real estate course. I instantly looked at my checkbook and, oh my gosh, I could bid 50, and part of me said, don't do it.
The other part said nothing ventured nothing gained. So I called the auctioneer helped me bid the 50 And at 6 a. m. I had won. I was going to real estate school. It was so much fun and I went Now, the interesting part, back in those days in Denver, Colorado, it was a man's world in real estate. And they were just starting to have women go into each and every office.
I went to the best sales office in Denver, knowing they would love me because I was so good at sales. I put myself through college, right? Selling. They wouldn't even interview me. I was like devastated. They said, Oh, we have Emma Curtis and Emma Curtis became my hero of the day. Like, how did she get in?
I went to More and Company. They had Marilyn Getch. 12 offices later, finally, Sam Bright said, okay, we've got one woman. We'll let you in now. I went home so excited and the next morning, Mark, I woke up and I went, what in the world did I just do? Can't even afford a babysitter. So I had to become creative. I knew people would not come to me.
So I put my kids in a little red wagon and started going door to door and knocking on doors, introducing myself. You can imagine what other realtors were saying about my professionalism, so to speak, yet it clicked. I would speak with the women and I would say, would you like to know about investing in real estate?
Pretty soon I started having investment parties for them and their husbands and they would have their friends come over and around a table we would just sit and discuss and pretty soon those parties got larger and I kept knocking doors year after year. I think it's the consistency. No matter what you do, I found that consistency worked.
And that first year, while the average agent was selling five homes, great agents were selling 25. At the end of the year, I was stunned to find out I had sold 104 homes. I had made more money. I didn't even know what to do with it. I had never been in that position before. I'd been taught to give. I'd been taught to save and thank goodness, so going to the C suite.
How did I get there? It was a lot of hard work. It was simple. It wasn't just easy, yet I found consistency and doing something different. In my book it says, becoming more. You can't get to better until you get to different. So I was always looking for different things. I found out who liked Santa Claus.
I took Santa Claus with me door to door so people could have pictures in their own home with Santa Claus. And Santa Claus told the kids, now go to bed early. And they loved me for it. I just help kids. And I always added value, not just about real estate. I added value in other ways and built relationships, which I think is important.
Definitely. And you mentioned a couple of those early mentors and advisors, and then you yourself became advisors on several presidential committees and boards. What do you think the value of mentors advisors, people that we can look up to the early heroes in your career?
No one succeeds alone.
Every single person that has ever made it big in this country or in the world always had others that helped them. And I believe that mentors, because they've been there, done that, they've stumbled along the way. No one gets to success without failure. And to learn from other people's success is great. I think learning from their failures is even better because you know they failed and it makes you feel pretty good.
In fact, I remember hearing from one lady on stage at a convention that I was attending and she said, Every night her dad would say what did you fail at today and what did you learn about that? And I thought what a great question to ask your kids and to train them that it's okay to fail. In fact, you're almost looking for things that you can fail at.
Also, I've had John Maxwell who's the leadership guru of the world so to speak and he's been my mentor for almost 29 years now. Growing up, we had people like Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Cavett Roberts at our table in our home. And, oh, the stories that they would share with me. The things that I didn't even pay attention to back then, yet.
They really impl embedded in my brain. Mark, one of the things that Zig Ziglar told me is be careful who you listen to. Jim Rohn taught me that you become like the five people you hang out with, so make certain that your friends are people that you desire to be like, and put yourself in rooms where people are smarter than you, people are doing more than you, and constantly be searching for that more in your life.
Now, whether it's more money or just being better, it doesn't matter. It is about becoming better than you were yesterday.
So good. A lot of creative people, Diana would look and hear your stories and say, yeah, but you were in such a position or you had the income or you had the success already.
What about me? Maybe I'm not that creative or resourceful or, so far in my career right now. What do you guide people in your coaching practice to think about? You may not be everything now, but as you said, you can become
more. For that question, I had 357 one on one coaches that were under my leadership great people, and they were helping almost 5, 000 clients, had 80 group coaches that had over 10, 000 clients, and 57 coaches that went out training a BOLD program I wrote, and they had over 200, 000 people have been through that program.
And the one thing I told them all is, if it were to be done, how could it be done? The if question. We think about writing things down, and I would say, take 1 through 20, number a piece of paper, and what if? And you say, I could do it by doing this, by doing that. The first ten generally come pretty easy.
It's the next ten where the real gold is. I didn't just come up with putting my kids in a red wagon. By the way, if you're out there and you're having anxiety or stress, or whatever you're going through thinking that you can't make it, it doesn't matter where you've been. Then today's a new day. For example, I didn't watch my money.
I was making a lot of money. I was having fun taking my kids on vacation. I loved cars mark. I had four cars. I was the only one in our household because I was a single parent. The only one that drove. We had a motor home. Oh my goodness. I didn't watch my money. A lady came in. I had a property management division, 72 houses.
It paid my bills and all the other money I made was just extra. So much fun. She helped herself to that money. I didn't watch. My fault. I woke up one morning with my car repossessed. 72 house payments, three times over. People are wondering, how can that be? I don't want to get into the details. The situation was though, I became a great negotiator with those mortgage companies and banks.
I paid everybody back. I sold my offices because I had four real estate offices at the time with about a hundred agents in each one. I was doing well. I got pennies on the dollar because everybody knew I was hurting. I lost every home, investment home, sold them, sold my cars, kept my own house, and started over.
And I had to be very creative in my own mind, because man, that storyteller in my mind would not shut up. It would tell me how stupid I was. How did you let this happen? Look what you've done to your kids. Talk about. Depression almost setting in, yet having two kids, I had to feed them, right?
So I learned to quiet that storyteller in my mind. I learned to be creative by thinking of different things instantly. I had a rubber band around my wrist. And every time that negativity would start, I would snap the rubber band. I got a welt so bad my wrist. It was a lot of reminders. I don't. Yeah. I don't recommend that yet.
I want the people to hear really that today's a new day. And if you were to do it, how would you do it? And start writing the creative things down. What if we're going to be terrible? Who cares? It'll get those creative juices started.
Thanks for being so forthcoming and revealing about those experiences.
I know for my own story, You know of those very low moments where you wake up one day and it's not what you thought it was or You know the leases do and you don't have it, And the business is not there and you want to fake it till you make it so to speak But there's no faking if there's nothing in that bank account that morning.
Is there but I think a lot of people go ahead
Oh, I was going to say, we got to face it till we make it. I learned that from Dr. Henry Cloud. He said, don't fake it till you make it, face it till you make
it. Very strong. Very strong. Because I think a lot of people would say becoming more assumes that you're already having some degree of success and now you just want to blossom and be all you can be, so to speak.
But it's also when we're facing the tough times that we have to think about this, isn't it?
It is and we're going to have tough times. A lot of people think because people are successful or they have money, they've had it very easy. In the book, I talk about two kids as they grow up and one becomes very successful and the other one is homeless.
They both grew up with alcoholic parents. When they asked the successful person, What is it that made you so successful? He said, I grew up with alcoholic parents. I didn't want to be like them. They asked the homeless man, How did you grow up? Why are you homeless now? And he said I grew up. With alcoholic parents, you don't know my past.
They both had the same past. It was the decisions they made. And so it's not the circumstances we're in that makes our life journey. It's the decisions we make around the circumstances we're in that causes our life journey. Yes,
and as you continue to expand your coaching practice, what's ahead for you this year?
Event wise or, developing new programs what do you have planned?
That's what I'm most excited about. I have a program in Nashville, John Maxwell and I are getting together with eight other speakers and Amanda Holmes from ultimate sales machine on doubling your sales. She's helped over 250, 000.
Amanda is wonderful. Yes.
Oh, I'm so glad and you can promote her. She's fabulous. Here's the greatest part about this whole event. The people that come, they're going to get experiences. I have three surprise experiences for these folks, plus all of the speakers, and All the profits are going to help kids to buy books to teach values and leadership in our schools, in our public schools.
One school in South Carolina has done this for one year. Bullying went down 27 percent. There goes anxiety from our children. There goes the stress because bullying is causing a lot of problems. So that's what I'm excited about. You should be there, Mark.
That sounds like a lot of fun. Now, where can we learn more about it?
They can go to more M O R E training.
Wonderful. I'm glad you brought up the book program. I watched one of your videos about this program and was so fascinated. Reading is a part of so many people's lives and mine as well. You're just soaking up knowledge and experience from others.
But even at this young age, what do you think it is about books? Owning the book, holding the book, reading the book that does help kids so much. I
think number one what I've seen around the world is many times it's the first book they've actually held. In our schools, the kids love having the book because they actually lead the classes.
The teachers sit back and the kids do all the work, all the teaching, all the responding. And a lot of times it's the first time that these kids have truly been heard. It's the first time they've been able to speak out. And everybody talks. A lot of kids are very shy. They sit back. They don't want to participate, yet with the help of the other kids, it's amazing to watch them blossom.
And I just believe we've got to take a stand for people's greatness in this world because so many other people, including themselves, are taking a stand for their limitations and those limiting beliefs. If we can get those kids out of those limiting beliefs, where would our world be? Where would they be?
Let's put them on the right path to success.
Yes, that is a good path because if we can get over some of those humps, at those early ages, whether it's bullying or any other kind of emotional stress, it's be great for the kids and obviously them for our world.
Exactly. And the Becoming More book is more than a book it's literally a formula, almost like a manual, to help retrain your brain, giving you models and systems to use and here's what's interesting, Mark, we have an assessment, it's a mindset assessment, because mindset's in your subconscious mind, attitude is in your conscious mind, we set goals with our conscious mind, yet it's our subconscious mind that helps us obtain those goals based upon the way we think about ourselves, our surroundings, the environment that we're in, as well as what we're doing, and how we're, how good we are at it. When we're doing that, We don't know where we're at because it's subconscious.
So the mindset assessment helps us. And we're finding, especially in sales, because that's where I came from. The sales people are hitting right now at 72 percent in a scarcity mindset, 60 percent in doubt, scarcity, doubt winning combination. For anxiety and stress, and I think that's why the Institute of Stress is saying that 96 percent of all the American workers right now are feeling stress in their relationships, stress in their finance, stress in their marriage, which is causing many divorces.
The book will help us. The assessment will tell us where we're at and then we give little things that you can do every day to help train your subconscious mind into an abundant mindset to train your brain from the emotions that you're feeling into new emotions because you already know without me telling you.
You can't have an emotion until you have put a meaning around something that's happening. You can't feel anger anymore if you give up what you're angry at, quit focusing on it, but it could be something or someone, right? You surrender to that, anger goes away, so it teaches us how to train our brain to a new way of thinking, a new way of feeling, a new mindset that will serve us going into personal growth, the four energies of success, leaving a legacy that we desire.
I love that. And the scarcity mindset, ah, so prevalent, isn't it? In so many fields that as if there's a finite, there's only so many sales, there's only so many homes, there's only so many X, Y, Z product, whatever market you tend to be in, you think that there's not enough to go around. And I like the opposite of that, that you're describing this abundance mindset.
And you have a very giving and a very gratitude mindset. Even just like the, with the books we were talking about, but even in your own book listeners going to give you a little secret here. If you go on Diana's website for the book, becoming more book. com, she's even giving away a complimentary download of a whole chapter of the book.
There's a gift from Diana, right? For you listeners that are on with us right now. Yeah, I love
that chapter. It's my favorite one. It's on energy and talks about the four energies of success. When you train your brain to having that type of energy, so confidence shows up the fact that you can walk in anywhere and just know that you belong there and your greatness will show.
Terrific. Diana was a wonderful conversation. I've gotten so much out of it. Can't wait to dive more into the book and I'd love to look into this program coming up in Nashville in March.
Oh I so appreciate this great opportunity, Mark. And just in reading about you and listening to some of the former podcasts, over 300 of them, I did listen to all of them.
I just trust that the listeners just. Love listening to you. You've helped the world in so many ways. Thank you for all you do.
You're very gracious. Thank you, Diana Kokoska, for being my guest on Unlocking Your World of Creativity. And Diana, you've shared such an incredible journey, all the insights into your own creative process.
We've even looked ahead to your journey and love to hear the projects that you're passionate about. So I want to wish you all the best
thank you so much. Thanks again. It's been my
pleasure. And listeners come back We're going to continue our around the world journeys
we've stamped our creative passport in austin today We'll continue our around the world journeys talking to creative practitioners about their own journeys in becoming more Will it continue this in depth exploration on transformative experiences and creative insights? Until then we'll be unlocking Your world of creativity.
