Women who have the audacity to speak their truth without guilt or apology are absolutely some of my favorite people and today’s guest, Neena Perez and I became instant friends. As soon as I saw the name of her podcast,  “Straight Talk, No Sugar Added”, and the title of her book, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot, How I Overcame a Hard Hitting Life”, I knew I was going to connect with business and performance coach, author, podcaster, and total baddie, Neena Perez.   Neena is also a chef and director of culinary operations, so believe me when I say this woman is a powerhouse and I am excited to introduce you to her.  

Instead of giving into the mindset and way of life she saw growing up, Neena was determined to not only survive but to succeed.   She knew that the key to overcoming her challenges was by changing her thinking, doing the work, and finding people to surround herself with who did not accept limits. Neena and I had such a great convo because she is just as direct and straightforward as I am.  She is also wise, generous, kind, and funny.  If you love this episode, you definitely want to check out our conversation on Straight Talk, No Sugar Added.  Her coaching framework is called  Master Your Game (Goals, Accountability, Mind-flow, Energy) 

Neena’s straight talk for solopreneurs: 

• Know your why & go 7 levels deep
• Reject the victim mindset 
• Don’t expect handouts or ease
• Boundaries are your friend 
• Focus on your goals, not what others are doing 
• Face your fears 

Mic Drop Moments: 

“If you have to bend down to get into the room, you are in the wrong room.” 

“Worrying about the opinions of others keeps you unsuccessful.”

Want to connect with our guest? 

Website: https://straighttalknosugaradded.com/

Podcast: https://straighttalknosugaradded.com/podcast/ 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/neenaperez/

Neena Perez and I both work with high-achieving women and one of the common themes is that in spite of our effort, there is often a gap between where we are and where we want to be.   Does this apply to you and do you know the cause?  Take this quiz and get your personalized result, and what to do about it! 

What’s Holding You Back?

https://bit.ly/obstaclesquiz

Want a little more connection?  Join The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thedrivenwoman/  

Or connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachdiannwingert/ 

Before you bounce, would you please leave a review of The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast, I’d love to read it on a future episode!    

Apple: https://apple.co/2BZDFzc

Android: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-driven-woman-1194485

Don’t forget to join us next week for Episode #133 when I return with another juicy solo episode.  If you haven’t already, please follow/subscribe to The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast so you won’t miss a single thing! 

H: You know what is so awesome about podcasting is on a regular basis you meet someone that you could literally talk to all day, and yet you have to keep it to a reasonable amount of time. So this is gonna be a conversation that's gonna be very painful for me to end, so let's get right to it. My guest today is Neena Perez and somebody I knew even before we met, I was going to fall head over heels for, because like, she is bold, she's opinionated, and she's super direct. So there's some real synergy going on here but what we're gonna talk about today is why people change in their job, in their career, why people start businesses, why she started her business, why I started my business, and what prevents people from being able to do so because there's a lot of people out there answer the surveys and say, I hate my job and the years continue to go by and they're still there. So we're gonna unpack all of that starting right now. I'm in my third career, Neena's in her third career, give us a little bit of the backstory so we can create some perspective around this conversation.

G: Yeah so I have, well first of all, thank you Diann for having me here and you're right, this is gonna be painful to end. We've been having so much fun talking, this is so good. So, yes, I'm in my third career. I'm a coach, an entrepreneur and author, speaker, also a chef and director of culinary. So I wrote my autobiography, Hit Me with Your Best Shot, How I Overcame a Hard Hitting Life that autobiography was about, you know, abuse and team practicing domestic violence, and it's just a lot. But currently what I do is I help women so I help women strategize what's inside of them, what they want to do, how they wanna transition from what they're doing into either a full-time gig or a side hustle, because a lot of women love what they're doing and they wanna start their own businesses. But like you said, Diann, they join every course, they read every book, they go to every free webinar seminar, and then they do nothing with the information. It's a great way to stay unsuccessful in what you wanna do.

H: See what I mean about direct folks. Okay, but because, you know, I spent many years as a psychotherapist, I try to help people unpack the things that are holding them back. But sometimes Neena, even when know they still don't go and I know you find this with the people you serve and in your community as well. Do you think that you and I are just a different kind of animal who somehow is able to make those leaps without knowing how they're gonna work out or do you think it's something that can be taught and that anyone who wants to can.

G: I think it's a little bit of both, right? I think it's innate in in people. I think that is innate in you. It's innate in me. We're survivors. You fight through things and you learn and you strategize in your little mind when you're a kid on how you're gonna overcome. I think when you are looking at your circumstances, your things you're going through, you can either look at it and try to strategize on how you're gonna overcome it or how to just like buckle down and survive it, right? So there's two different ways, but I think that some people can be taught. I think that if people want to get out of their own way, they can right? So there's a lot of different things that we can do in our lives that'll help us maneuver and that doesn't mean that, and I think this is the misconception that everybody thinks they're gonna start a business and they need to be like a hundred thousand, you know, dollars a month, and they're all go, you know and it's not about that. It's just about moving the needle forward one step at a time and that could be in anything being a wife, being a community leader, whatever that is. So I think it's a little, both Diann, I think some people maybe don't wanna be entrepreneurs, but think that that's what they should be doing right so they…

H: Wait, hold, hold, hold, hold it right there. We gotta talk, we gotta talk about that. I wanna make sure, okay for the people in the back, we don't miss this because I agree. I think there is so much hype, there is so much glamorization of the entrepreneurial lifestyle for both men and women, actually people of all genders that people who don't want their own business are kind of feeling a little ashamed about it. I'm like, yeah, when did this happen? I mean, in just a couple of decades, entrepreneurship has gone from being something that only real outliers and misfits did to being sort of the preferred lifestyle of many, many people. If you ask people, like 80% of people say they want to own their own business, but then when you drill down into it and say, tell me more. Well, I just, I like, and I you know, here's what I think people just don't wanna have a boss, but that does not equate to wanting to be a boss, and that's where I think it starts to fall apart, what are your thoughts on that?

G: Yeah, I think when you start to dig down, and that's happened even with people that I've you know, coached, right because yes, I wanna read my own business and then we break it down all they want is freedom, actually it has nothing to do with wanting their own business. They think that having their own business will equate freedom when an actuality, any real entrepreneur will tell you, they work super hard to have this business and to thrive in this business. I know that there's a lot of guru out there you know, telling you that you can get this done in 90 days and this money's easy and blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, they didn't tell you the hours they put in the sleepless nights, how much they busted their jail. It is not that easy and so it's also misinformation, right Diann?

It's not having the right information. Not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, and some people think they do, but they really don't and when you break it down, they just want a job they can do well. And that they feel like they're wanting to go to work in the morning, that there's some sort of impact. So, you know, it depends like I was speaking to this really big CEO, she's like running this really big company and then where she's sitting across from me and she said at the end of all of the whole thing, she goes, I just wanna be freaking home with my kids like, I don't even wanna do this shit. Like, it just came out, you know and I'm like, great, what does that look like? She goes, what does that look like? She never even considered what that would look like and so a lot of people are just misinformed. Just there's a lot miscommunication, misinformation, being an entrepreneur it takes grit it takes grit, you know, it takes a lot of getting up knowing that you might have to work 12 hours that day. You'll get it together, but it's not going to be super easy, just like going to your job on nine to five and just doing whatever it is they tell you to do.

H: Yeah and you know, my podcast episode, this'll be coming out a few weeks from now, but when I recently recorded talking about, Are You Quiet Quitting in Your Business because there's a lot of people who are quiet quitting in their jobs because they think, you know, this isn't in my job description. They pay me to be here. They don't pay me to give a shit, you know, that I don't have to go above and beyond. I'm not going the extra mile. I don't care about being an employee of the month. I'm just gonna do the minimum, and then I'm gonna go home. But you know, those behaviors and that mindset don't just evaporate when you then decide, well, I might as well just start my own business, because I don't know by you, Neena, but I don't know anybody as an entrepreneur who just does the minimum. I don't think you can survive with that, but a lot of people start with that kind of mindset. So if you believe that anybody who really wants to can start a business, tell me how you help someone decide whether that business should be kind of their one and only, or whether they would actually be better off with a side hustle, even though that may be what all the gurus are pushing.

G: You know what for me it's really about if they're willing to do the work, are you willing to do the work? Because when we start to break things down about what entrepreneur is or what it is that you're trying to envision here, are you gonna do the work because then nobody gonna give you a handout this is not a handout type of situation. So, I grew up watching, I was born and raised in the projects, I grew up watching, you know, handouts of government checks and things like that, which crippled the community. It crippled it because people sat there and waited for a handout and something to somebody to come by every first of the month and give you a little check so that you can survive. And so when you are an entrepreneur, there's no handout the two to three week vacation package and the benefit stuff that you're getting, not happening, not happening until you start to grow your business to a level where you can do that for yourself. But you have to do, when I break this down and we talk about, well, this is what this looks like. Okay, what do you feel about this and how about that? What does that look like and why, why, why, why, why, right?

H: Why do you think you want that? You have to go like a five level of Why.

G: Yeah, yeah, I do seven levels of Why and so when we get there, they realize that some of them realize like, maybe that's not really what I want, but I like to give it a shot. Okay, what does that look like, so then we start digging into all of that. My program is called Mastering Your Game. It's goals, accountability, mind flow and energy so we work on all of those aspects to try to come out with what it is you really want cuz it's not always the full-time gig. It's sometimes the side hustle and sometimes there's none of that crap at all. It's like that CEO lady who I just wanna be home with my freaking kids, you know? So we actually worked it out and she broke, we broke it down. Every session we met each other, we broke out what that would look like, how she could strategically do that financially and all that stuff. And she's home with her kids, right so is she's just now that she thinks that she's feeling like this, that she wants to start something on the side. Okay, now let's work on that, right I mean, but you have to remember that there's not gonna be a handout. Nobody's gonna come and like do everything for you.

I think that we have, I think that's how you do it. You gotta make sure that you break it down with your client if they know what the responsibility is going to be because you don't wanna misinformed them, like you said, even in, you know, I think you said it during the beginning of this is, you know, do we have people telling you to quit your job completely and just burn the boats and go for it, or do you have somebody who's gonna support you along the way to make sure that you're making the right decisions that work for you. Not what somebody said, not what a guru suggested, but what works for the individual. And that's what I think, you know, I think that you have to be able to do the work in order to know whether or not this is your thing.

You are literally selling people into a belief system that they now feel obligated to. That's right and they have no chance of actually achieving that result because they never knew what it actually took from the beginning. It's kind of like a false, what do they call it when you, get into a marriage with someone under false pretense. Some kind of fraud, but basically it's a form of fraud and then people like you and I come in to their lives and say, well, actually entrepreneurship is a lifestyle and you have to really want to live that lifestyle. Because you may be successful, but there's no guarantee that you will, and you're still gonna have to wanna get up and do it, and do it, and do it until you figure out what it takes to become successful. And when you're really honest with people about it and they realize, well wait, hold on a second. It's not gonna be easy, fast, fun, and anyone can do it. No, I'm afraid not, you've been lied to. They're like, what the actual, you know, it's like, well, in that case, maybe I don't want six figures. Okay now we're getting somewhere, now we're getting somewhere. You are one of those people, Neena, who has a job and a thriving business. Why is it that the right choice for you?

G: You know, it's a right choice for me because I'm enjoying both, and until I don't enjoy one, I'll move on. So I've had my own business before, I'm a chef, so I had a very thriving kids cooking business I love, and I still, it's still living in there in the ethos, but I don't do that anymore and I loved it. I loved being a full-time entrepreneur. It was really great fun and then I really wanted to like, work around bigger teams and work around people and it's just something that I really love managing, directing now something that is in me, right? I've been doing it for a long time, so I've been doing this for a few years and I'm doing both and what I do is I manage my time really well. I know where my boundaries are, what I wanna do, what I don't want to do, and that's what I do. I manage my boundaries and my businesses, and they're both growing and thriving beautifully. And until I feel like one is not serving me, then I'll move on because I always check on Neena so people are always saying, well, Neena, just, you know, leave your job and then go do, I said, why, they're both doing so phenomenal and I'm happy doing both. Why do I need to do that because at the end of the day, I gotta sleep with me, wake up with me, be with me all the time, and I gotta be happy with me. I can't be happy with what somebody else told me to do. So that's why Diann if you go like ever to see any of my process in my program, I don't promise people's 6, 7, 8 figures. I don't because I'm not going to, I'm not going through…

H: Ethically you really can't, you really can't.

G: Right and people do that. I just won't because I feel like, what about if halfway through this transition you decide that's not the direction you wanted, but I promised you this, so I gotta push you to keep doing? No, no, no, no, we're gonna work on mastering your game, whatever that game is for you, and get some clarity and get you moving forward and that's all this is about. It's about you moving that needle forward for you I don't need my ego stroked. I've done that enough for myself in my lifetime, I've gone through a lot in my lifetime. I'm very happy about who I am and very successful at what I do, and so I just, I don't need you to help me with that. I'm good.

H: Yeah. I call it like, I don't need you to blow smoke up my skirt, you know?

G: Yeah, exactly.

H: And because flattery doesn't do anything for either one of us.

G: It's actually kind of annoying, right it is kinda annoying especially if it's false flattery, right? If it's a flattery that you know is not coming from a good place.

H: Indeed and actually one of my favorite compliments, I refer to this all the time. One of the compliments I have enjoyed the most from a client is a gentleman refers to me as the speaker of uncomfortable truths.

G: I love that, that's a good compliment.

H: For somebody like you and I, that is a good compliment. I'm more interested in actually helping people move their game piece forward than I am them liking me or being impressed with me or wanting me to like them. It's like, no, I really want to help people figure shit out and do what they're here to do. I really don't care if they like me or not so you have to sometimes say uncomfortable things, right? Yeah, we both do.

G: Yeah, well, how else are you gonna be authentic, honestly, right if you're gonna join up, your program or my program or whatever, and all we're gonna do is yes you to deaf. What are we doing? How are we serving you?

H: You got friends for that.

G: Yeah, exactly how are we serving you? We're not serving you. We are not serving you if you are coming in and we are gonna have the same exact answer, the same as our mindset and just walk you through, then it's not serving you. And all I'm doing is taking your money for nothing because you're gonna end up leaving the same way you came. I can't put my name on that no, I can't put my name on that. Same, you know, transformation and change is important

H: And it's probably not for everybody because some people want things to be easy and comfortable and deconstructing yourself can never be easy or comfortable. It sure it can't like your mind and brain will cling, tenaciously to your self what it thinks of as self no matter how fricking miserable you are, I mean, we both know that.

G: I was gonna say, yeah, exactly. I was gonna say, being a victim, or I know this might not be for everybody, but being victim and bitching and moaning about everything that doesn't go your way and how life isn't fair and all that stuff, that's a beautiful way to stay unsuccessful in things that you wanna do in life. So if you wanna stay unsuccessful and you wanna stay in a place where you are, woe is mean. Then go ahead and be a victim and bitch your moan about it all the time. I don't have time so I tell people I just don't have time for that. So, you know, like you Diann, I say a lot of noes more than I say yes and it's because I need you to come. You have to show up. You have to show up for you. I can't make you show up for you. You have to show up for you. Now, I will deal with some of the mindset stuff that I see that you might be struggling with, we'll work on that, but if you straight up don't do the work, don't do anything that you said you were going to do, don't even wanna answer my phone call because you know you have to be held accountable, I am not your person. I don't wanna take your money just to take your money. I need to understand that you are moving forward now. If you are, I feel fulfilled as a coach and as a person who loves to pour into people, I feel fulfilled and I will continue to pour. But if you're gonna just like, if I'm pouring in and there's a bunch of holes pouring out and there's nothing.

H: Or you are actively poking holes in your own bucket while I'm filling it from the other end, right? Oh, no thank you. Now, because you are really good with productivity and you'd have to be able to have a job and run a business. Do you think you were always naturally organized and good with your boundaries, or is that something that you learned, Oh wow, I got a lot going on, I'm gonna have to improve in this area, what do you think?

G: Hell no, which, hell no, I wasn't naturally with boundaries.

H: Neena, I made the question so long I didn't even remember what.

G: Hell no, no, no, no. I taught myself through educating myself, reading books, you know, following people that I admire and respect, that kind of stuff. That's what I learned boundaries and they were super uncomfortable to do. I learned to not get stepped on that was super uncomfortable to do, and I have ADHD, so I can't, you know, I, for me to be organized, I intentionally activate my brain to write down lists, to put everything in order, to put my notes, to get bullet points. I do that actively and on because when I was a kid I struggled and I have a little dyslexia too, so I struggled so to write, to read was horrible for me, right? So I decided, oh, okay, maybe I'll use a piece of paper underneath each word so I can learn to read, just look at one line at a time, a couple of words at a time. And I had to sometimes reread that sentence cuz my ADHD and this dyslexia would get involved but you know what, I am super organized. If you look at my calendar, it is all organized by time. I don't mess around with it like if I said I'm gonna be somewhere two to three by 2:59, I'm looking at you like I got to go. You know, what I'm saying because…

H: You signed into this call early.

G: I'm early all the time because I have to be, I need to be responsible. I need you to trust me as a person who is accountable and a person who does what they say they are going to do. I'm really trying hard in my life not to break promises to other people or to myself and accountability is one of them.

H: Oh, that's so good. You know, I think most of the problems people have are over promise and overcommitting and saying, I'm gonna do this because at the moment, I mean, who doesn't want to be generous? Who doesn't wanna offer to do things but if you do not make a point of following through, you should have never brought it up to begin with, then that can be a hard thing to learn. One of the productivity concepts that I know you teach, and I think it's probably easier on people's ears than a lot of them that are out there with the pundits is moving yourself forward 1% at a time. Because let's face it, we all feel like the road ahead is a lot further than the road behind. Oh, I have so much I have to do and I'm nowhere near where I wanna be, and it's just gonna take so long and all that, so, how do people feel when you tell them, we're gonna create a strategy where you're gonna move forward 1% every day.

G: You know what because I think that I deal with women who are intellectual and very intelligent and already have gone through a lot in life, they seem to receive that very well. Not everyone like I've had some people say, oh, I thought, you know, I've had my business. I said this is not the place for you. You can go to another guru and see what they got for you, you know, because you're still gonna have to do the work. And it still ain't gonna be in 60 days like they said, you know, but whatever. So I keep being as authentic as I can be to this person in front of me, because that person has to walk away with real truth and knowledge, real truth and knowledge. I am not trying to sell you a package. I don't have time just to have someone on the other side of the screen. I don't have time for that. What I have time for…

H: You don't make time for that my friend.

H: I'm getting the feeling, nope but it's also let you say the shiny object syndrome because these True, right,

G: I was gonna say the shiny penny.

H: Yep. I'm gonna help you move forward 1% every day, which over time is gonna take you exactly where you wanna go. That is not sexy like six weeks to six figures. That's not, so people continue to search for someone who's gonna tell them the thing that they wanna hear, even if they know deep down inside, it's not true for the same reason how many billions of dollars is the weight loss industry when the bottom line is eat less move more. It has been any different than that, but people go in search of the next solution, the next solution, the next solution hoping against all hope that somebody is gonna make this easy and fun. And it's like right there is no code so practically speaking, Neena, what does 1% look like, let's say you're working with kind of people that you and I work with, coaches, consultants, creatives, independent professionals. 1% a day actually translate to.

G: That's a very good question and very different for a lot of people. So there was this one woman I was working with, fantastic woman, super brilliant, great mind, kept saying my office is a mess, this is just a simple example. My office is a mess. I'm like, Okay, so what's going on? I'm just too busy. I'm just too busy. So what we did is we carved out some time in her schedule for her to get it done, to actually carved it out and to get it done. Now, this might seem mundane to you, to everyone, and be like, Oh God, really, that's what you do? I'm telling you it affects your mindset, it affects your mind when you are working in clutter when you're working with a bunch of garbage around you, when you can't see straight, it affects you so it was affecting her creativity and so we had to deal with this thing. So we did that, we carved it out and in that week, I checked up on her a couple times, like, how's that going? How's that desk going?

How's that bookshelf going, by the end of the week she was done. she was like, Holy crap. My office looks amazing. She took the pictures, she's like, send me the video, the whole thing, and she was able to be more productive in that following week than she had been in the months leading up to our conversation. That's the 1% and people might think, Oh, that's so silly she had to clean her room, you have no idea how much that was really impacting her, that's the point. We have a lot of things sometimes that we are not looking at that are affecting us and it takes a coach, it takes a mentor, it takes a strategist, it takes somebody to come alongside you to say, have you looked to this side yet? And so when she was complaining about the mess, I think she thought we were just gonna move on to the coaching thing and I said, hold on, a second this is affecting your minds, your mind.

H: I don't wanna hear about your housekeeping homie.

G: Yeah. You're like, Oh, but I do right not, but I do and I'm glad I did it. Literally, this is not a joke, this catapulted this woman forward she started to really advance and develop in what she wanted to do. It was amazing to watch because we carved out some time, 1% a day and finished the task. It was amazing. Well, so that's a little example.

H: But also it's not just that you carved out the time, I think the real magic here was the accountability, big time. My belief is that most people will let themselves down all day long, they will make promises to themselves that they will not keep, and that will become their norm to the point where they don't even feel any disappointment or shame anymore. It is literally become habitual but if someone else says, I want you to put that on your calendar. I want you to take a screenshot and send it to me, because I really wanna see you get out from under this, they don't wanna disappoint you. They're used to disappointing them, they don't wanna disappoint you. So I think most people, that's why communities like yours are so great. Most people need to know that somebody else wants them to succeed, that somebody else is paying attention, that somebody else gives a shit, and that if they actually right, overcome their resistance and do the thing that, it'll matter and it does and then it accumulates.

G: I mean, like I always say, if you have to bend down to get into the room, you're in the wrong room. So go to another room where you can stay. Oh, I work with my extra mic so I can throw it on the floor.

H: Now, that was wait, say that again?

G: If you have to bend down to get into the room, you're in the wrong room. The room is not big enough because most of us, like you're talking about accountability, right? If you're hanging around and you are around people who are not moving forward, who are struggling to advance, where struggling with their mindset, you know, broke people can't tell you how to be rich. You know what I'm saying like, I can't go to my broke friends, because I grew up in the projects. Had I stayed in the projects with the mindset of the projects, I would not have been as successful as I am today. You need to find a room where you can stand up in and grow in. If you have to bend over to be in the room, you're in the wrong room. You shouldn't be pulling yourself back so that everybody else can fit in the room so that they can be comfortable. That is not your room, just find another room. Find the people that you're supposed to network with so you can advance and improve in whatever that means for you. That doesn't have to mean six, seven figures, that could just mean looking at life a little bit differently. That could just mean being a better parent, being a better wife, being a better partner, whatever that is. It doesn't have to be all career-wise either, just stop making yourself having to really be malleable to everybody else's expectations. If their mindset isn't high, does that mean that you have to bring yours low? That's just how I feel about that. Sorry.

H: Sorry, not sorry, girl. You're preaching to the choir here, but what I will say, this is exactly how you believe, and people who are down for that or up for that, whichever way you wanna say it, are automatically attracted to us. However, I also believe there are a lot of people who truly are convinced that they genuinely wanna change in their life, but when they realize what it's actually gonna cost. It's not only the changes in their mindset, the changes in their habit, the changes in the media they consume, the changes in, what kind of people they surround themselves with, what kind of ideas they surround themselves with, their expectations of themselves, All of that up-level stuff, right but for some people, maybe many, maybe most, they may have to break company with people that they have history with that are like family to them who may actually be family to them and that's where it stops. I do find that that's probably one of the most challenging things is people who, they don't realize they're making a choice, Neena. They don't realize that they are choosing their affiliation with this person over fulfilling their own potential and achieving their dreams. But that's fundamentally what it comes down to and that's talk about an uncomfortable truth, but you can't move them beyond that, they have to move themselves.

G: That's true and they also have to realize that, especially like if it's family or a spouse or something like that doesn't mean that you cut them out of your life, never speaks to them again that's it, they're gone. But what it does mean is that you start to develop a sense of boundaries where you will understand who you can and who you cannot bring your ideas to strategize with open up to, if you know that there's someone that you are talking to in your family or whatever, that just can't see your vision, that always puts everything you're saying down does not make you feel like what you're doing is valid, that's the person you don't wanna speak to about that thing. That doesn't mean that person isn't a good person. That means that person is stuck in their own things and because they can't see past theirs, they're trying to make you see that you can't see past yours.

So it's worrying about the opinions of others that keeps us unsuccessful because when we are trying to like really have all these other people give us the opinions we want cause we want to hear it. I'd rather talk to someone who's already done the work before me and hear maybe I'm doing something wrong so I can have a course correction as opposed to somebody poo pooing everything I have to say, right or not being able to support what I say. That's okay, I don't need your support. So if I have, my spouse is very supportive, but if my spouse wasn't supportive, my ex-spouse wasn't supportive, it ended us, unfortunately. But if my spouse currently wasn't supportive, then I know I can't talk to him or have him be part of this particular portion of what I'm doing and that doesn't make 'em a bad guy. That just means he can't see what I'm trying to do so it's up to us, Diann, right? It's really up to the individual, whether they are willing to put up the boundaries that they need to put up to know that some people just can't be there with you. You, they just can't and so absolutely you can't help them and I can't help them. We cannot help them with that, that has to be something that they do within themselves.

H: Yeah, absolutely true, and I think that it goes hand in hand with what we've been talking about with a lot of people, their client attraction scheme is to say, this is gonna be easy, this is gonna be fun, anybody can do it like you're gonna be at six figures in six minutes, maybe six weeks, but, they're not the ones who are talking about all the personal transformations that you actually go through to become the kind of person who can take risks. Think for themselves, put up those boundaries, voluntarily not share things with certain people, even though you may desperately need and want them to be supportive, but knowing that they're not. You keep it to yourself or you share it somewhere else and I think a lot of us really wanna be idealistic and romanticize all of this and think, Well, you should be able to talk to your spouse about that. Or your parents should be interested in what you're doing but it doesn't change what actually is, right. I always say there's no point in arguing with reality because reality wins every single time, sorry you can say it should be like this, or, well, if you know, it's like, yeag but that's not how it is. That's just not how it is so I'm absolutely sure everyone listening is like, where do I get more of Neena and why don't we tell them all the ways they can do.

G: It's very easy. It's Straight Talk, No Sugar Added. That's it, you wanna look for Straight Talk, No Sugar Added on YouTube, on in LinkedIn, on everywhere, everywhere. It's just straight talk, no sugar added. I know, my last coach was like, you need to just put Neena Perez more out there, but people remember straight talk, no sugar added and that's what I'm sticking with girl.

H: It is truth in advertising too. I mean, it is exactly the reason why we connected, because frankly, I don't actually, I would like to ask you two more things. One, I find that intelligent, informed, direct woman can be very off putting for a lot of people. Like I think it's harder and, you know, it might, we could have a conversation another time about the cultural aspects of that because we have different cultural backgrounds. But I think that it still, you know, as much progress as we'd like to think women have made in the last 50 years, a strong direct woman is usually not favored by many, many people. They really don't like it, and yet you and I are both leaning all the way into that without apology. Why did you decide to call your business, your podcast, all your things, Straight Talk No Sugar Added.

G: You know, because that's what I've always been known for people, this is so funny, Diann, that you say that cuz that is very true. But I'm also the first person people go to for truth, that's the hilarious part, right? They don't wanna really see it because, oh, she's too straightforward. She can hurt your feelings, that is all very true. All of it is true because I always say truth doesn't care about your feelings okay? Truth doesn't care about your feelings and that means for me too, when somebody tells me the truth about something, it hurts my feelings. Oh, well it was the truth, right? But people always call me, say, hey Neen, I have something I'm going through and I wanted to talk to you about it. I said, okay are we venting or did you want some opinion? Or what is that and they're like, nope, I know that you will tell me the truth and I need to know if I'm on the right track with myself or not. So it's funny, but I really do have a group of people that call me when they're going through something to say, I need truth and I just thought of you. Yes, that's a beautiful thing. So you don't have to like me, I honestly don't care. So I feel like the people who love me, love me cuz they know that I'm authentic. I have a good heart. I serve a lot of people. I love people, I really do. But I love you enough not to bullshit you, so that's just facts, that’s just how I am. So, straight talk, no sugar added, literally because my husband goes, My God, can you add some sugar to it when you talk to me sometimes and I said, no, there's no sugar added. And I'm like, oh, I got the name for my business, that's how I came about.

H: It is absolutely perfect and what are all the ways that people can work with you.

G: So the same, you just go on to my website, Straight Talk, No Sugar Added and there's a calendar there if you wanna go on a hop on a call with me. That's how I actually get my people a lot from like referrals because people who know me, know me. I mean, you can go watch my social media, go watch my LinkedIn, my podcast, all that stuff, and you'll see whether I am your people or not and I always say, if I am not your cup of tea add a little vodka and stir.

H: I don't think I've ever had tea with vodka, that sounds actually quite nasty. Oh, Lord, I told you this was gonna be hard to end, but we made a promise to each other and we are both keen to hold our boundaries.

G: Keep our promise. That's right.

H: Keen to hold our boundaries. So we're gonna bring this to a close. I hope that you will follow Neena, listen to her podcast because sometimes the no sugar added approach is exactly what you need.