PP 664: The Ultimate Way to Happiness Amy Dix
Have you ever wondered, if it’s true that humans are created to be happy, why do people keep searching for happiness as though they don’t have it? In fact, why do you have to search for something that’s already in front of you? In this episode, Kim and Amy Dix, 2-time bestselling author, share the ultimate way to happiness. Amy talks about the realistic view of happiness and sadness, being authentic in an unauthentic world, the importance of rest, and the advantage and disadvantage of automation. You’ll also hear tips and wisdom to keep your focus, keep track of expenses, cut off unnecessary losses, and in giving yourself grace. Tune in! The secret to positivity and productivity is revealed today!
Highlights:
02:26 Positivity In Life
11:48 Profit First
23:32 Focus On What’s Important
28:32 Time Of Creativity
38:38 Positive Life Company
41:26 Chronic Idea DIsorder
46:38 Authentic Business In Unauthentic World
Resources:
Book
Inspirational Quotes:
04:31 “Happiness is a choice. It’s not a choice that we have to make BUT a choice that we get to make every single day.” – Amy Dix
20:36 “First thing is awareness. You have to bring yourself some awareness of what’s going on within your business.” – Amy Dix
41:17 “If you just focus on one thing, then maybe that thing could be so much bigger.” – Amy Dix
51:06 “When we become a little vulnerable and become very, very truthful, and show everything that it is to show about who we are and how we feel, that’s when everything else changes for the good.” – Amy Dix
53:43 “You can still tell your story in a way that inspires and connects with people.” – Amy Dix
About Amy Dix:
Amy Dix is an International Speaker and two-time No. 1 International Best-Selling Author. She is an innovative speaker and digital marketer, who believes that living in a social media society is the greatest era for connecting people for business growth. She is revolutionizing the branding and digital world. With over a decade of corporate management, operations, and franchise ownership, Amy has developed the ability to conceptualize and implement local and national marketing strategies for brands nationwide. As a positive psychology practitioner, she understands the importance of mixing creativity and information with science to teach others how they can connect with their audience on a deep level.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity, this is your host, Kim Sutton. I am so just tickled to be recording a podcast today. Listeners, I don’t know if you are on my list, have you been receiving notifications? But I’ve been going live a lot more frequently. I think that was improper grammar, but you know that’s what you get on the Positive Productivity Podcast. I’m really looking forward to the conversation that you’re going to be hearing today with our guest, Amy Dix from The Positive Life Company, because it sounds like you are a creative soul like me. We have to figure out how to contain it, how to live positively into our purpose and do it without being overwhelmed.
Amy Dix: Yes, I love that so much. Especially that last part, do it without being overwhelmed.
Kim Sutton: What brought you here? I mean, having my podcasts be called Positive Productivity, I have to be totally honest, and I don’t know if I’ve ever admitted this on the podcast before, hey, there’s a first time for everything. The name just hit me out of thin air. I didn’t even know what the podcasts looked like when I launched it. It took time to realize what it actually meant to me. And I think it was really a blessing that that name hit me because I’ve grown into it, and more ways that I can count. But how did your journey take place?
Amy Dix: Yeah. I love that you just said that. Sometimes, it’s a beautiful thing how that happens. I think if I look back into my childhood, positivity has always been a piece of who I was, who I am and the way that my parents raised me. It was really through my mom’s death that I realized the importance of positivity. And all the ways that this woman was like this insanely positive person, even though she had a lot of trials and tribulations through her life. So it really brought to light this whole, I would say positive movement, like this whole positive movement and saying, Okay, wow, if she handled life so gracefully, how can we all do that? And how can we really look at positivity as a means to happiness? And that’s what it really boils down too for me, using positivity as a way to get to the ultimate goal in life, which I believe is happiness.
Kim Sutton: I can give your parents a huge hug. I could give your mom a huge hug if she were still around, because that is not what I grew up in. And full disclosure. I don’t know if my mother listens to the podcast. If she does that, I will surely hear about this. But there was a great cloud over my mom’s house, and it wasn’t until I was 29 that I realized that I had a choice. Take a walk around with this cloud over my head, and I’m 40 now. I could walk around with this cloud over my head all the time, or I could choose to live a positive life to be happy to make my life what I wanted it to be.
Amy Dix: I think one of the words that you said is so critical as the listeners kind of understand what you said, which is that, it’s a choice. A lot of times through my speaking I’ll say, you know happiness is a choice. It’s a choice that we get to make. Another choice that we have to make, but a choice that we get to make every single day. I was in conversation with this with somebody else who was going back and forth saying: “Well, I don’t believe that it is a choice.” And I, Amy Dix, I deeply believe that it is a choice. I love that you just said that because I think that that is so important. You recognized it, and then you made the choice to not to have that cloud over your head at all times. So that’s so important. I think that people can relate to everything that you just said and say, maybe they’re in a similar situation, but they can choose an alternate path.
Kim Sutton: Amen. Heated debate. Maybe heated is too strong of a word, but I’ve had debates, including with my stepdaughter. I need to preface this by saying that, until she lived with us for a short period of time and was going through severe anxiety while she was here, I had never experienced anxiety in my life. But it was, I don’t know how, oh, I know how. I went through a period of intense sleep deprivation, and pleasing everybody except for myself, I was working 20 to 22 hours a day. And sleep deprivation has wicked side effects. I spiraled into my own period of anxiety and depression. But even through that, I realized I had a choice. Unfortunately, one of those choices was also not to share with my husband when I was experiencing it because I didn’t want him to feel like the anxiety and depression was his fault, which absolutely wasn’t. But I still had a choice of whether I smiled every day, whether I decided to share my depression with others. And in the outlook I had, I have to also say that the depression came from feeling like I was not enough. It was not enoughness, which I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs feel at some point in their journey. Why am I as far as, list off any number of entrepreneurs that we can see on the internet, and if we stay in that not enoughness instead of realizing just how awesome we are, then that’s a dirty, rotten hole to dig out of.
Amy Dix: Yeah, and I think it is important to verbalize it and find that person that you can verbalize it to, and have a little bit of emotional intelligence around it. Holding things in is not a healthy way to deal with that. I say a lot of times that if you feel sad, it’s okay to feel sad. I think that when people hear, oh, the Positive Productivity Podcast, or The Positive Life Company, they’re just those bubbly, yay, and that can be unrealistic to some people. But that’s not it. That doesn’t mean that we don’t get sad. That doesn’t mean that we don’t feel negative thoughts. It just means that we work to not allow those thoughts to linger on for too long.
Kim Sutton: Thank you so much for saying that. Just a few days ago, I’m in a transition right now in my business where I’m working out of a business relationship with a longtime client. And just a few days ago, I received word that they just will not be paying any future invoices, which has its own, it’s BS, let’s just put it that way. But in that moment, it was a Friday afternoon when I got this email, I realized I had a choice. I can get hung up in this, and I can write all the four letter words that are in my head right now and an email back expressing just how tasteless and disgusting I think they are. Now I just put it in a podcast, but I don’t think they’re listening, or I can focus on being the best version of me in what I was already transitioning my business into being the best version of me. Listeners, you know that I’ve had bad days, but it’s how we’ve decided to tackle those. But bad days have gotten me through. I mean, I’ve shared the story a few times, I’ll share a few more. I’m sure we had our water turned off because we were going through a period of financial turbulence. And on that day, it snowed. So my husband told the kids, the older kids, you can go pee, their boys. I don’t know about you Amy, but when I was little, I used to wish I was a boy so I could go write my name–
Amy Dix: Of course.
Kim Sutton: And he’s like, you can go write your name in the snow, but on your way back in, pick up some white snow and put in the toilet so mom can go pee. It made us all laugh because, or those necessarily the stories that I want to share around the Thanksgiving table someday when I’ve got all the in-laws and grandkids? I don’t know. But I want my kids to be able to laugh at them and know that it wasn’t all poop.
Amy Dix: Yeah, that’s such a funny and cool example though, because some people would take that in, oh, my gosh. Can you believe that we had our water shut off, it’s snowing and it’s cold. There couldn’t have been a worse time for this to happen. You can just hear some people saying that. And instead, you guys tried to make light of the situation, and I think that’s awesome.
Kim Sutton: Well, I admitted a couple months ago that the water was actually turned off again this time because we forgot to pay the bill. I live in a small town in Ohio, but I will find any excuse not to go downtown in my town to pay the water bill. I will tell you full out what the real excuses. I drive a big old conversion van, and park in front of the city building if you stick out into the street. I hate backing up the van, and this is the same with the post office. So number one, I won’t go down there and pay in person. I won’t ask my husband too because that means that he leaves the younger kids here with me and I’m trying to work. I won’t go to the post office to buy stamps. So the water bill didn’t get paid. So the water went off, and we paid it immediately, we had the funds, and we heard the toilet start running again. We’re like, Oh, that was fast. My husband goes and he turns on the kitchen sink, and it goes in sprays all over him.
Amy Dix: Oh, no.
Kim Sutton: It was awesome. We started laughing. Compared to two years ago, this is just hilarious. I mean, it would have been hilarious two years ago, but we underestimate I think. Well, I don’t think, I know often we don’t take value enough in all the things that we do have, whether it be water, whether it be the ability to share our bloopers on the internet, like water. I think about it just this weekend that I’m very fortunate that I don’t live in Africa, in some secluded tribe where I have to cross the desert with baskets on my shoulder to get my water. Yeah, I’m a klutz. Forget the fact of the baskets on the shoulders, I’m a klutz. I can’t even walk across my house without running into something. I don’t know how anybody would have water if it relied on me getting it that way. But it’s all about perspective.
Amy Dix: It really is. I have to ask this question because it’s just like, I’m just dying. No, it’s 2020, you can’t pay that bill online?
Kim Sutton: You can, but this is part of me that is also resistant to the 15% credit card processing fee that they put on top.
Amy Dix: 15%?
Kim Sutton: Oh, it’s ridiculous.
Amy Dix: Oh, that seems crazy.
Kim Sutton: Yeah. So yesterday, I paid it. But what’s more ridiculous is when I don’t pay it on time, they slap a 30, $35 late payment. Kim, just get your priorities straight. I was actually thinking about it in the shower this morning while appreciating the water. I’m going to appreciate the water and the way the soap smells and all that. I was like, I have these whiteboard calendar things on my wall, and I really should just put the bill due dates on there. My husband, God loves them. He does the cooking, he does the grocery shopping, he takes care of the twins who are going to kindergarten next year during the day, but the guy does not know how to log in to pay the utility bills so I need to do that. It’s just forgetfulness. And thank you for reminding me, we could just set it up on AutoPay again, and then avoid all of that. My new year’s resolution, my only one, set up bills on autopay.
Amy Dix: I mean, it’s really funny to me, my boyfriend’s the same way as nothing on auto pay. It drives me crazy because he’s always like, Oh, I gotta remember. Oh, I gotta remember, Oh, I gotta remember, I’m like, but the thing is you don’t have to remember if you just take the time to set it up once, and then you can kind of move on with your life. But he doesn’t do it, you won’t do it for whatever reason. I don’t know why.
Kim Sutton: Well, we did it for the longest time. Because the way that I grew up, and the way that my husband grew up was, if there was money in the account, it got spent right away. And it’s taken us, we’ve been together for almost 10 years. It took us a good nine years to get over that spending habit.
Amy Dix: Mm hmm.
Kim Sutton: Just because there’s money in the account doesn’t mean that we’re free number. Spend it, or that we need to spend it.
Amy Dix: Right.
Kim Sutton: Right away when we met, he lost his job. And then his car creditor dinged his bank account three times to take out one payment. So he’s very resistant to setting up things on autopay.
Amy Dix: See, that’s where it comes from.
Kim Sutton: But if we just change our mindset a little bit, number one, just because the money’s in an account, the account doesn’t mean somebody else is going to spend it. And number two, that we can actually save, then that would get over this whole thing. Yeah. Have you heard of the book, Profit First?
Amy Dix: I have heard of it. I have not read it, but I am familiar with it.
Kim Sutton: I read that book in 2019, and it was life changing.
Amy Dix: Oh, no kidding?
Kim Sutton: Yeah. I mean, so many of my clients, I have to say have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on courses, and never even logged into them. I would have to say that during the seven, eight years of my business so far, I have invested in three courses. And each of those times, I shouldn’t have invested. But the money, I want to get into this. The money was in my account. Does that mean it was eligible to be spent on that? No. But I saw it in the account, and I know, from working with my clients that they face the same struggle. Just because the money’s there, doesn’t mean it’s free to spend. What about paying ourselves first for a change?
Amy Dix: Yeah, let’s talk about that. No, I mean, I was just talking, we had a client that we were working with and just talked to him the other day and he said, he sold his business, He had merged it with another company that bought his business. He said: “I was just sick of not taking a paycheck.” He very much took care of his employees. This was not like a solopreneur venture. He had a small business, I was doing, I would say fairly well except when the bills had to be paid, he wasn’t so it was just an interesting conversation with him on that.
Kim Sutton: Sounds like my business. I had team members in 2017, 2018 who got paid more than I did.
Amy Dix: Yeah, see? I think a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to that though.
Kim Sutton: Mm hmm.
Amy Dix: I think we’ve all been there at one point in time.
Kim Sutton: I was actually, I went into my G Suite, administrative area this weekend and realized that I’m paying for nine email accounts.
Amy Dix: Oh, this happened to me one time too, yes. You’re like, Why? Because you forget to turn them off.
Kim Sutton: Yeah, I was like, there was a team member who left the company five months ago, and I held on to the account because I thought I might need to get there, and I’ll tell you that I only logged in once.
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: But I forgot to shut that one off along with five others. I was happy/get rid of them.
Amy Dix: Yes. It doesn’t feel so good to just cleanse yourself of that extra baggage, even though you didn’t even know that it was there, it still feels so good.
Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. Actually, I was working from my bed, which I hate to admit that I do a lot.
Amy Dix: Mm hmm.
Kim Sutton: I was working from my bed, and my husband, here’s another thing, I don’t know that I’ve ever admitted on the podcast. My husband moved his desk out of our office, our office a couple years ago. First reason was because the kids, the teenagers also had their desks out here, and it was driving him crazy because he couldn’t hear whatever YouTube show he was listening to, over them yelling through discord. Number two, every time I was podcasting, this show is full of admissions, my husband and I both vape. We were smokers forever.
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: We gave up smoking, but vaping is still around. But I don’t vape on podcasting, but he would keep on vaping. You could hear in the background.
Amy Dix: Oh, funny.
Kim Sutton: I was back there working just because it’s so easy to forget that my husband’s in the house, and we’re on opposite sides of the house. It sounds like we’re in a mansion, most definitely not. We’re in our little cute little cottage, that stuff to the brim. But I was like: “Oh, my gosh. I just realized I’m paying double.” And he’s like: “Well, what does that mean?” “I think I’m paying $50 a month that I don’t need to be.” He’s like: “That’s like a mortgage payment.” Like: “Yep, I just recovered one of our mortgage payments babe.”
Amy Dix: Yeah. This is so funny that you brought this up because I was just talking this morning with someone too. He said: “I have no idea what I spend my money on. Because I have no idea, because I just don’t watch it. And somebody could be like taking 10, 20, $50 out of my account every single month. I could be hacked, and I don’t even know it.” So I think the first thing is awareness, you have to kind of bring yourself some awareness of what’s going on within your business. But we’re all just so busy doing what we want to do, what excites us. Sometimes those little things, I mean, that are not exciting to go in and check your email accounts, or I just recently deleted a bunch of Adobe stuff that I don’t need that I thought I did. It was fun for a while, some of the more creative like InDesign and that kind of stuff. I thought, what am I doing? I have a graphic designer, I don’t need to be doing this kind of stuff. So there was a few hundred dollars there within the business that easily I was able to get rid of. But it just took out an awareness to begin with.
Kim Sutton: Mm hmm. And I’ve been there. I fully admit that I have Adobe, and I have Canva. But in the back of my mind, this could sound non positive. But there’s always been that, what if? What if I want to update something on the weekend? And I refuse to contact my team over the weekend.
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: I don’t want anybody contacting me on the weekend. Leave me the heck alone. But I held on to it for that long just for that.
Amy Dix: We’ve all done it. We have all done it. I think as the listeners are listening, and anyone who’s an entrepreneur or had their own business, they’re all laughing right now because we’ve all done it.
Kim Sutton: Oh, Amy, this is such a horrible admission, but you’ve already heard me talk about the water bill in the post office. I was introduced to an accountant who is in my town, but I was introduced to this accountant from somebody who lives across the country. We hopped on a Zoom call to chat with each other even though his office is four minutes from my house. I was just in between calls and I was like, he’s like, Oh, we can do Zoom. It just felt so silly to do a Zoom call with somebody who’s in my town.
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: But for years, I’ve put off hiring a bookkeeper or an accountant in my business because I had a call with one accountant who quoted me something like $800 a month.
Amy Dix: Mm hmm.
Kim Sutton: And then this guy comes back and he’s like: “Oh, yeah, it’s 115 a month to keep your books up.” I was like: “Wait a second, what?”
Amy Dix: Like, why didn’t I do this sooner?
Kim Sutton: I thought that’s what the price was going to be from anybody who I got. I couldn’t justify at any point than paying more for an accountant in my business, which I know is silly because as the business grows, it will definitely become more than I pay for my monthly mortgage. But up till now, I haven’t been able to justify that. And then he comes back and he says $115. Wait a second, should there be an extra zero at the end? No, he’s like: “You’re using QuickBooks. It’s all in there, it’s pulling from your accounts, you don’t have any receipts. This is going to be easy peasy.” Like: “Okay, where can I send your money?” How do you keep from being busy being busy in your business?
Amy Dix: How do you keep from being busy–
Kim Sutton: You personally. How do you keep your focus? So you’re focusing on what’s important versus all the other random stuff.
Amy Dix: Yeah. So I blocked timeout, I’ve learned that this is the best way for me to do this. So I will take all the tasks that I have, and then I actually scheduled them by category. So if I’m working on something, for example, for The Positive Life Company. Let’s just say that everything that’s on my task list for The Positive Life Company happens from whatever time I say for that day, 9:00 to 11:00. I got a couple different things going on. If I’m working for something in my other company, then I will only work on those things from, let’s say, noon to 4:00. So otherwise what happens is, I feel like I just kind of go astray. I just kinda look at my email, what kind of should I do next? Oh, yeah, I gotta do this. Maybe I’ll do this one. So I tend to do that. I also will block time based on, I said category but like brain power. So if it’s like accounting, we’ll just do that, which is updating the books. I’ll do that in the morning because I hate doing that, it requires a different side of my brain. Then my creativity, so anything creative gets done during my high creativity peaks, which tend to be the evenings and late afternoon, just after lunch, for me, that’s not what it is for everyone.
Kim Sutton: Did you say your creative peaks are like, afternoon and evening?
Amy Dix: Yes.
Kim Sutton: Yeah, I think you’re one of the first that I’ve heard say that, because my creative peaks are first thing in the morning, or right before I’m trying to go to sleep.
Amy Dix: Yeah. And then it’s like, it sounds like at least, are the kids still home? They’re teenagers now?
Kim Sutton: I have twins, five year old, a six year old, a 14 year old, and a 17 year old.
Amy Dix: Oh, boy. Yeah. So if you’re creative time is just before you go to bed, you might feel creative then, but you might have some other things that you have to be doing with your family at that point. For me, I can all work when, maybe you still do, I don’t know. But I’ll just work whenever because I don’t need to just do like eight to five. I don’t like soccer practice or anything like that in the evenings that consume my time. So a lot of times, I’m not a good morning person, and never have been. Man, I’m so jealous of everyone who is, but I never have been. So my workday tends to mean it’ll start at nine, but it’s pretty heavy in the evening. That’s when I really would just want to sit down and just crank things out for the business in the evening. Whereas, a lot of people, I don’t know, if they may be exhausted by then or night might not be a feasible time for them. But that’s how I keep from just a busy body and just accomplishing a little bit here, a little bit there. Because productivity is a big piece of being successful in my mind.
Kim Sutton: Well, this is gonna make me sound like a crappy soccer mom. But there’s nothing I detest more than soccer practices during the warm months when they’re outside. Because winter soccer practices are at a facility that has wifi.
Amy Dix: Oh, see? This is so funny. Yeah, so good. Yes, soccer.
Kim Sutton: Yeah. I tell my husband, I’m like, I’ll see you in about an hour and a half. I use the excuse, although it is a good one. It’s a town away, it’s going to take me 20 minutes to drive down there, 20 minutes drive back, 20 minutes drive back down there, 20 minutes back, you get the picture?
Amy Dix: Right.
Kim Sutton: So by the time I get back home, if I were to come home while he’s at practice, I’ll only have 20 minutes. And that’s just unnecessary gas especially when you’re driving a big old van like I am. I’m just gonna stay there. So I’ll see you in about an hour, and it’s like, okay. And I totally love that. Because being outside of my house, which doesn’t happen nearly enough as nearly as much as I think it should. We just by the way got our first Starbucks, our first actual Starbucks to go–
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: The creative juices just start flowing. My husband is a video game designer. I was a gamer. When we met, I’m still a gamer. And I give myself incentive, if I accomplish this, this, and this today, I can play tonight, and I play with my family.
Amy Dix: That’s great. And it’s family time too at that point, you know?
Kim Sutton: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Since 2016, I have given myself my sleep back. I wake up after six hours of sleep, wide awake. I know some people need it, some people can get by on two, six to seven is my sweet spot. Like last night, I crashed. I admit that I am totally out. All out crashed at 11:00 o’clock. I think my husband had to clean up my bed office.
Amy Dix: That’s funny.
Kim Sutton: Yeah. I was up at 5:00 o’clock wide awake, which does not happen very often. So as far as me being more visible lately, especially with all these lives, I’ve been using that early wake up time. As soon as the teenagers are on the bus and gone, I have the bathroom. Get in, take my shower, put the makeup on because by t3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, I don’t look like I showered that morning. So I shower, put my makeup on to go live. I might still be wide awake, but I definitely don’t look like it.
Amy Dix: That’s so good. That’s so funny. Again, I’m so jealous of that. I’ve tried to do that, I’ve tried to be that person and I’m just not. I think I fought it for so long, especially when I was completely 100% out on my own as an entrepreneur running a business. I thought that this is the way to do it, and it just kind of backfired on me really. I just felt exhausted, I had brain fog all day. So whatever it is about my body, whatever it is about my DNA, I don’t know, but that makes me very jealous. I also am a siesta taker so I take a nap almost every single day. I’m 37, 38? Oh my gosh, see? When you get to a certain age, you actually have to calculate it. But anyway, I totally get it. Like, I’m like 80. I’m digging my daily nap or whatever. But it really changes my whole perspective for the rest of the day. I think some people hear that and they think, lazy. But I’m a really good 15 minute nap taker. I will fall asleep immediately within a couple minutes, and my body wakes up between 10 and 20 minutes every single time, and that’s all I need. I am a new person. I mean, I sleep hard during those 15 minutes, and that also is something that I have incorporated into my day. Because if I don’t get my siesta, I don’t have that creative time that I was talking about in the evening, I can’t do it, I’m done. So that 15 minutes really almost gives me like another day in productivity.
Kim Sutton: I love that you said that because I’m the same way.
Amy Dix: Oh, I love it.
Kim Sutton: I can nap for 10 to 20 minutes and be completely refreshed when I wake up. I can’t believe I’m admitting this to my husband. And I have jokes once the twins go to school, there will be afternoon nap time. Use your imagination, folks. Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. But I don’t want that. Like we’ve joked about it, but I actually really do love my 10 to 20 minute sleep. Yes, sleep nap. I’ve already had to tell him, do not wake me up when you come to bed at t3:00 to 5:00 o’clock in the morning because I will not be in the mood. But I really enjoy my three to five, or my 10 to 20 minute nap. Those days when I accidentally sleep long, and he’s like, Oh, I just let you sleep. And I wake up three hours later, and then I’m absolutely exhausted. I can’t sleep that long. I do want to say though, that I gave up alcohol about a month and a half ago, which I can’t believe I did. Then I gave up soda about three weeks ago.
Amy Dix: Wow, awesome.
Kim Sutton: Yeah. I’m still heavily drinking my coffee, but I’m not compensating for the lack of soda that way. I found that I’m not hitting the mid afternoon slump like I was before.
Amy Dix: That’s really interesting. I found last year that I didn’t drink for 30 days. And it was just kind of like my own little challenge. I did notice that I slept better at night. And I have a sleep app. I don’t know if you use a sleep app, but I use an app called Sleep Cycle. On there, you can even say certain things happen to you during the day, and then it’ll kind of collect that data so you can say like, I drink caffeine afternoon, or I drink alcohol tonight, or whatever you can put in your own little thing. I would put in there sometimes, if I was staying at my boyfriend’s or if he was staying with me, do I sleep better alone? Or do I sleep better with somebody else in the bed? So I put in all these kinds of triggers, and I did it find through that data that I slept better, better quality sleep when I wasn’t drinking. Even like on days, let’s just compare like a day of not drinking prior to my 30 day dry period, or a day not drinking in my 30 day dry period. So I think it helps just overall, I think we all know like if you go out and kind of party all night, of course you’re not going to get that good asleep, that makes a lot of sense. But comparatively speaking to dry days, within and outside of the dry period, I still slept better. I think that that’s, first of all, good for you. That’s awesome. I love that, and you know that sleep is so important. It really is. I mean, I feel people are gonna think that I just like to sleep my life away. Don’t, I’m not a lazy person. But I do feel like it is one really important aspect in my life.
Kim Sutton: Well, you’re the one who went to the gym this morning, I did not go to the gym. So I want to, in our pre chat, we were talking about going on video versus not going on video, right? So I have to give you props for that because you’re doing that. I’m staring at my recumbent exercise bike, which is again screaming at me. So right now, getting more use of the cat to climb all over it. I also noticed that when I am stressed, and this is gonna sound really funny, but when I get really stressed, my ears itch. And if I don’t do something to relieve the stress before I go to sleep, namely journaling, like if I don’t get my thoughts out before I go to bed at night, then my husband has even noticed that I wake up all night long with itchy ears. It’s like a, no joke, it’s like a dog itching its ears. I mean, these are ferocious itches. And Saturday morning, because I got that email from the client on Friday. Saturday morning, he was just grouchy. Like, are you okay? He’s like, you kept on, while you were snoring. Number one, he’s like, I think the snoring made your ears itch, because you’re like jumping up and itching your ears, and then you would go back to sleep. And he’s like, I just wanted to tell you to snore already. But he’s like, I think the snoring was making your ears itch. I am totally one of those people that when I’m exhausted or when I’m stressed, I think I snore. I woke myself up on the red eye snoring, and then went out and tried to blame it on somebody else. But no, it’s totally me.
Amy Dix: Yeah, it’s you.
Kim Sutton: I don’t want to take the red eye anymore just because I don’t want to wake myself. I don’t want to snore in front of people.
Amy Dix: Yeah, that is so funny. I do not snore, and my app even tells me that I do not snore. But my boyfriend does. Every now, and again, not all the time. But when we first started dating, he was like: “Honey, wake me up, tell me to roll over or whatever.” And I go: “I know. But it’s so cute because you’re actually sleeping. And I think that that’s just so precious that you’re in such a deep sleep, I don’t want to disturb that.” We laughed about it in the beginning of our relationship, like okay, that’s not going to last. Give the relationship some time and you’re not gonna think snoring is that cute anymore. But I tell you what, we are, let’s see? Two years into this thing, and I still have a hard time waking him up, or telling him to roll over because I just think in my mind like, oh, but you’re sleeping. I don’t want to disrupt that. That’s so cute.
Kim Sutton: I totally had that conversation too, because he snores as well. He also brought with him a fan, like an ugly oscillating fan that has to sleep with. And the two of them have become like the white noise that makes magical sleep.
Amy Dix: Yeah. See? There you go.
Kim Sutton: Yep. When I go to a hotel and it’s absolutely quiet, I have to turn the TV on now to have the white noise going in the background while I’m sleeping.
Amy Dix: Yeah. See? That’s the positive thinking right there.
Kim Sutton: What is The Positive Life Company dealing? What do you do? And I also want to ask, I told you, I can join questions. If you want to share any more, please go ahead and do so. But do you have chronic idea disorder? Because I did hear you talk about another business?
Amy Dix: Oh, okay. So a couple things. Yes. Yes on the second question, and we can expand on that. And yeah, The Positive Life Company, what we do is, I like to say like we fight for people’s happiness, that is our mission. To fight for people’s happiness, and to make people better people, and to build better businesses for the better so that they can in turn build better people. In a nutshell, that’s what The Positive Life Company does. And again, it was really just started from this really idea of like, is happiness as positivity, is there science behind it? Is it in our DNA? Where does it all kind of stem from? And how can we take that research and knowledge and then apply it in our own lives, and help people apply to their lives? So that’s The Positive Life Company, and I absolutely have, what did you call it, idea?
Kim Sutton: Chronic idea disorder.
Amy Dix: Chronic idea disorder, I absolutely love it. Yes. And if I look back at my life, I’ve always been like that. Even when I worked for, I say corporate America, I hate using that term because I think it has a negative connotation to it. I don’t think it should, but we’ll just use it as everyone knows. But when I was working in corporate America, it was never the only thing I did. I always had side gigs, side businesses and side ventures. And even when I left that company, I had my other company, which is a digital marketing company, and then I have The Positive Life Company. I also work with my publisher, helping authors write books and do some other things too. Right now, with my boyfriend, we’re doing some other stuff with some online consumer product stuff. I mean, my problem is I have so many ideas and just not enough time to execute them. And sometimes I wonder, I have this conversation a lot, I guess maybe a lot of people do when they have chronic ideas in terms, is that what it was? Do I get that right?
Kim Sutton: Close enough.
Amy Dix: Okay,. If you just focus on one thing, then maybe that thing could be so much bigger. But really, I don’t know that that works for everybody–
Kim Sutton: It doesn’t work for me, I get bored.
Amy Dix: Yes, absolutely. I am right there with you. I just don’t think it would work for me. So the idea that we’re kind of in this, like freelance gig entrepreneur kind of economy, and that you can do multiple things, for somebody like you and somebody like me, it is awesome. Because to have to focus on one thing is absolutely very boring for me as well. And when I had my other position in corporate America, I couldn’t have been more bored. So I just started, I used to joke about it with this one person who also worked within the organization, but I basically did everything I could to automate my job so that I wouldn’t really have to do anything. It was all automated as opposed to me having to manually run reports or report out about this or that, or whatever. Anything that I could automate, I would automate. And then I had all this time on my hands, and he would always joke with me and go: “Did you didn’t do anything during the day?” I’m like: “Yeah, I do. I do like my own projects.” No, like I started creating things that I wanted to see as a change within the organization because I had time to do that. Because I had taken my job and I had completely made it from like an eight hour a day job, let’s say to like a two hour a day job. Six hours a day for me to do the creative things that I wanted to do. So if I look back at my career or the different jobs that I’ve held, I really only had, the one in corporate America, I was with them for 10 years. I did different things with them, and then my own stuff. I’ve always been like that, always had to have something else going on.
Kim Sutton: In my last corporate America job, I also had my first major disaster, small business. I was not working on ways to improve that company while I was not doing their work, let’s just put it that way. In the E-commerce shop, I was totally listing new products in between my other work. You and I, I mean, we’re a couple years off, but I was in college from 97 to 2001, and I went to school in Chicago in my freshman dorm. I even think in the sophomore dorm, we did not have cable so we got one station that was the WB, and at that time Felicity started playing. Did you ever watch that back then?
Amy Dix: No.
Kim Sutton: Okay. It was Dawson’s Creek started and then Felicity, but there was a character and Felicity who was a serial entrepreneur. And at that point, it didn’t mean as much to me, but I love the show. So with my Hulu subscription, I’ve watched it a few more times that drives my family crazy. They’re like, mom, how old are you? Like shut up? I will live vicariously through the stars of a WB show. But he has all these notebooks where he keeps all of his entrepreneurial ideas like, yes, Greg Grunberg’s character has chronic idea disorder too, it’s awesome.
Amy Dix: Chronic idea disorder, I love it.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. I’m writing the book on it, but I have it so it makes reading the book a little bit tougher.
Amy Dix: That’s so funny.
Kim Sutton: It’s totally not appropriate. But this year, I am much more about being me and sharing my voice, like the real Kim instead of what I think people want to hear, or what they expect to hear. I had a realization last year that chronic idea disorders like bad sex. You can go for it all you want, but you’re never going to get there unless you draw the map and lay out the plan.
Amy Dix: Yes.
Kim Sutton: And for years, I would have never shared that because I would have been afraid of judgment. But we have to live into yourself, and be true to ourselves, and then magical things happen.
Amy Dix: It’s great and funny that kind of example was, and I do think that it was a brilliant example. It’s so true, sometimes I think the word authentic is overused. I just kind of posted about this the other day and I was like, Man, I think I’m gonna write a post or something, or a blog post or something about this, or do a course or something about how to have an authentic business in an inauthentic world. And there’s so much going on with social media and society, etc, etc, etcetera that it makes what we perceive to be very inauthentic a lot of the time. And how can we get past that and still stay true to who we are, and not put so much weight on what we think other people want to hear. We were talking before we started recording, we were just talking about podcasts in general and about coming up with content and all this other stuff. I had said, sometimes I find it hard, and you’d said to just come up with content on your own. If you’re not interviewing somebody, what are you gonna talk about? And one of the things that I struggle with is, I probably actually have the content, quite honestly, and so to you. It’s just like, we second guess and go, but that’s not good enough, but that’s not what they’re gonna want to hear, they’re not gonna want to hear about that this week, I need to come up with something better, right? Like, it’s really out of our own head.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. And that was actually part of why I went live on youtube this morning. I was sharing the exhaustion of big dreams, because I think a lot of people are afraid to share how just downright exhausting big dreams are. My 14 year old said to me on the way home from soccer last night, why apologize to him? Number one, because I don’t go to the out of state tournaments. His dad takes care of that, and his dad is my first husband. He’s like, Mom, I totally understand. He’s like, but when you’re making hundreds of millions of dollars in your business, do you think you could buy me a house? And I sighed, because just knowing what it’s taken to get to here, I hate to admit it, but my first thought was not about, Oh, that would be awesome to be making that much. Oh my gosh, that sounds exhausting.
Amy Dix: All the things I have to do to get there first.
Kim Sutton: Yeah. Look at Jeff Bezos on Amazon. I wonder, going from a garage to where he’s at now. Exactly, I would love to know how much sleep he gave up. I’ve had clients who make over 7-figures a year, and they turn around, and they tell their tribe that they work three days a week. It makes me gag a little because I know, because I’m still working with them. But no, they’re not. I’m getting texts from them and follow ups seven days a week. I’ve decided that I don’t want to work with people who are not authentic anymore because it’s not helping anybody when you’re lying.
Amy Dix: Absolutely. I wish I could put this post, there’s actually a post that I did a year or two ago, and then it showed up on my memories on Facebook a couple days ago. But that is awesome and so true., and that is exactly what I said to like, you’re not doing yourself any favors, but more importantly, you’re not doing, like your clientele, or those that you serve any favors. At that point, you’re just straight up lying to them. People are buying into it, and then they don’t understand why you can’t help them get to where you say you can help them get to, because it’s not the truth. And one of the things that I see a lot, and you might see this too being in the speaking world, people who say they’re a keynote speaker, but yet they’ve never delivered a keynote. It’s like, you can’t say that. Or people who say that they’re an author, yet they don’t have a published book. I don’t know this need, I think for people to feel like they have to be a certain way, and they have to portray themselves a certain way, or they’re not going to get enough business, or they’re not going to be viewed the way that they feel like they need to be viewed. But I think when we become a little vulnerable and become very, very truthful and show everything that it is to show about who we are and how we feel, that’s when everything else changes for the good, that’s when you can inspire other people, that’s when you’re going to get the clients that are meant to work with you. But if you portray this other image, you’re not even attracting the right clients for you. And that’s really important, I think.
Kim Sutton: Wow. I appreciate what you just said. And it’s crazy, because there’s somebody that I met while speaking. We were in a mastermind, and we were asked to share our goals for the next six months. And the person said, well, they can’t go over 6-figures a month so they’re going to try to stay right underneath that. And I was like, Wow, that’s amazing. And then the person wanted to know about hiring me to build a funnel for them. And when I said how much it was, they said they didn’t have that. I questioned it a little bit, but I just let it go because I don’t like to think negatively of people. I also know that really thriving businesses also can have a very high overhead, whatever. You might have a large team that I know about, I didn’t mean to put a gender on there, but I just did. So then I found out that we’re going to be speaking at an event, at the same event in a couple months so I reached out, I was like, so awesome to see that you’re going to be speaking there. And I didn’t see anything about me speaking there. It was all boasting, and they went back. And he said, Oh, yeah, I’m going to be speaking there too. And it was like, no, I’m not so special.
Amy Dix: Yeah.
Kim Sutton: You’re not going to feel enough if you always have to over inflate yourself. This is how I’m beginning to feel about this person too. They’ve felt the need to overinflate themselves to make themselves get bigger, but you’re not going to make yourself get bigger when people realize you’re full of BS.
Amy Dix: Right. And people don’t care. People don’t care. I think about this a lot too, when I see people post on social media or wherever. But when it becomes all about them, it’s like, you can still tell your story in a way that inspires and connects with people and still show that you’re on whatever stage, if that’s important to you. But when you start with, I was on this big stage, yay, me. Who cares? But if you say, I was able to impact, not even that, like the copywriter wants to say something like 2000 lives were impacted today, or 2000 lives became just a little bit happier today. That’s a lot different than, I spoke on a stage to 10,000 people, go me. I mean, it’s just a subtle difference in how you spread the message. And if you’re really doing what you care about and you’re really doing what you’re meant to do, you don’t care that you’re at a stage, and I’m just using the speaking thing as an example. But you don’t care that you’re on a stage with 2,000 people in the audience. What you care about is those 2,000 people may just be a little bit happier if that’s your message, or may just be able to understand how to automate their marketing, even if just in a little bit, better way. That’s what you care about.
Kim Sutton: I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate this whole part of our conversation. I was on Instagram maybe a month ago, and I saw that one of my peers had posted a picture of them flying first class. My initial thought was, oh, wow, that’s awesome. They got upgraded. Because I would totally post me in first class if I had gotten a–
Amy Dix: Right.
Kim Sutton: But it became a post about how they had been on the show, and the show, and the show, on the stage, on the stage, on the stage. Exactly what you were just talking about in not a good way. Okay, you are helping your community, how? Because it feels like you’re just spreading the not enough this to that, so thank you. Amy, where can listeners find you online, connecting to get to know more about you?
Amy Dix: Yeah, thepositivelifeco.com, T-H-E-P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E-L-I-F-E-C-O.C-O-M, and any of the social networks. I love connecting with anyone and everyone so I never really shy away from any of those, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever your social network of choice is. Holler and say Hello.
Kim Sutton: I love that. That is my, I’m just gonna leave it there. I’m everywhere, but I’m trying to figure out which ones are working the best.
Amy Dix: Yeah, I could have a little conversation with that later.
Kim Sutton: Maybe we should, we’ll have a whole another conversation about that. Do you have a parting piece of advice or a golden nugget that you can share with the listeners?
Amy Dix: I just think that, to remember, we’ve already touched on a little bit but, happiness is a choice. No matter how you feel right now, know that you can feel a different way. I think to understand happiness, you have to understand positivity. And when I define positivity, I say it’s the ability to use your thoughts to change the way that you feel. If you can remember that, that your thoughts are so powerful, that you can use your thoughts to change the way that you feel, then you will start to understand that you can achieve ultimate happiness in every moment of your life.
