Dawn Gluskin, a storyteller, truth-digger, copywriter, and strategist, joins Tatiana Berindei to talk about using storytelling to define self image. She helps soul-centered entrepreneurs stand out, build their legacy, and live a life they love. She’s been in sales + marketing for 20+ years, built a 7-figure biz, and her words and stories have been published internationally. She decided to share her story with the world publicly. It took her 2 months to write her 1000 word blog post for HuffPo (because she was scared). But, the moment she hit “submit” something magical happened. Listen in as she shares her thoughts about using storytelling to define self image.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Sex, Love, and SuperPowers podcast show. I’m your host Tatiana Berindei. And today I have with me Dawn Gluskin who’s a very lovely woman. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. We are going to be discussing using storytelling to define self-image because Dawn is a truth digger, a storyteller, and a copywriter. She helps entrepreneurs tell their stories that need to be heard in the world. She knows that showing up in the world as who we really are and not who the world wants us to be, happens to be good for business, but more importantly it’s good for the soul. She stands for full self-expression and vulnerability as the means to a well-lived life on purpose. Welcome to the show Dawn.
Yes, thank you so much for having me I’m really excited to have this conversation today with you.
Me too. So, we’re going to start off with our classic question ask you, what are your superpowers?
We’re programmed from a very young age with all these beliefs.
Yeah, well as a storyteller obviously one of my superpowers is with the written word, with communicating and bringing people in with words, but even more so than that is really seeing people inside of storytelling as who they really are, as like their higher self, the highest version of themselves. Just having a way of seeing that in a person and then helping them see it for themselves, which sometimes is hard to do because we’re sort of programmed from a very young age with all these beliefsthat might not really resonate with who were are, so we get to sort through them sort of later in life.
Yeah, I love that. I love that. That’s so beautiful and such a really important gift. So, how do you implement that gift in the world? What are the ways that you work with that?
I primarily work inside of my business with other entrepreneurs. Really the basis of what I do in my brand is really getting to the core of who someone is and getting them to be authentic and vulnerable and tell their story with the world. I think we all have a story that needs to be told and sometimes in the business world that’s sort of taboo. We’re sort of ingrained to think, “No, you have to show up a certain way.” Whether if you wear a suit and tie or you don’t talk about this. There are just certain ways of being they’re almost expected. Especially in the world of business, but we’re really trying to break out of that in a new paradigm and just really being more of who we are. And really being self-expressed.
Thank God. Yeah. And it feels so good to be who we are too.
People struggle with that. It’s scary. It’s really scary to be ourselves. But like I said, it is good for business because people connect with that truth and authenticity and it’s just good for the soul, it’s good soul work to just break free and be who you are.
Yeah, it’s very freeing. I mean I think it’s really what we’re craving the most and we go after all of these external manifestations of what we think is going to give us a happy life. And if we’re not really living from the inside out like I like to call it, really embodied inside of ourselves solid with our sense of self, none of those outside things are external manifestations of success are going to make us feel happy or complete.
Yeah, it’s so true. We all kind of have this collective definition of success and while that might be true for one person it might not be someone else’s version. Some people would be happy just meditating on a mountain for the rest of their life while other people like want to work and they want to give and connect with people. We all have to define for ourselves but it gets so cloudy up in our own heads just because we don’t know who we are or what we stand for and we have to really sort through all those beliefs that we’ve picked up throughout our life.
Yeah, so let’s talk about that because and I really love the Abraham Hicks teachings and they say, “A belief is just a storytelling yourself.”
Yep.
And I’ve really come to play with this in my own life around, beliefs are so … we think they’re concrete and yet they are not, they’re so malleable, they’re so changeable if we want to change them.
Absolutely.
And we have all these beliefs that we sort of take for granted as truth and yet what if we reexamine them? First of all, what are the beliefs? And when we start to reexamine them, especially the beliefs about ourselves, I mean we’re talking about using storytelling to define self-image. I think a lot of us have a really negative sense of self, a really negative self-image, and how do you work with people? I’d be curious to hear how you work with people to tell a different story about themselves.
Yeah, well you know first I think it’s important to kind of sort out like what happened. Sometimes there are things that happen in our lives that maybe did happen. Maybe something bad that happened or something that we’re not proud of or ashamed. There’s a lot of people carry shame around. So, we have to come to a point and just be like, “That’s what happened.” Okay. There’s no good, bad, right or wrong. That’s just something that happened in our life. And then everything else is just a story we created up about it. If something bad happened to you and then you created up to this story, “Well that happened to me because I’m not worthy or I’m not loved or I deserve that.” Everything else is just the story. So really if people can get that distinction of whatever happens in your past it just happened, and release all the judgment about it, release all the story you created up about yourself about it. And that’s very liberating.
When I started my first company we grew into a $3m company in 2 years.
For me when I started my first company we grew very fast and we grew into a three million dollar company in two yearsand seven years later I was broke and I had to shut down the company. My story about that was, “Well, I failed. I’m a failure.” All these things. And it was like, “No you’re not. That’s just what happened. That’s just part of your path. And everything else you made up about yourself is just a story.” Really getting that distinction in all areas of your life is super powerful.
Yeah, I love that. It reminds me of an interview I heard about once with Thomas Edison. Someone was asking him about, “You failed a thousand times trying to create the light bulb.”
And he said, “No I didn’t. I found a thousand ways it wouldn’t work.”
I love it. That’s so good. Yeah, but it’s so good because it’s our perspective can really create the life we want or it can destroy our lives if we just have a lot of judgments about ourselves. And that is so good. Yeah, failed a thousand times. No, I found a thousand ways it doesn’t work. I think you just apply that to your life, it’s so powerful.
Yeah, it’s really powerful. I tell my clients sometimes, “If you’re going to tell a story it might as well be a good one, right?”
Yes. And that’s the thing too we are the real creators, we get to create our life, thought by thought, moment by moment. And we might as well make it a good one. Might as well live the life where everything’s possible and you can be anything do anything and just get rid of all those other negative stories that are holding you back. Once people really realize that they’re like, “I can create the life I want.” It’s so powerful. That’s always I say the good news and the bad news. That’s the bad news when your beliefs are, “I’m not worthy. I’m not enough.” Yeah, you can re-write those any time, like right now just start right now and then the next moment, the next moment. And it’s really that simple and that difficult.
I was going to say, it’s that simple but it’s not easy.
Yeah, no.
Because especially if you have a lot of momentum going with some of those stories.
Yeah.
And that … not to make it an excuse but just to like let’s be real about it. I think oftentimes this journey gets painted as like, “Oh look, it’s so easy. Just rewrite your stories and create your life. And like tada have magic experience.” And it’s not that easy. It is a practice.
Yeah, absolutely.
It’s not a one and done.
And that’s such a good point to make because a lot of these beliefs are deeply embedded into like our subconscious mind they’re just on auto-pilot. These programs just run constantly in the background and we’re so used to them that we don’t even know they’re there. So you really have to become super mindful super aware. Like you said it’s a practice, a daily practice, moment by moment of bringing your thoughts back. Like, “No, no. That’s not true. Erase that thought let me replace that with what I really want to think.” But yeah, it’s simple but it’s not easy.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, we’re going to hop to a quick break and when we get back from the break we were talking a little bit before we got on together here about deprogramming our ideas of sex and how that’s affected your own personal journey and your sense of self and your self-image. And so, we’re going to dive into that after the break because I think that’s a really important topic and this is the Sex, Love and Super Powers show so let’s talk about sex a little bit.
Yeah, sounds good.
But before we go to the break will you tell everybody where they can find out more about your work?
Sure. Yeah, you can go to my website it’s blissedcommunications.comor just loves connecting on social media it’s just Dawn Gluskin on Facebookor Instagram.
Awesome. So again, we’ve been talking with Dawn Gluskin about using storytelling to define self-image and when we get back we’re going to talk a little bit about how that applies to our sexual self-image. So stay tuned.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
Music Credit: All instruments played by Amanda Turk. Engineered and produced by Tatiana Berindei and Daniel Plane reelcello.com
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