17 Jan, 2023

Pete Cohen  0:00

Happy beautiful day. It is the Future Self Podcast. today's podcast is very special because I have a special guest. The podcast today is called Creative Genius You - The Equation That Makes You Great. I'll see you after the theme tune.

Happy beautiful day. Thank you so much for joining me for the podcast. today. We're talking all things creative genius. You have a very special guest also a very dear friend of mine. It's Ted talker. It's presenter. It's coach. It's my friend, Patti Dobrowolski. Patti, how are you? What's going on Patti?

Patti Dobrowolski  1:38

Oh my gosh. It's so exciting. Everything that's happening. And you and everybody that's here. Thank you for joining. Yes, this is going to be so fun.

Pete Cohen  1:47

Yeah. Well, you've actually been on my podcast before. But I never forget when you were on my podcast a few years ago, when we only just kind of met and we'll talk about how we met because it is an incredible story. But I remember doing that podcast and you said to me afterwards, you said Pete, I think we need to do that again. And we did and we've become great friends. We've worked together. And I've learned so much from you about looking at the future. You know, if I was going to think who's had the biggest influence on me in terms of the future, your genius it has to be you but also my wife hanos who's who's also with me in the studio. Today but Patti, for those of us that don't know who you are, why don't you just give a little overview of of who you are.

Patti Dobrowolski  2:32

Yeah. Hi everybody. Well, I am a what is called a live illustrator or a performance illustrator meaning that I draw pictures in the front of the room when people are having discussion or we're talking about the future. And the thing that I've been most focused on is something called Draw your future which is when you draw a picture of something that you want and you put it somewhere you can see it every day, you increase your chance of success by 42%. And I did a study with how hershfield to help people save money better. And that's what I've been doing. And so I have this new book that came out Pete and it's got the creative genius equation, which is all about problem solving. And that's what I think we're gonna talk a little bit about that today.

Pete Cohen  3:20

We're most definitely going to be talking about that. Just bear with me one second, recording in progress. We are definitely going to be talking about that. But I have a special guest in the studio who's just joined us for a few moments. Hannah, what would you like to say to Patty?

Patti Dobrowolski  3:35

Heidi? She can't hear Anna

Patti Dobrowolski  3:39

No, I can I can.

Pete Cohen  3:40

Okay, yeah. So how did we meet? How did we meet Patti? From from from your perspective?

Patti Dobrowolski  3:47

Um I Pete asked me a question, which was what are you going to do when you get better? So I had a brain tumor? And

Pete Cohen  4:11

yeah, which, that's okay. Well, Hannah had a brain tumor and wasn't given very long to live. And I had a coach and my coach said to me, ask kind of what she's going to do when she gets better. And I didn't ask her that question for three years because all I was interested in was helping her not die and after three years, I did ask you that question. And you got very upset when I asked you the question, because we've spoken about that. And we don't really know what you were thinking. But I thought I was because you don't have a future. Yeah, I can't remember I can't really remember. But then I Googled, draw your future and you watch Paddy's TED talk. Yes. And then what did you do? My future? And then what happened?

Patti Dobrowolski  4:52

It came true, which was what I do the house we were living in. Before we moved here, and it came true. Yeah, it came true. We've been on hold days to some of the places I wanted to go.

Pete Cohen  5:11

And you've met Patti and we've become friends, right? Yes. What impact has Patti had on your life?

Patti Dobrowolski  5:16

Oh, she's just gorgeous. She's just it's not back at your hands. Come on.

Patti Dobrowolski  5:24

Air is not you know, one thing that she's done, it's everything. Yeah, yeah.

Pete Cohen  5:30

Yeah. Well, Hannah doesn't normally come out into this room and you know, when I'm doing podcasting and stuff, but we we really appreciate you taking the time just to speak up because Patty's had a massive impact on my life. And Patti, what would you like to say to Hannah?

Patti Dobrowolski  5:46

Hannah, I love you and you're fantastic. I mean, you're just so incredible. This is brain tumor number two. So you know now you're I told Pete yesterday you you're a cat with nine lives. So next time, try not to make it so expensive. That treatment okay, that if you happen to have this happen, which I don't think it'll happen again. But I just I love that you just keep coming back and you're a miracle inaction is really what you are. And that has everything to do with you and your mindset, and your belief and all the people that love you. And they're believed in you, too.

Patti Dobrowolski  6:21

Thank you very much.

Pete Cohen  6:22

And one more thing, you know, in terms of what you now do, Hannah, because you do very creative work before. Before this all happened. You just you know, you're working very hard in the work that you do, but now you do very creative work. How much of that do you think has to do with learning to think differently and just follow your heart?

Patti Dobrowolski  6:40

Yeah, I just I made something for Patty and I loved loved making it but yeah, it has changed my perspective.

Pete Cohen  6:51

What did you make for Patty I made her a quilt to go yes. A

Patti Dobrowolski  6:55

beautiful for our van. Yeah, mobile hard travel.

Patti Dobrowolski  6:59

But then they sold it right. Yeah, we

Patti Dobrowolski  7:02

sold it but we'll get another one. This is you know, this is a car hound family. They buy and sell vehicles in this house. More than we change our clothes, honestly. Perfect.

Pete Cohen  7:15

Well, thank you so much. That was ladies never that was my wife. That is my wife. And you know of all the stories I've been a part of. So you know, as I was just saying, how Patti and I met was literally because of the worst time of my life, which became my greatest testimonial. And then in this year, this that was 12 years ago. And then last year, my my wife's brain tumor came back and it was a very, very difficult time. Once again, you were there. And we learned how to think beyond the difficulty that we found ourselves in and I I know you've been a path, many stories, what's that like for you to be a part of stories where people have drawn their future because if anyone Google's draw your future, they'll find Patti, they'll find one of the TED Talks that she has done. What's that like for you? That you have helped people to get in contact with their creative genius, so they've drawn their future and many of those people have reached out to you tell us a little bit about what that's like?

Patti Dobrowolski  8:12

Well, I think that number one, I feel like when that happens, I'm living my purpose, which is to help people to make change more easily. That was always what I wanted, because I wanted to make change easily when I was younger, and I wasn't quite sure how, like, how could I get on stage? You know, how could I get more people in the audience? How could I, you know, and I wanted to know that and so when I when I found that process, draw your future and then I tried it and it worked for me. I thought I got to show as many people as I can. Now when people write these stories, I honestly Pete some of those stories just make me weep. Do because we're all in this together. And we forget that but some people are in a relationship that's not going well, you know, and they need to leave it. Some people are in a job where they feel stuck. They're not themselves there. And they've been struggling to be themselves and they'll send me their stories of I drew my picture. This happened and now my life is transformed. And you know, the life transforming part. I think that picture is the activation of it. But you're the part of the real true activation in your own life. And that's what I tell people thank you for sharing your story and the more short stories you tell the more I tell those on stage because that inspires other people to go and do

Pete Cohen  9:39

1. Well, you know, it's so it's so obvious, isn't it? I think so many things are so obvious that we miss them that we all think in pictures. You know, I've told you this that many years ago I worked with the England blind cricket team. I didn't realize that blind people see. I didn't realize that I'm always picturing I'm always you know, what am I doing tonight? Well, I can see what I'm doing tonight. What did I do yesterday? Memories. It's like this obvious thing that people just miss and I've been doing some research. I'm really proud of the fact that when I that I Googled draw your future and anyone Google's draw your future in the world. Patty is going to come up

Patti Dobrowolski  10:19

even if they if they Google future you you come up well if

Pete Cohen  10:23

they if they Google how to create your fantastic future, I think I definitely better and better. I did some research recently about the word fantastic and then realize that it has some beautiful meanings. One of those is something fantastic is an idea that you come up in your mind and then being able to bring that to life is truly a fantastic thing. However, in French it was the word was changed and Shakespeare kind of took an Italian meaning of the word which meant was to think like that was to be ridiculous. And I think that effect Yeah, yeah, but you can understand how in the in a class, a class society that many people have been a part of it's like, well, no, you're not a creative person. So you know, you can't draw, but we're all drawing pictures inside our head. All the time. Yeah, and this is something that you woke me up to the fact of Hang on. I could draw the future that I actually want. And then I could go and create it. I mean, surely that's how most of us have got what we wanted, because we pictured it first. Is that right? That's right.

Patti Dobrowolski  11:33

That's right. 100% true. Because that's how that's how we actually create things in the world. Right? If if you have a picture of something good or bad, trust me. You can create the worst life you want by picturing it over and over and over again, because you're a magnet for what you're what you're picturing. That's how we're set up to operate in the physical world. Is that you create and use your imagination to create the reality that you live in. And so it starts with a picture everything does and the more you marry feeling to a picture, the faster it happens. Because pictures with feeling are the things that pull you into the future.

Pete Cohen  12:23

Ya know, I've said this a lot over the last few weeks about a pain pushes vision pulls and most people are pushed from a discomfort of dissatisfaction of where things are, rather than

Patti Dobrowolski  12:36

people ask a lot. What if my life is great, how could I use a picture to accelerate the future? And all that does is reflect back to you the things that you're doing well, so it matters. Picture because it's an accelerant. It's like pouring fuel on a fire. That's what it does inside of you inside of your your chemistry in your body and get you excited about it and then you can go out and do something today about it. Right?

Pete Cohen  13:07

Yeah, remember Tony Robbins saying success without fulfillment is failure. And I realized that a lot of successes I've had in my life. I didn't feel fulfilled, and there's a few reasons for that. But the point I wanted to make here Patti, is that a picture without emotion attached to it is just a picture. It's just a picture and I remember when I was in China and you looking at these people painting and we had an interpreter, and the interpreter explained that the painters they don't want you to see what they painted. They want you to feel what they felt when they painted and I just thought, Whoa, that's that's like a bit of a that didn't compute in my mind but when I thought about it, they want you to feel the feeling of being creative. And for us to think about what we want. And we'll talk about this with the equation that you have created and your new book. But Patti, why don't you tell us a little bit about how did you get to this point? How did you end up building creative genius? You? Well,

Patti Dobrowolski  14:12

I started the You mean in the Wayback Machine or with the creative genius,

Pete Cohen  14:17

the Wayback Machine. How did give us a history how did you go?

Patti Dobrowolski  14:21

You know I was a starving actor living in Seattle, Washington, working at Mama's Mexican kitchen. And a woman I did a show I was a performance artists really. And I did a show and somebody said you need to go to New York and take some real acting lessons, girl. I mean, really, seriously, you're subjecting us to this and I'm like, okay, good. I will. So I go there, and I happen to have been working for a woman as just a production assistant on a show. And she was a Broadway actress. She said, Oh, why don't you come stay with me and my third floor walk up and Brooklyn and I'm like, okay, and I go there and she gets me into one of the best acting schools for the summer. So I'm taking acting at outta Hoggins school, right. And so every day I walk past Broadway and now I'm living with a Broadway actress so she gets me all inspired about Broadway. I never even thought about Broadway because I was a performance artist like you would be off Broadway. You wouldn't be on Broadway. But then it's like imprinted in my head. She takes me down this stage door and in behind the curtain. And she says this is where you stand and the audience hush and I'm like, I'm chills you know, I'm like, Yeah, so I go back to Seattle after that summer of acting class, and I lose my job. My mom is really sick. And I'm like, What am I gonna do for money and the phone rings and they want me to audition for a show at the Seattle Repertory Theater. And they want to performance artists, which never happens. I'm talking about this is the 80s Right? So performance art was like so out there. This is Laurie Anderson time right when she first started to do work. And so I go down there and audition and you know, I'm they want me to do a dance routine. I'm not a dancer. I do the routine. And the interesting thing is the stage manager, the production stage manager is really cute. And you know, she thinks I'm really cute. And that's how I'm sure I gotten that show. Right? And so I get in this show goes to the main stage of the Seattle wrap. And then six months later, it goes to the Kennedy Center in New York. And then six months later, it goes to Broadway. And I'm like, how did this happen? How did that happen? So I realized something about me holding the picture in my mind of me on Broadway helped to accelerate it and then I become obsessed with it. You know, I read Tony Robbins I read about firewalking I read all of the material that about manifesting things and how you control that. And then one day I'm in a meeting and a guy gets to the front of the room, and he starts drawing a picture of what we're talking about. And I think, come boom, I think if you drew a picture, and then you live that picture, and you took action on it, what would happen next and that that really is how I became an illustrator. I didn't know how to draw I just saw this guy draw. And I thought that guy's making a lot of money drawing. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna teach myself to draw and so I can help people to make change. And so my, my platform you know, my my mission really changed from being an actor on a stage and reaching a small audience, to being an actor in a bigger context, being a keynote speaker, and showing as many people as I can how to draw the future. Yeah, and

Pete Cohen  17:52

how many TED Talks have you done?

Patti Dobrowolski  17:54

Yeah, I've done for what three formal TED Talks and then I've been interviewed on TED a couple of times.

Pete Cohen  18:01

Yeah. And you've had people contacting you from all over the world that have done that simple. Draw your future exercise, which I have

Patti Dobrowolski  18:08

a million people watch that and if you go into Best of 2015, because it came out in 2011, right. 2015 best stuff. You can read the comments in there people and their stories that continue to like pile in there, and I always go back there and read them because there there are you and I, there are our US caught in our challenge. And then, you know, how can we get out of it? And that's the goal. Really, that's what the work that you do, Pete and that I do is we want to help people to step into their best lives.

Pete Cohen  18:43

Yeah, I most definitely do. And I think before I met you, I was a bit ignorant really to stuff that's really obvious, and I was a bit of a fraud as well in terms of doing this stuff myself. I was very good at asking other people around, you know, your future. Tell me tell me what you want. And somehow I made the connection. I just didn't make the connection for myself. If someone comes to me and says, right, you know, I want to grow my business or I want to be fitter and healthier. I'd always ask the question, well, how would you know? How would you know that you had and I don't know why I work that but that's a masterful question because they have to go. All they have to think about it is if it's already happened, and then I would say well, the person that you see that's not you, it could be you. This is how I think it could be you. But if it was a you, you wouldn't be here with me. You would have gone you Why would you be seeing me if you already had what you wanted, because that's the person that has created what you wanted. But it was really only through starting to do this stuff. Myself and now I know the future but it's more for me, Patty about I know who I want to be and I'm committed to being that person.

Patti Dobrowolski  19:47

But also to I think that what's true is that you work in a dedicated fashion to step into future you there's there's one thing that you know people need to understand it's not like the internet, you know, the internet you, you Google it and it shows up right away. Well your future you it takes a while for that to happen some pieces of it because you're not in alignment with that person. That someone you're imagining out there. But you in the in the moment that you are you believe that you're, you know health is a rack or whatever you know, and over there, you're like beautiful and fit and right. And so the belief of how you are also it can be an impediment to you. If you don't understand how to retrack your brain to become and step into future you every single moment.

Pete Cohen  20:41

So when you talk about genius because obviously this is where you and I have a huge amount of synergy. When I came across your work and then we I interviewed you and you know the work that we've done around the world and your interpretation because you're known for upping people's creative genius What does the word genius mean to you?

Patti Dobrowolski  21:02

Well, you know, genius and and we've talked about this before but you know the Romans believed and this is the thing that I think is magical is the Romans believed that genius was lived in the walls of your home, or they and they sat on your shoulder and they would whisper these insights into you. And so really, who is that? You know, who is that genius? That's whispering right that that genius is you it's the higher bigger more essence of you that has been before this time and will live on beyond this time, right? It's the part of you that knows and sees and has experienced everything. And that's the part of the genius that you tap into when you become quiet. And you start to listen to what's living in your walls, not not the mice that are living in your walls but the you know, the part of you that really listening and tuning in.

Pete Cohen  22:03

So when I looked into that word, I saw that one of its meaning is the moral authority, you know, not the creator, the genius that people are that people don't think of themselves as geniuses but, you know, we're all anyone that's listening to this for the last 21 minutes. Chances are, your moral authority is telling you or encouraged is enjoying this. And I remember hearing from how hershfield who's a professor who talks a lot about future self he says that man didn't evolve to have a relationship beyond with a future that's beyond a few days and weeks and months. Why Why would we didn't need to think about that. Retirement didn't exist. It was all about the next meal. It was just about surviving. But now we live in a world where most of us are fortunate enough where surviving and really isn't the name of the game. Even though we're in survival mode, we can be in thriving mode. But it seems like the messaging from the world is one that you never switch off, Stay on your guard be in survival. So you'd never find any moments of peace and quiet to connect to what some people might call I don't know your higher self. But do you see that with all humans in terms of there is a genius. But there also is, you know, another part that wants us what is that part because some people call it the chimps I call it the duck some people call it the shadow part x. What's your interpretation about do you see that everyone has these voices within them?

Patti Dobrowolski  23:31

Yeah, I mean, I think that we are a balance, right? We're positive and negative ions in in space, right? And so we carry with us these patterns of behavior that are built into our DNA. That's one thing you know, those are the survival mechanisms. And but what's true is that's imprinted in the mental body that we carry right if you can see us as we I have a physical body but I have an emotional body, I have a mental body, I have a spiritual body I have, you know, maybe a memory body, right a causal body. And so with all of them, they have a particular role to play. Right? The memory right is part of that mental body and so it plays, you know, automates our body is automated, you know, I don't know how much it is like 65% is automated, but the other 35% we can impact and change. And so the goal is to make sure that you use and train the automation to work for you.

Pete Cohen  24:40

Work for You. Otherwise, you just become

Patti Dobrowolski  24:44

an automaton. Yeah, and I remember

Pete Cohen  24:46

watching that film Wally where you just see the humans have destroyed the earth and people have just disconnected. And I think we're gonna see

Patti Dobrowolski  24:56

and that's a choice. I mean, what's true is that, you know, we have so much judgment about what people do, but it's a lifetime. You can choose to do what you want to do, or be who you want to be it within that space. That's your choice. That's what freewill is about. So, you know, the goal is for us to be better humans. You know, I can hear my wife with the blender in the background. So if you can hear that that's we can't

Pete Cohen  25:23

hear that. Don't worry. If we can, I mean, it's just like, it's not I can't I'm just listening to him hanging on every word. You know what, what's amazing for me, Patti is honestly the impact that you've had on my life and the friendship and what

Patti Dobrowolski  25:39

we develop that creative genius, sense that in those conversations that we had, you know about creative genius so many years ago, and it hasn't been that long, but I think it feels like it helped each other evolve.

Pete Cohen  25:53

It feels it feels like I've known you all my life. And you know, when we you know, if you can't see a future that inspires you then it's very hard just to keep going. And you know, last year was really difficult for me because I thought my wife was you know, I thought that was the that was it. And I could see a future without her and I didn't want to think that and I was like no, I don't want to think that. And it wasn't because I had conversations with a few people and you being one of those people that are thought no, this is not the end there has to be a way out of this. And then I started to see something beyond where we were and I realized I know myself that much better that I always have to have something to to work on something to do something to create something to make. And I think that that's what when we see the best in people where there's something that we can do with something with what we actually have. And I want to dive into the actual equation that you came up with where did this come from? Where did that what is the equation first and foremost love

Patti Dobrowolski  26:57

the equation is it's called the creative genius equation. And this is the innate problem solving process that we do. It's automated. You know, we use our imaginations. Let's say you get into some kind of conundrum. Some Kind of Trouble you're in or some challenge you're up against. What happens is you begin to imagine how you can get out of it. And if you're a visual person, or you sometimes you'll write down all the ways you can get out of it in your journal or on post it. And then the second step is that you use your intuition to see what of these things can I automate? Can I make happen like with Hannah, right, if we take what happened? Like you, you were given a whole bunch of different possibilities by the doctors but you use your intuition to choose this one. It was really expensive, but it was odd. It was new. It was something that they were testing and trying and you thought, yes, that's the thing. So your intuition points you to a certain thing, then because you loved so much, whatever the output will be the vision of you in that healthiest state, the best, you know, most successful business, you know, impacting the world, whatever it is, your big dream is that desire to fuel that by seeing it and imagining it over and over again. And then all you have to do and that's the desire part of the equation. And then the last piece is drive. You have to get out there and do something and that all equals outcome, the infinite power meaning that will come better than you ever imagined. That's what happens when you consciously use the creative genius equation and draw your future does that but this breaks it down so you know where you're stuck because sometimes you're stuck because you have too many things you came up with, and you're trying too many ideas and you're not focused, right? So you got to use your intuition to determine what in this day do I need to focus on and do and then you fill it with love because your attention is love and desire, and then you take action?

Pete Cohen  29:18

Well, let's go through this a few times when when my coach was alive who used to live not too far from where you currently live in Dallas? I never forget one day when he said to me and I've mentioned this on the podcast before the future self podcast. I shouldn't say the future felt self podcast dedicated to Patti doba volsky because honestly, it is what it is, you know over 450 episodes seven years in, and we're only fantast Yeah, it is it is and I know that many people it's helped them have a different perspective because we know that people don't really change when we tell them what to do. But what what I remember him saying to me once I remember where we were, and he said to me, Pete, what's the nature of the mind? And I can't even remember what I said. But I just could hear that voice in my head gonna stop talking. He wanted he wants to share something with you. He said Pete the nature of your injury I knew that I could my guiding in there was just shut up. Just shut up and listen, right. But then he said that the nature of the mind is your mind plays tricks on you. It's a trickster. You know you're trying to go to sleep at night and your mind is going over something you think someone's behind you. You're worried about what what you said. And I'm sure there are moments we all experienced that. Then he said how do you conquer your mind and then I gave him a long winded answer. And he I think he was kind enough just to give me the space to speak. And he said, Look, the way to conquer your mind is you've got to find humor in what you think you've got to be able to step back from what you think because otherwise you'll be a victim he he explained something to me which again is obvious. He said the mind is a channel and you can put it somewhere but just be careful where you put it because if you don't do choose to put it where you want to put it it will go and and I think that itself somewhere, it will put it in put it will go somewhere where it's familiar, it will go and focus on what's wrong or what's missing. I mean, maybe this isn't, doesn't apply to everybody. But it's that awareness and that stepping back from the experience of being you and to realize hang on what am I picturing? How am I actually feeling and taking ownership of that? And when you were talking Patti, I remember when the doctor called us last year Hannah and I think we were gonna get some paint. And she's actually listening to this you know right now and I I remember him calling and basically saying confirmed that this cancer was back and he confirmed that they weren't going to operate. And it was just feel like oh, there's nothing there's nothing we can do. And I remember that that hopeless feeling of just thinking and I've actually had this before with HANA 12 years ago thinking, what is the point? And I didn't see a point. But boy when I look back now I see wow, that was a massive point. It was another part of my of evolvement her involvement. I'm just curious. I saw you writing something down there. So I wondered what you wanted to say on the back of that. Well, I

Patti Dobrowolski  32:11

just think this is the place that we often get to before we get too deep over our belief system. So we they said no to operation, but you of course in that moment. You're devastated. This is like the relationship ending. This is like death on the doorstep. This is like all of the things that you fear. And you can enter the fear. Or you can flip it over. You can decide, I don't think so. That's not going to happen for me. I'm going to do something something different. And that's that's it?

Pete Cohen  32:55

Well, that's one of the things you know, when we were coaching each other, you want said to me you just stopped me I remember exactly the conversation and you just say Pete, you got to make the choice to love or fear. What did you mean by that party?

Patti Dobrowolski  33:12

You know, on the backside of fear is love right? Every if you think about it, we are created out of love. We are love in the universe we exist, because whatever's out there loves us and experiences life through us. This is why if you can get out of your own way and realize hey, the universe is experiencing this moment. Whether it's the worst chaotic moment you've ever had or the best. If you can be grateful for that and realize you're helping universe evolve in your experience. It changes things. And that I think is a mindset shift. That we don't realize we think we think we're in charge of everything.

Pete Cohen  33:58

Don't you think? Yeah, I do. And I think you know, I don't know that

Patti Dobrowolski  34:01

I answered your question or you know, kind of caught up in this thought and it just flew in so I apologize.

Pete Cohen  34:10

Please, please don't apologize. This is my podcast, right? And this is a conversation between two friends and people can do with this as well as they, as they want to. They can take something from it. But you know what, I just had an epiphany when you were speaking, which was even when it got really tough last year. I think because of what I'd been through before and I'm only just kind of reflecting on this. That even and probably even more so for HANA again, who's listening that it was much easier to get to the point of right, come on, let's go. Let's do this. I'm not I'm not going to be beaten by this. And I must admit when I saw that in her, I was massively fueled by by defeating it by using love and I think you know, one of my goals for this year Patti is to be more loving. I was at an event this morning I was speaking at it and I was saying, you know, I want to be more love. I want to give more love. I want to be a beacon of love because I think if you if you do that, is it easier to use your imagination when you when you are feeling and experiencing love?

Patti Dobrowolski  35:16

Yeah, definitely because you're open. And I think that's what love does. You know when when people go into meditate the most important thing when you meditate is to open your heart first. Because then you'll have an inquiry

Pete Cohen  35:28

people scared to why people do think scared to say I love you or even just to allow themselves to experience love

Patti Dobrowolski  35:35

that that makes you vulnerable to them that you somehow we feel like that's a vulnerability to express love. And it shows that we care and that we and then they can possibly hurt us that they can use that against us. I think that that for some people who grew up in a way in which they weren't loved wasn't demonstrated for them. It's hard for them to express it when you know, practice makes perfect. I'm a drama therapist. So like I practice things, months in advance of them actually happening in real life. You know, I've rehearsed that TED talk, I swear Pete for 200 days before it's a fantastic TED Talk that it was totally dialed. Okay. 200 That's an exaggeration. 120 It was four months I knew. So but yes, I mean, you. You train yourself to be loved. You have to because otherwise you'll default to fear you just will. Because you want to protect your heart and you want to protect yourself. You want to protect your family, you know, and we live in a world like think about it. I'm in Texas, right? And so I'm in the post office, okay, the post office is like the place that I go to mail books to people and stuff. I go there often. And I guess I don't have an assistant that comes over and takes the books to the post. Office. Now. I do do myself. I'm still doing this. Right. So and Julie's too busy to like help. So I am actually taking Julie's boxes to the post office, because she needs to send them out to all of her employees that work with her at our company. And I said I'll go. I'll take them so they're taller than me and I've got them on a dolly right and they're above my head. And everybody's helping me in the post office. And so they opened the door for me they're very friendly and so we're chatting and the woman behind me is chatting about her having just moved to Texas, from Idaho where she had, you know, she was a canner. She had fruit trees and blah, blah, blah. Okay. So she says, I would love to get together with you and your husband, okay. I'm gay. So I say to her, You mean my wife in the post office at the middle of Texas. And you can imagine that me saying that out loud. That room created a certain kind of fear in people and I just looked around the room and I filled my heart with love. And I looked at everybody and I just tried to make eye contact and just be there because one little act like that, you know can transform it right? So we have this love equals love sign at the end of our driveway. Last year, we got a card and we got a pan of brownies. And the card said hi, I'm a trans youth living around the corner from you and your love equals love sign gives me hope for my future. Hmm. And I thought one person if I moved to Texas for that one person, I'm okay with that.

Pete Cohen  38:47

You know, the whole polarity thing, the current the kind of the separation that we're experiencing in our world like never before have I'm right, you're wrong. This is good. This is bad. This is good. This

Patti Dobrowolski  38:59

is this is right. And this is wrong.

Pete Cohen  39:01

Yeah. Right. And being able to look at the world of eyes. No, I love the differences of people of different countries, different religions, different everything. I think it's fascinating but to be able to even step back and said, Well, what's behind that? I would like to think that it's the ability for us to be loving to each other, and to be kind to each other. And it's like you said it, I think it's a choice. It's I think it's a skill. It's a skill and and I would also say it's a it's a it's a practice, and I think what you will always remind me of is the practice of connecting and then reconnecting. Because obviously this is a time of year for many people where they're setting their goals and that's just a one off thing. And that's done rather than connecting to the outcome of your goal, feeling the goal. So just talk us through just go through the equation again, but also just talk us about the book that has just come out Where did the idea of that come from? What is the Book about and then please let us know about the equation which obviously is featured heavily in the book

Patti Dobrowolski  40:04

Alliance a long time ago, Phil Shepherd night he was a consultant at that time and he was kind of a mentor to me really he was a very spiritual guy. I loved him. He said we have to create a shop, and it needs to help people to get to, to their essence. And I was like, I think I have an equation. Let's do this, this and this imagination, times intuition, plus desire times drive equals outcome to the infinite power. And so we plan this workshop we were going to run it this big consulting firm in San Francisco, and then something happened and we couldn't do it. But that equation stuck with me. And I began to try it over and over again because I found it's the simplest way to problem solve. Look it from with your imagination of all the possible solutions.

Pete Cohen  40:53

Well, let's use one let's look at one of those. Let's just pick one, right? So you know, you and I did something yesterday on LinkedIn and a lot of people said they want to grow their business, right, right. Right. Can we apply the equation to people that want to grow

Patti Dobrowolski  41:06

slowly? All right, so let's say that you have a business a budding business, maybe you're Matt and you have want to grow your, you know, your salon business, right? You want to imagine like that, what would it look like what could you do possibly do to so you get the vision of what it is you want using your imagination and you get to use your imagination to figure out all of the fun things that you could do fun is key. All the fun things you could do to make it happen. And you put that all up somewhere you can see it. You think you use dial in your intuition by getting quiet, listening and let the creative genius creep out of the walls of your house. Sit on your shoulder and choose one. Just one and then just fill that idea with love and just explode it. Tell people about it. Talk to talk to them about it, get their you know their ideas about how you can make that happen and then go do something, those things. So imagination times intuition, plus desire that's you putting your focused attention on something and filling it with love. People, footballer, love and then going and taking action. And if you do that, you know, every single day with yourself. It's automated already. But if you pull it up and test it and try it, you'll find the ways that work for you.

Pete Cohen  42:37

I really like that the intuition that desire park can also be really really did this properly. You might think that there's something you imagined because you think you want it you go through this process and you think Hang on a second. I don't mind intuition tells me there's something not right about this and I suppose it could be the fact that maybe you don't believe it which we I would like to ask you but I think also sometimes that you just think you know desire I don't

Patti Dobrowolski  43:03

know this well we sometimes desire things because our parents want us to have them you know I mean hundreds of of the draw your future. Thanks came in that said my mother wanted me to be a x. Right. My father wanted me to do Y. And I decided that I was when I drew my picture. It didn't have any of that in it. So I'm doing this, right. Yeah. And so I believe that we act out of responsibility to things not believing that we can actually make change happen and create the world we want to live in. I want to

Pete Cohen  43:38

help you spread the word of this equation that you've come up with. In fact, if you Google my name Pete Cohen equation, business equation, you'll see an equation that we designed in 2003 that was asked in 27 countries around the world. I actually had people from Korea coming over to meet us because we thought they thought we had found the answer to happiness, which is really because it's relative. You I think that for me, happiness is and this is again, I learned this from somebody else from my coach. He said happiness was wanting what you have. And I was like, Well, I can't I didn't get it at first and it's like being happy with what you have. So you don't coming from a place of lack. You're coming from a place of abundance and what you do the it's hard sometimes for people to get what this work is about unless you do it. For me. It is about our ability to picture something in such a way you didn't do it to desire it to the point where we actually feel that it's already here. But like you said the drive is the doing it. There's nothing happens without without doing and when you talk about the inputs. What does that mean

Patti Dobrowolski  44:46

as well. You know, you tap into infinity when you're using the essence of who you are to create change. You tap into this infinite potential of any thing and so this is what you're doing honestly, that's your creative genius is the infinite power to make things happen. It's infinite. It's not limited by what your mind tells you what your present self tells you. When we know about future you is that the future you do is out there doing way more. So if you set goals from future you instead of you and how hershfield talks a lot about this. That changes everything. If you decide you're going to be I'm going to live to 150 What comes the future? You know me it what kind of goals would that person tell me that I should have? Right? Right. And you know, it'd be about exercise and not eat sugar.

Pete Cohen  45:44

Yeah, it just makes doing it all a little bit easier. You know, having empathy if you don't know the future, beyond a few days and weeks. Why would you invest in it unless you're one of the most maybe strange people that just likes improving things for no reason? It doesn't go anywhere. For me, the world needs more people that are hopeful. They see the future they want to go and create. They want to be an example to everybody else. What better example could there be by you giving and the impact that has on people around you?

Patti Dobrowolski  46:15

Or you growing your business so that you can many people with it, you know, and you look at people that are out there and that their main goal is to make money and that you know, that's fine. But our main goal is to help people live their best lives, I think is, you know, something that, for me is about service. And service, to me is the essence of creative genius, because we become a co worker with whatever created this world, right? If we operate service to the bigger picture, then the bigger picture can funnel through us and create better and more love in the universe. And so if you can shift your mind to that you're in service the world every second of the day, turn it over, stop trying to troll how it's done and say, Okay, how should I do this today? How do you want me to be today? What do you want me to try today? What we want to experience through me today?

Pete Cohen  47:23

I love it.

Patti Dobrowolski  47:26

Then you It relieves the burden of having to know everything all the time, which is painful, because we don't, we never will. And so we can learn because that's fun. It's fun. And so we learn and grow but then all those ideas that drop in, those are just all these like little blinks of light in the universe that are waiting to come through us from the universe. It's in operation on our behalf.

Pete Cohen  47:53

Well, Patti, I want to thank you so much, and I think we must be at about 450 episodes of the podcast and I know that we've done we I interviewed you a long time ago and then we did Pete and Patty's powerful particular podcast. I think there's about eight episodes of that. I love working with you. I love knowing you. And if you've taken anything away from today, then reach out, Patti, what's the best way for people to reach out to you Paddy?

Patti Dobrowolski  48:20

So that you can just like you know, friend me on Instagram, do it that way. That's easy. And then also to couple of things. One, you can get it get the e book, right, it's 99 however little is in the UK right? And then write a review of it because that that helps to bring us up in the standings or whatever the rankings no more people said it's more people out there. Yeah, and Barnes and Noble, so then they start to carry it, etc. The second thing is on February 1 Moses, we got a break when it's set a Guinness World Record with the most draw your pic draw your few visuals that are owed in a zoom. So that's going to happen at 10am Pacific Time, and Pete's gonna put the link into the chat and

Pete Cohen  49:11

we'll put it we'll put it in the show notes.

Patti Dobrowolski  49:14

Yes. And you can sign up on Eventbrite February 1, we all we need is 500 People come on to nothing. So it's a drop in the bucket. Join us there I'll lead the session. You don't need to know how to. It'll be so much fun and get to envision the future that you want to live in. So this is for your life, for your business for your health. Anything that you want. Come join me there on February 1. I know people will be there too.

Pete Cohen  49:47

I will. Definitely and I'm you know, I'm so glad that I've seen so many people to think when you find something great. Thank you. Oh, it's a pleasure. Listen, when you find something great. You want to tell the world you know what about what beddings Don't keep it to yourself. So Patti, thank you so much for your time. Today. I genuinely appreciate you and love you. Guys, go check out the book. We'll put links to the so you can get it on Amazon in the US you care wherever you are in the world. We know people's podcasts all over the world, which is truly magnificent. When we're quite high now in Denmark.

Patti Dobrowolski  50:26

You just it just jumps around but you're a fantastic Pete and I thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, our friendship and our support for me. Thank you,

Pete Cohen  50:35

Mike that draw your future session on February the first let's get over 500 people I know you're going to be in the UK in June. We're going to be doing some work together. But for now ladies, can we please give it up for Patti Dobrowolski. We'll see you next time.