I think there's three things that stop us. There's fear, anxiety, and resistance. Those are the three key things that will stop us from exploring a really exciting life. So that's what happens when you're not in resistance is the doors open, the opportunities show up, and you don't make them happen. They come to you instead of you going to them. Mary Lou Dobbs, a former corporate executive and business owner, turned transformation coach. After decades in banking and executive leadership, she now helps professionals and women overcome fear, anxiety, and limiting beliefs to create empowered, purpose-driven lives. In our adulthood, you know, someone hurts our feelings or traumatizes us in some way, and it plays over and over, and it creates a behavior that might not be serving us. I was kind of at loose ends, and then an event happened that pivoted me to a whole new area. It spans the globe like a super high-level called Internet. Elvis, Reddick, I'm going to hear you. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the ball. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast. For those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. The impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Jordan. Open. Chicago with the lead. You say Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream. Welcome back to another episode of the Women in Power podcast. For Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. Joining me today is yet another amazing, powerful woman, Mary Lou Dubs. That's three words, one name. Mary Lou, how are you? I'm fantastic. I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy for you. You literally just finished filming your episode for Women in Power. How do you feel? I feel relieved and excited, and I'm looking forward to the finished product. Fantastic. Walk us through the journey of today. How did you get to the seat? How did you feel about the questions, the cameras, the lights, the transition to your podcast? Walk us through your day. Well, today was, you know, we're always anticipating something that's new and unknown. And you have a little bit of fear around it and excitement as well. But it was made easy. The questions were on target. And it inspired me to, you know, dig deep and come up with really good answers. Right on. Well, that's part of the journey that I enjoy the most. That's basically the checklist of life of your journey. I'm like, yeah, that affirms that I do belong sitting in this chair. I do have the ability to share my story as a woman in power or a legacy maker here in Inside Success. Now let's rewind and talk about today, you today. What are we talking about today? Who are you at this very moment? Well, I was retired. I'd left my corporate world. I owned a company called Executive Benefit Strategies, and I ran that business for 17 years. Before that, I worked in the bank world and sold corporate insurance to business owners and trained bankers on how to sell profitable products. And I coached managers and presidents on how to treat their employees. And so I had a wide range of skills that I utilized throughout my career. And then I was kind of drifting. You know, I had my walking group and my mastermind group or my transformation coaching business. But I was kind of at loose ends. And then an event happened that pivoted me to a whole new area. So let's talk about executive coaching. For folks that are a little unfamiliar, what is exactly executive coaching? Well, transformation coaching is working with a couple of modalities. They're a little on the edge of society, but they're starting to become mainstream. One of them is thought-filled therapy. It's a tapping sequence that taps the energy field in your body, the meridians. You know, the Chinese for centuries have stuck needles in them, but this is a tapping sequence developed by Dr. Roger Callahan in 1980. And the concept is thought. You think the thought that's creating anxiety or fear or resistance in your life. And then we tap the meridian sequence. There's a certain sequence for each for like fear or anxiety and collapses it. Emotionally collapses it, the tape playing over and over and stopping you from moving forward. And then, of course, the energy field is what we tap and that goes away. And then I'm also certified in the emotion code, which is we carry emotions from traumas in our childhood or or even before. And in our adulthood, you know, someone hurts our feelings or traumatizes us in some way. And again, it plays plays over and over and it creates a behavior that might not be serving us. Oh, yeah. And everybody has it. You know, I mean, the fear of and anxiety of anything that can stop you from choosing the life you want, hold you back. I know you mentioned a transformation of transformative moment. What were you like in your corporate days? Let's call it quote unquote corporate days. You mentioned banking. You mentioned execs. What was life like back then? Well, you have to live by other people's rules. You know, like a bank, you have to be quieter and you have to fit into their environment. and their rules And so I walked a tight line because I ran my own department but yet I had to work with bankers and make them give me referrals of their business clients So I had to build relationships and win them over. And I used some very unique skills that I had to do that, which set me apart from my associates. and I ended up being number one in the country in sales for six consecutive years in the smallest market they had. So you, you kind of snickered there, like were you using Jedi mind tricks? Like what was your upper hand here? More, more than that. Oh really? Yeah. I, I created what was called a will of misfortune. A will of misfortune. I'm intrigued. So I was a partner. So we, we would have an opportunity to go in and talk to the business bankers about every three months and I thought the I always tell people find out what everybody else is doing and do something different to do something totally different so instead of saying open up your portfolio and give your business clients name to me you know just because you should I I decided to make it fun and interactive so I bought a wheel like a Vanna White Wheel of Fortune wheel put it on the conference table, put a lot of gifts on the table, you know, six pack of beer and a cooler, gift certificates to restaurants. And I put little cards on it. And then I had a business banker come up and turn the wheel and they'd pull a card and they'd read, you're a business owner and you have a partner and he dies. What? And now you do 100% of the work, but you have to pay 50% of the profits to a spouse. That's grim. Will of misfortune. And then I'd turn the card over and I'd say, you refer Mary Lou Dobbs to your client and she helps them fund a buy-sell agreement and funds it with life insurance and the partner dies and you have the money to give to a spouse and she goes away and you own 100% of the company. Will of fortune. Wow. You make it sound so easy. Yeah, but what it did was they got it. They got that I wasn't selling their clients, but I was assisting their clients and that they also started to look for referrals for me. And that's what turned my business around and made me successful. And then when I did make the sale, I didn't brag about it. I bragged about them. So I did a newsletter and I said, this was the client of Bruce's. And this is this is how he saved them financially because they didn't have to call in alone because they didn't have enough money in the partner past and put stress on the business. So I made them the hero. I was going to say something that I enjoy doing is producing blog posts through clients and through their testimonials, but essentially creating a case study of their pain points and the solution that was created by that one client. Yeah, and they do have pain points. And if you recognize them and they weren't in the past, it wasn't on their radar. But then when you make it fun and interactive. Oh, for sure. For sure. It worked. So I'm going to ask what happened. Actually, let's go for it. What was this transformative moment in your life that made you see the energy, the frequency? Okay, so one day I had a contractor come over to quote on some tile. and I said, I can't remember who you referred me to. So we looked at his text together and it was from an associate of mine and it said, Manuel, please give this woman a fair title quote. She's in my real estate investment group. She's an old white woman. And I, like, it was like a knife and I was like 50 years of success and I ended up being just an old white woman. And it really, like you said, a pain point. It hit deep and it hurt. And coincidentally, I was packing for a thousand mile motorcycle adventure in the Colorado Rockies to join my son, who we were celebrating his 50th birthday. The devil comes in many forms. It's just challenging you. I know. So like on the way there, I got to thinking, I actually found some humor in it. I woke up the next morning before my trip and I was listening in my mind to Alicia Keys. This girl is on fire. And that's actually what happened. I sat down and started to write the book, The Art of Being a Badass Woman and Breaking the Hold on Good Girl Conditioning. Because I'd done that my whole career, stayed small to fit in. And I think so many women do that. They stay small to fit in and be accepted instead of reaching deep inside themselves and finding out what's critical for their success. And finding their true power. Yeah. Which is exactly why you've been featured in Women in Power. Yeah, the power. Our power source truly is inside, especially when we feel safe and we trust ourselves to express who we are. Let's talk about your client base. Who are folks that come and reach out to you? Well, business clients and also retired women who are transitioning to another chapter in their life, maybe the third act. Yeah. You know, fourth and fifth. Yeah. Or, you know, an example is someone who's dealing with a godson who's had a traumatic event and she's totally stressed out and in anxiety over it. And they're acting out. and when she reduces her anxiety, the acting out stops with no intervention. It's just that we are a magnetic field of energy. And when we in distress or anxiety other people feel that tension and they move away from us because it not comfortable to be around it Do you feel like folks are more attuned to the frequencies and energy of day life versus the old ways of seeing things binary I think we're opening up to it with the media, the social media that makes so many more things available to us. You know, you go on the social media and you see just about anything, about everything, you know, mind and energy fields. But the work I do isn't actually, I'm not doing the work. The clients shows up. They decide to become involved in their transformation. And then I guide them with the tools I have to move past their limitations. When you say tools, are these downloads? Are these visual premonitions, energy frequencies, or tools that I can pick up? So we start out doing the tree of life breath. It's a breathing. You breathe four breaths in, count of four in, hold for four, and then release it. We do that three times to ground them because the only place to live safe and feel safe in the world is resting in our body. That's the only place we feel safe, and that's when we get these gut feelings, intuition. so when we feel safe resting in our body then we can move forward with our lives so we do that and then i teach them the sway test which is uh it was developed by dr hall in the 1930s it's a form of kinesiology you've seen people do muscle testing but this is your body like a sunflower moves towards the sun to get nurtured your body will move towards truth to get answers so the sway test is if you say your name, you say, my name is Mary Lou, my body will move forward. If I say my name is Carol, my body will move backwards. And so that's how we work. We find out, you know, they come and say, I'm really anxious about my relationship with my husband. You know, it's not going well, or I'm really anxious about taking a new position in the corporation. I'm not sure I'm qualified. We make the statement, is there a, would this client benefit from tapping? So if it says, yes, we do a tapping sequence, we find out which tapping sequence. Is it anxiety? Is it a fear? We tap. And then I say, is there a trapped emotion ready to be released? And you can only release trapped emotions that are ready to be released. So they come and they do have trapped emotions holding them back and a trapped emotion has an emotional trigger and it rests in our body from a past trauma usually and that trapped emotion might be low self-esteem, sadness, unworthiness and we release that trapped emotion and when they leave they're so much lighter and brighter. They feel lifted. And once that's gone, it's gone. It's not going to affect your life like it has in the past. What do you say to folks like myself that are sort of addicted or holding on to that trapped emotion because that's all they ever thought of or that's all they've been brought up to believe? You mean the pattern of it? Yeah. There's something called attention quotient that that I talk about in my book. And the attention quotient is when we're in a family and there's disruption or addiction or anything, that vibration, that frequency is absorbed in the body. And so we leave, we grow up, and we say, oh, I'm never going to be like that or them. And yet we draw to us that or them because we're comfortable with the frequency. not that it's healthy and not that it serves us but we're healthy we're comfortable with the frequency and so we draw that in and so until that becomes a conscious thought and then we can release that trapped emotion that keeps you root bound and uh and and restricted in in how to live a more fruitful uh life you're going to repeat the pattern well i was going to just add when you we remove these restrictions, do you see that pattern evolve into financial freedom and success where folks are, you know, levitated and free of this prison? Is that linked to not just spiritual success, but financial success? Oh my gosh, in every area. I think there's three things that stop us. There's fear, anxiety, and resistance. Those are the three key things that will stop us from exploring a really exciting life. And so when you address those, then what happens is you open up a space for something new to show up. And when you let go of resistance, I'll give you an example. I bought an e-bike. And, you know, everybody my age is buying an e-bike. Sure. Including Rudy. Yeah. I set the intention to find an e-bike. He's got two. 24 hours someone posted in our neighborhood that they had an e-bike for sale. It's a whole experience. So I went and I looked at the, but I knew nothing about e-bikes. And so I bought it and I saved a lot of money by buying it from a neighbor. And then I got on it and it wobbled and it scared me because I didn't know how it was supposed to feel. So I went into resistance. Oh my gosh, now it's this 50 pound bike. I have to take it to a bike shop and see. I don't know how to work it. know how to plug in the battery blah blah blah the resistance created separation and then i noticed i was in resistance so this is where the change can happen you become the observer and you notice you in fear or in resistance so i noticed i was in resistance i took a breath and I went and did something else that evening watered the plants did yoga whatever And the next morning I walking with my walking group and I say, Hey, I bought an e-bike. I'm really kind of excited, but it might need some repairs. And Tom, who's walking next to me said, Oh, I've been looking at an e-bike. In fact, But Frank, or Mike, who owns a mobile bike shop, was trying to sell me one. So look what happened. A mobile bike shop showed up. I didn't have to haul it, figure out how to lift 50 pounds and take it somewhere and pay $100. Mike shows up the next day, throws it in his van, shows me how to do everything and adjust the seat, and he charged me $35. dollars so that's what happens when you're not in resistance is the doors open the opportunities show up and you don't make them happen they come to you instead of you going to them is this is this kind of is this why the conspiracy theorists that are funding most of the podcast today feel that there's some sort of control over that like if we walked around free at the frequency that you're teaching your flock, I think there'd be a lot, a lot, lot more billionaires and we'd probably have our first trillionaire and we'd probably succeed in, you know, some weird abomination of flying vehicles because we're so free and so elevated. So almost, almost divine. Do you almost feel like there is some sort of control to keep us down just to have some sort of control over our true selves? That's not something I really would care to address. I think we keep ourselves down. That's what happens is we have limiting beliefs. The limiting belief is anything that has an emotional charge that you react to, you know, like, oh, a white woman or, you know, wouldn't bother me at all. And I did something creative with it. You know, I mean, I had a choice. It could have created a trigger that made me angry and I quit working with that person. And there were a lot there. I could have gone down another path. He's there right there. That was him. But actually, I actually loaned that person some money. There you go. In my mentor group, in my real estate investment group. And we both learned something. Like he learned, you know, a lesson. And I learned to look at something different than how it was sent to me. You know, the message that I had value, I didn't have value, and I wasn't appreciated. So I chose how to look at that. Who's who's whose lives have you transformed where you clearly saw the change before they met you and after they've worked with you? Well, I'll even go back before coaching. I've always been kind of a legacy maker in a way because I've had six personal assistants and they're all still stay in touch with me, which is the ultimate compliment. Absolutely. Some have worked for over six years. And the other day I took one of them to lunch. He was 19 when I started working with me, and he's 33 now. Wow. And I used to say to him, if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. And I said that all the time. That was actually said by Vince Lombardo, the Notre Dame football coach. You know, he'd tell his football players, if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. And he would always like, ah, you know, and he started coming on meetings 15 minutes early. And so one of the things he said to me at lunch was, you can't believe how lazy some of the people I work with are. And I have to tell them constantly, if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late. And so it's a compliment to know that you're passing on skills to your two mentors. Oh, for sure. Doing really great things and and and building their own legacy. For sure. Yeah. If you're if you're on time, you're already late. But I would argue with that. I would argue for that reasoning. If you're on time, you can pay attention and you listen to instructions very well. How about that? I would have much rather had the first post of the follow-up instructions as opposed to the dreamer that is on another path. I don't know. I've actually had business owners tell me one of the reasons they dealt with me was I showed up early. Oh, sure. I always showed up late. It's a sign of respect. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like in Japan where you leave a full, if you don't finish your meal, it's actually a sign of respect to the chef. It's like, oh, it was too much to feast. Respects to the chef. So besides my, besides my sushi culinary treats, how can folks reach out to you? How can folks learn more about you? Where do I go? Okay. Well, I do mention it in my book, the art of being a badass woman. It's on Amazon and in bookstores is available. But the other thing is I have a website and it's Mary Lou Dobbs.net. And I also have on my website women who are badasses. I have them fill out, tell me your story. What pissed you off? No, not what pissed you off. What made you a badass woman that allowed you to feel empowered? And you choose adventure over pain. You choose, you know, if you have trauma, you choose triumph. What are the things that make you lean towards life and not away from it? And then I would interview them on my podcast. Right on. So I, too, have a podcast. Well, very cool. Where can folks listen to your podcast? Well, we're just starting it. Again, they'd access my website to find out more information. MaryLouDobbs.net. MaryLouDobbs.net. Well, thank you so much for your time and energy. I hope you had a great, fantastic experience filming your episode and filming your podcast. And thus concludes yet another episode of the Women in Power podcast. For Inside Success, I'm Ray Gutierrez.
