Deborah Driggs – Actress, Model & Life Insurance Specialist | From Playboy to President’s Club

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About The Guest

Talking Points

• 00:00 – Intro
• 02:40 – Deborah Driggs’ origin story.
• 08:15 – Why do athletes make great entrepreneurs.
• 16:40 – How to get into Playboy?
• 19:16 – How much does Playboy pay?
• 24:30 – Deborah’s Playboy career.
• 32:30 – Current Playboy scandals & cancel culture.
• 38:13 – Does canceling someone actually do anything positive?
• 44:41 – Deborah Driggs post-Playboy life.
• 49:52 – How to leverage your network? 
• 54:41 – Why do people overcomplicate selling? 
• 57:54 – Why do so many people fail in the insurance industry? 
• 58:45 – What is Deborah Driggs doing now? 
• 1:06:50 – What is some advice to overcoming negative self-talk? 
• 1:14:00 – Where do people connect with Deborah Driggs?
• 1:15:20 – What was the biggest challenge of Deborah Driggs’s career?
• 1:15:55 – Who is the mentor of Deborah Driggs?
• 1:17:39 – A book or a podcast recommended by Deborah Driggs.
• 1:18:37 – What would Deborah Driggs tell her 20-year-old self?
• 1:18:58 – What does success mean to Deborah Driggs?

Show Links

• https://twitter.com/deborahdriggs/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahdriggs/
• https://deborahdriggs.com/

Podcast & Newsletter Sponsors

• HUBSPOT – http://hubspot.com/successpod/
  
• TRUEBILL – https://truebill.com/successstory
• HELLOFRESH – https://hellofresh.com/successstory16

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What is the Success Story Podcast?

On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.

Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures, and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and insights.

He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their stories to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between.

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Machine Generated Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, playboy, called, life, business, canceled, book, speak, life insurance, modeling, skating, centerfold, knew, hubspot, audition, bit, girl, reinvent, save, agent

SPEAKERS

Scott D Clary, Deborah Driggs

 

00:00

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Scott D Clary  00:37

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I’m your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the blue wire podcast network as well as the HubSpot Podcast Network. Now, the HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible shows like The Hustle daily, it’s hosted by Zachary Crockett Jacob Cohen, Rob literalist, and Juliette Bennett RYLA. Now the hustle daily brings you a healthy dose of irreverent, offbeat and informative takes on business, tech and news. And it happens daily. So if you want to stay up to date on the latest and greatest, and some of these topics that are interesting to you, then you’re going to love the hustle daily topics like Amazon’s grocery strategy. The rise of the ugly shoe economy is AI the secret to love and America’s sleep deficit problem. So if these are topics you want to get into and you love keeping up to date content whenever you wake up in the morning, go listen to the hustle daily wherever you listen to your podcast. today. My guest is Deborah Driggs. Deborah is one of the highest earning most notable most recognizable life insurance agents, a completely oversaturated industry. She rose to the top in all of the United States. She didn’t start like that though. She went through a career in professional figure skating. Then she went into professional dancing. She was a Playboy centerfold model before she finally pivoted. She reinvented herself. So we spoke about her life her career. We spoke about early days what she learned from professional sports. We spoke about her going to acting, the dancing the cheerleading, going into a playboy audition, messing up the play by audition, but then being called back for a centerfold spot and how that impacted her life the doors that open. Then we spoke about her divorce at 40. Her reinventing herself for going into life insurance, her having to completely learn something brand new at an older age and go into it and do it successfully. Now she teaches life insurance agents she gives motivational speeches on her life on reinventing yourself on overcoming self talk and self doubt, a negative self talk and also just on sales on how she was so successful on building this book of business that she has clients that are Movie Studio mogul celebrities, fortune 500 leaders, some of the highest net worth individuals. Those are her clients with her life insurance clients. She has a book coming out a memoir on her life. She’s incredible individual is a really fun conversation. Let’s jump right into this. This is , Deborah Driggs one of the most notable life insurance agents in the United States.

 

Deborah Driggs  03:17

Yeah, so going, you know, for me, I think the most important thing that I got, as a young as a youngster as a young child was, I started out in figure skating. And I did not have any structure growing up in in my home environment. My parents were very young when they had me, my mother was 19, my father was 22. So what saved me was the fact that I found ice skating, and I became a competitive figure skater. And all I really, I really give a lot of credit to the fact that I had some amazing coaches, I had some of the hardest life lessons as a skater. And without that, I don’t know that my life would have gone in the direction that it really went in, because I got all those skills that you really need in a home environment or school environment. And in both those environments, that element was missing. So you got that sports. Got that from sports. And thank God because you know, even today, you know, there’s a, there’s a discipline that I have that came from when I started skating at a very young age. You know, back when I skated, you had to get up at 4am. And you had to do something called patch. You had to do figures for hours before you even did a spin. You had to do these figure eights. They don’t do this anymore, by the way. And I remember when they took it out of when they when they said you know we’re not going to use this anymore, because you had to pass a certain amount of tests to get to the Olympics. And when they took it out, I was like, Finally, because I just It drove the skaters nuts that we had to spend so many hours doing figures when we wanted to be skating. And so that was that, but that also gave us discipline. And so, you know, I started my day at four, four Am

 

Scott D Clary  05:19

yeah, I am, for sure. I can discipline

 

Deborah Driggs  05:24

figures, just skating and figure eights, you know, and, and then after school, I went back to the rink, and I skated for another, you know, four hours doing the freestyle skating. And so I had some really tough coaches, and I had coaches that, you know, when I fell down, or if I was gonna fall apart emotionally, they were like, Get up, we go again. And so at a young age, I’ll even run my, this is a great story. Because my very first competition, I fell on my first job, and I went completely, you know, how it’s like a car accident where it happens. And it’s like slow motion. That’s how this felt, I fell, I’m on the ice, and I get up and everything afterwards was like slow motion. Next thing I knew I came off the ice, hysterically crying. And, you know, this is the seven days. So my coach grabbed me by my hair, and took me into the little girl’s room and was like yelling at me, stop crying, you’re going to get back on the ice, immediately. And we’re gonna go through this again. And I know in some way today, a lot of parents I had so abusive, but Oh, my God, you know, but I have to tell you, there was something about that, that was very disciplinary for me and very, like, it’s snapped me out of self pity very quick. And it became about, okay, you fall down, you get back up, and you’re no good to anybody if you’re on the ground. So we got to get back up, we got to go again. So I have so much admiration for athletes and actors are anybody who achieves a very high level of success in anything business. Because I know, I know that there were so many failures, and so many times that they fell down, and had to get back up and get over a very quick and, and that’s a gift, really. So I got that from my coaches. And, and somehow or another that that, that luckily transferred into my life as a kid because I kind of knew that when things weren’t going so well at home or at school, or in my outside life outside of ice skating, that there was something inside of me that knew that it would be okay, I could pull it together. And that’s where I but I attribute a lot of those skills to ice skating. So that’s why I speak a lot about that. Because I think there’s a big mindset that comes from having great mentors, and great coaches and great life lessons. And I, one of the things I say a lot is a lot of my growth, I truly believe did not happen when I was at the height of something, it usually happened when I was really on my knees at the bottom emotionally, where I had to really dig even deeper. That’s where the growth happens. And so and I know even for athletes that get to certain high levels, and I know what what you know, you you peak, right, you get to some levels where you’re like the best, but then all of a sudden you kind of fall back. Because the growth really happens when you’re in the bottom.

 

Scott D Clary  08:52

That’s when you push yourself. And that’s why actually I think that athletes makes such great case studies for successful business people. Because the mindset of an athlete is something that translates very easily into business because the amount of shit you go through to operate at, at a high level as an athlete. That’s something that if you’ve never done it before, it’s hard to acclimate to that when you’re starting a business. But if you’ve done it in professional sport, and figure skating socking the soccer, baseball, hockey, whatever, then all of a sudden, you already have the mindset, you just have to you already have the mindset that’s required to be that successful. So you’re definitely onto something there for sure. I think that’s a huge

 

Deborah Driggs  09:30

and you know, and you know, it, there’s people talk about this all the time, you know, the difference between a gold medal and a silver medal could be seconds, could be just this millimeter. It’s just, it’s like this, this, this gap that is so small, and it’s the difference between a golden and silver metal and when you really wrap your head around that and you think, God, you know, it’s so close and there’s even The bronze I mean, when you look at the gold, the silver and the bronze and you see just how close it really is, and the second sometimes less than a second. So what is that that pushes that one person? Because it’s really hard people don’t usually remember silver and gold. Bronze medalists as always, we always remember the winner. So yeah, there is. There is a lot to that.

 

Scott D Clary  10:25

So you So you went you were you were competitive at Figure skating? How far did you go?

 

Deborah Driggs  10:30

I unfortunately, I had to stop skating at the age of 14 at 1415. My parents got a divorce. We I did not come from any financial, you know, there, you know, my parents live check to check. Like I said, they were very young. And so all of my mother’s paycheck was paying for my skating. It’s an expensive sport. As you can imagine, I had two pairs of skates and costumes and competitive and ice time and private ice time. And, and so all of that plus I was taking ballet. So when they got divorced, it kind of came to an end, because now she had to support two kids, and couldn’t support the ice skating and two kids. So I kind of went through this. That was kind of, I think, my first real low point in life where I had to griefs. I grieved the death of my parents, you know, the door divorces like death. So grieving, a divorce, and then grieving the one thing that was keeping me kind of above water, so to speak, you know what I mean? The one thing that was giving me the best skills in my life, and I lost both like that overnight. And then I, you know, thank God I had, you know, dance was part of the program with skating. So, the natural thing for me to start to do was to get involved in the dance. The dance team in high school, and I was selling later and got into cheerleading. And then I became a professional cheerleader. And I, that was my gateway into the entertainment business was through dance. I would I would go through this book we have back then called drama log. And people my age are going Oh, my God, I remember drama log. What that is, yeah. So. So if you were an actor in the 80s, we had a newspaper called The drama log, and it would have open auditions. So I was a dancer. So I’d go to all the open dance auditions. One of my first movies I ever auditioned for was Dirty Dancing, because I went for the dancing part of the audition, which I made, I got it, I got all the way to the end. And then they decided they wanted me to read for our part in the movie. And then I was like, I don’t have any acting experience. So yeah, so it’s just a funny story that, you know, that’s just what was happening. And so, but from from all that, I knew that there was something that I had, because I always got called back. So I knew that there was something that was going on, I had some sort of it factor because I was always getting called like, we want to see her again. So I took a class called typical Legos, which was a commercial workshop, and at the end of it, they bring in agents, and then agents watch, you do an improvised commercial, and they decide whether or not they’re going to represent you. Well, that night, I had three agents that wanted to represent me. And that was kind of the start of my career in the entertainment business. I signed with an agency called Pacific artists signed with a print agent through them called Max. And the very first audition they sent me on was for a Japanese commercial called creep. Chrystia was a non dairy coffee creamer. And I booked it. You know, first one first agent, first audition, first everything and I booked it and so then we

 

Scott D Clary  14:24

know, that’s not normal either, right? I’m not from acting, but I’m assuming that’s not normal. I’m

 

Deborah Driggs  14:30

not normal. Not normal at all. It’s like one out of one. It’s not normal. Usually. Actors will tell you they went on 100 Auditions before they finally booked something. And so I booked this commercial and I remember just thinking I’m on a roll. I’m never not going to do this is it? You know, this is what I’m doing. And everybody would tell me you can’t model you’re too short. You’re too this. You’re too that and I modeled quite a bit, I actually had a lot of accounts that rebooked me all the time because I was easy and fun to work with. And then also back then there was a show called The fashion channel. This is before HSN, before QVC. And it was an, it was a 24 hour show where you can buy clothes. And I was I was a regular model on that show. And so I started just getting all this great momentum. And now, this is all in the 80s and then cut to 1989, I get a call from my agent that Playboy wants to meet with me for a book called the lingerie book, and they wanted me for the cover. So going on this edition, it doesn’t go well because I go to the famous building on Sunset. And I remember they gave me a robe and they’re like, Okay, you know, take everything off. And we’re going to do some Polaroids and I went, Oh, I’m not here for that. I’m here for the lingerie book for the cover. And they said everything we do has nudity, we need to see your body. Now that then they were looking for birthmarks, tattoos, you know, piercings scars, you know, they were looking at your body a little bit differently back then. That’s just the way it was. This is the 80s You know, today, it wouldn’t matter. And none of that would matter. But

 

Scott D Clary  16:26

you couldn’t even like there was there was companies it wouldn’t hire if you had a tattoo like your sadly, it was, it was a little bit

 

Deborah Driggs  16:33

different. It was a totally different time. And so that was that was that’s what was going on. So I did not take my stuff off. And I go and do the Polaroid and they’re like, you know, well, we got to see your body. And I’m like, yeah, no. So I leave. And I’m like, Well, I’m not going to get that job because I wouldn’t take off my clothes, it would go Yeah, I couldn’t do it. And I had done swimwear and stuff. So it wasn’t like I was, you know, I was used to being on the beach changing on the beach with somebody holding a towel while I changed into a different bikini for a bikini shoot. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t comfortable. I just wasn’t sure. You know, I was intimidated. I’m in the Playboy building.

 

Scott D Clary  17:16

I’m like, just a question of that. When they do that. How many people do they bring in? Is it like, do they like they like try and you know, find the best of the best? Or do they just go through like 500 Different women, and they just pick whoever they want. What’s What’s this?

 

Deborah Driggs  17:31

This was this was for a new publication back then. It’s not new anymore, obviously. But back then it was called a lingerie book. And they were going to it was going to be like you could see women in lingerie, partially nude, some of it nude, you know, whatever. And so this was for the cover. So they were going to modeling agencies looking for a cover girl now for Playboy for the centerfold. And I remember because when I actually shot my centerfold, they the makeup artists and I were talking one day, and she said, I don’t know if you know this, Deborah, because I really I didn’t know much about Playboy when I decided to do it. But they get over 1000 submissions a day. Chase. So there are girls from all over the world that want to be in the Magazine.

 

Scott D Clary  18:25

That’s an 8990. So obviously,

 

Deborah Driggs  18:29

That’s 8990 And you have to remember, in 1989, Playboy was the number one magazine in the world was probably at its height, really, I mean, it was really

 

Scott D Clary  18:40

1000 submissions a day a day. So

 

Deborah Driggs  18:42

I had no idea you know, I’m I lived in LA, I was already modeling, I was already doing commercials, I didn’t live at the mansion, because I lived in LA. So I didn’t take advantage of that. But I didn’t really understand the story of Playboy until years later, really when I and when I started to really kind of have more respect for half and and his vision and and when I really learned about who he was, I was really grateful for that experience. So anyway, going back, I leave the audition. I sucked. And I get a call from the editor in chief of Playboy called me personally and left me a message saying we want to shoot you to be a centerfold. And I was like, I think you’re confusing me with somebody else. Because I didn’t come in for that. And she’s like, I know, but we like your look and we really want to shoot shoot with you. So I went and I did a test shoot. And it went really well. Next thing I knew I was shooting a centerfold for Playboy magazine.

 

Scott D Clary  19:50

And I was so when you’re thinking about that when you’re when you’re in your career right now, you have hesitations going into this. Are you just like, fuck it. Let’s do it.

 

Deborah Driggs  20:00

Oh, I had his eye on his back then I had hesitations because it was a there was different, different problems, let me say that would come with that. So for example, I was doing a lot of the girl next door modeling. And when I say that, like when you’d open the Sunday paper, I’d be the girl for Macy’s going, you know, and so I wasn’t going to get those jobs anymore. I wasn’t going to be going out for certain commercials anymore that wanted the wholesome girl, because back then, that that did ruin that today. You could be there’s more nudity on social media than there was in 1989 in a magazine, so, but it had a lot of repercussions for me and I had to make that big decision of how am I going to portray myself now and by the way, I, I, I always kind of saw myself as a funny girl and not a sexy girl, you know, if I was to put myself in a category. And so I kind of had to grow into being this Playboy model. Character really, I call it a character because it is it’s not really who I am in real life. But I will say all the people that were in my life at that time, all decided that it was a really good idea for me to do Playboy because back then it did open a lot of doors. I got meetings that I would have never gotten otherwise. I was on The Oprah Winfrey Show, I did the Bob hub special. I mean, I got I got invited to do a lot of stuff that I would never end when you’re making fun.

 

Scott D Clary  21:49

I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode HubSpot. Now, you may have heard me speak about leveling up in the past how we can level up our careers or businesses or customer experience. I wanted to take a minute and focus on that last because when we level up our customers experiences, we transform our customers into evangelists and help our business and our careers grow like crazy with new features dedicated to helping your sales teams improve your customer experience. HubSpot is on a mission to help millions of companies grow better starting with yours conversation intelligence tools help your teams get real time insights into calls with automatic recording transcription and call analysis with more visibility into customer conversations coaching and customer feedback becomes that much easier, easy share meeting links. Let customers see availability and book meetings for you all from the HubSpot platform. This cuts out endless cycles of scheduling email, learn more about how you can transform your customer experience with a HubSpot CRM platform@hubspot.com. When you’re making this career decision, I’m curious as well. So when you are doing the modeling, and you can speak in just like generalities, you can be specific, but I’m curious about the money involved. So you’re doing the modeling, you’re an up and coming model. How much money are you making compared to when you sign up for a playboy Central? Because if you’re passing up all these opportunities over here, you’re clearly thinking strategically to some extent, I can make more money over here with the Playboy option. So what is what does that look like? Just so somebody understands why you would make that move? Yeah.

 

Deborah Driggs  23:26

So it wasn’t, it wasn’t for the money. And yeah, I can just tell you, Okay, you know, it really wasn’t because I was doing pretty well up until I decided to do playboy. And so I was kind of giving up a little bit because I was going out on a lot of commercial stuff. And I did a lot of commercials. And now I had to be really careful because a lot of those people that were bringing me in for auditions, once they found out I did Playboy, they weren’t bringing me in for certain commercials anymore. So really wasn’t out. It was it’s and I will tell you this, I was what 25 years old, I couldn’t even tell you, you know, I didn’t know how to I didn’t know how to run my checking account back then. You know, I was always the one going, how did I go through all my money and it’s only the second week of the month? You know, I was that girl, you know, I just didn’t never I didn’t know it did not understand how money worked. Or, you know, I learned all that the hard way too. So I don’t know that I really compared the the the the losses versus the gains or you know, like is this going to be a better decision? I just knew that Playboy absolutely opened a lot of doors and I got to meet a lot of people that I I would not normally have probably met. I had people calling me wanting to meet me now. And that was very different for me.

 

Scott D Clary  25:01

Okay, so then you did the centerfold. So you you went for the audition. didn’t do well call back to the center. Okay, so walk me through what’s the what’s what’s the extent of like the Playboy portion of your life? Like what? What did you do? How long did that last? What did you do for them was just short stint long stint. Let’s go into that.

 

Deborah Driggs  25:21

So I would say that for me it was kind of a short stint. I did a few things after being a centerfold. The reason being is I really wanted to act. And so I put myself in a two year

 

25:37

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Deborah Driggs  26:47

Acting Program that I had to sign a contract that said, I would not miss a class and I would, you know, work with my partners. And I you know, because, you know, they wanted people that were very serious to be in this program. And I also got got chosen to train with Joanne Baron, who, at the time was really hard to train with. And if I’m correct, I think that the class I was in, I was in her first year class. That was the last time she taught first year. So it was like a real win win for me. So I really did not want to miss that opportunity. And it was right when my issue came out. So I didn’t do a lot of the stuff that a lot of the girls do, where they travel and do promotions and all of that I really wanted to learn how to act. And so I did that. I went to acting class three times a week. And if I had time, or if there was an opportunity for me to do something that was worth my while then then I did but for the most part I was I was really studying acting.

 

Scott D Clary  28:05

Okay, and okay, so I do want to so i want to talk about like the reinvention and I want to talk about what you know, why you made such a big pivot, there’s a lot of changes in your life. The only thing that I’m actually curious about before we like totally move off Playboy, because I know it was like a small but obviously impactful portion of your life. In the grand scheme of things, you mentioned something when you’re talking before and like emails and whatnot you’re saying Oh, it’s so you know, it’s so relevant now because there’s so much going on about like Playboy and and half and all that in the news. And I actually I actually don’t know I don’t know much about this stuff at all. So I I was on what’s

 

Deborah Driggs  28:41

going on right now what’s going on what’s going on right now isn’t I only watched I could only watch 30 minutes of it I couldn’t

 

Scott D Clary  28:48

I was just curious because I feel so I’m gonna be it’s gonna be good for the algo somewhere it’s gonna be indexed somewhere they’re gonna come check this out.

 

Deborah Driggs  28:56

Yeah, well cuz a and he just put out a documentary with Holly I can’t last name but she was one of his girlfriend’s Holly Madsen. And I think that’s her last name. Anyway, she just came out with a documentary on a CNN I you know, I watched it and I just for me, it was it was really hard to watch because knowing half the way that I knew half and knowing the mansion, there was never any The mansion was what it was. It was a place to go and party. He had five or six parties, famous parties a year. He had he was he was a creature of habit. You know, he had his backgammon night he had Movie Night, every Sunday night where all the girls were invited up to watch a movie and have a beautiful buffet dinner and there was never anything wrong with any of it. I mean, I found have to be one of the most gracious people I’d ever been around. I found him to be wicked. cuddly funny, extremely smart. And to watch a documentary with somebody saying false accusations about a man who was who really helped shape and change the way people thought about things and did some of the most memorable interviews in the world was hard for me to watch. I was like, baffled, actually, because some of these girls would never have, we wouldn’t know who they were, if they hadn’t associated themselves with half. And so that’s why that is so the timing of I had a lot of people reach out to me and asked me to be on the podcast to kind of talk about the opposite of it. Because I never saw anything that was out of line or, or not right at the mansion. If you went to the mansion, you knew what you were going for. You knew what you were in for. You knew there. Were going to be women walking around half naked, or swimming nude in the pool, or, you know what I mean? What but nobody was forced. There was no it wasn’t like, Was it like a cult? It was it was it was? That was his lifestyle? He and by the way, he never said it wasn’t. You know what I mean?

 

Scott D Clary  31:18

No, no, I don’t think anybody had any illusions about what he was all about. Yeah. And by

 

Deborah Driggs  31:24

the way, these girls were they were standing in line to be one of his girlfriends. And so when I watched, I guess one of the girlfriends talk about how it ruined her life, and it ruined it. And it was this and everything. Everything came with a price. Well, yeah, in life, everything comes with a price. That’s life. That’s life. So I just I couldn’t watch it. I just I turned it off. And I was actually shocked because I actually knew a few of the people that were being interviewed. And I was just like, wow, I can’t even this is hard to, to watch. And it reminds me a lot, you know, like, I’m just not a I think today. How do I say this? I know, I’m gonna get reamed for saying this. But it’s how I feel, I think the me to movement is just it’s gotten out of hand. Because now you’ve got men that are scared to hire women that are more capable of doing the job than the guy but they’re like, You know what, I’m going to hire the guy. Because I just don’t want to deal with the me to movement. God forbid I look at this person the wrong way. So it’s just it’s, it’s kind of gone too far. And what was your you know, and I, I have to tell you, Well, I have to tell you, I’ve worked with a lot of men because I the industry that I work at now is life insurance. And 10% is women and the most of the women are assistants and underwriters, I happen to be a life agent. And you know, when I go to a lot of our, our annual meetings, the room is all men. You know, I look around the room and I’m always like, wow, where are all the women in the business? You know? But I’ve, I’ve spoken to men who are CEOs who own their own companies who have money. I have spoken to men that have told me their stories of girls that will try to manipulate some sort of story where they did something wrong to try and settle out of court for money. You know, so you hear on both sides. And well,

 

Scott D Clary  33:38

that’s the that’s the toxic, horrible. That’s like that’s the thing that the negative that comes up of exactly. And so it goes flying and falsifying stories. I’ve never that’s never okay, but it just, it’s never more prevalent in the past couple years.

 

Deborah Driggs  33:52

Yeah, but and I just worry sometimes when I hear like, when I hear this story about half or whatever, I just worry I’m like What is your i My my, my always my question is what is your part in it? You know, what, what is your part in it? Why would you even go and hang out with half if all this was going on? Why didn’t you leave?

 

Scott D Clary  34:17

Well, this conversations because it’s a bigger conversation about canceled culture, right? This is exactly where people are canceled and they’re, and they’re, you know, with canceled culture and I’m, I absolutely cannot stand canceled culture because people without any sort of, you know, court proceedings or anything like that, get their livelihoods shut down. Because of social medias, it’s fire, and it’s not so

 

Deborah Driggs  34:43

you know, you know what people are gonna say things I’m going to say things that are going to be misinterpreted or they’re going to be misread or they’re going to offend somebody. I’m not gonna not everybody’s gonna like what I have to

 

34:54

say. But context

 

Deborah Driggs  34:56

I can just tell you, though, context matters. And I’ll just say I was very offended by this recent thing that Whoopi Goldberg said, you know, I have a lot of Jewish friends and I raised my kids Jewish. And for her to say that the Holocaust wasn’t about race was like, I fell off my chair. I literally because I watched it a few times, just to make sure that I was hearing her properly. And that was I thought it was really fucked up. And but I don’t think she should be canceled.

 

Scott D Clary  35:27

No, but that just says, Thanks, justice. I

 

Deborah Driggs  35:29

don’t think Roseanne Barr should have been canceled and I don’t think Sharon’s Osborn and all these. It’s like, people are gonna say things out of emotion. Sometimes they’re not doing it. I don’t think what the gophers did it. I just think it was just such a stupid

 

Scott D Clary  35:46

way burgers anti symmetric. I think she said, I don’t either I didn’t think through in public. And then no, she shouldn’t. And I think really what she

 

Deborah Driggs  35:54

should have said, what she should have said is what she was trying to explain is the horrible thing that this man did, this man did what she said it was man being so horrible to other, but it was he was trying to wipe out an entire race of people. And so she just missed she kind of missed a big point there. But

 

Scott D Clary  36:18

it’s okay, that it was a bad analogy.

 

Deborah Driggs  36:21

It was a bad analogy. And, and, and, and, you know, but again, I go back to, should she be canceled for it? Well, you know, this is a whole thing. But then I think, Okay, well, if Roseanne Barr was canceled, I had followed these other people that these you know what I mean? Like if it if if if certain groups don’t like certain things that are being said, they get canceled? Well, I can tell you, there’s a huge group of people that did not like what she said, and she’s not getting canceled. And so that makes people wonder like, well, what’s going on? And who’s making this this decision? Why? Roseanne? And why not? Would be you know, and that’s where it gets a little tight rubbish.

 

Scott D Clary  37:05

And I also think that people are getting canceled so much now that it’s almost like flavor of the month in terms of who you cancel. Yes, I just like, You know what I mean? Like, you cancel somebody, then people forget about it two weeks later, Yeah, cuz there’s someone else to cancel, then it becomes it becomes silly, it becomes like it lose

 

Deborah Driggs  37:23

things right now, people are doing things right now, that are that they think are gonna make a point. But they’re actually kind of hurting themselves. Like, like, I’m gonna pull my music. Unless you do this, I am going to using Joe Rogan, obviously, as an example. And I’m thinking, Wait, you’re gonna pull your nose off your face, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be like, wait a second, like, you have to run a business. And just because you don’t like everything that goes on in the business that you’re in, you’re going to pull your music. It just that part for me gets a little like, and then people join in on the bandwagon. Well, if this person is going to pull their music, I’m going to pull my music too. And we’re going to make a point that if you’re going to have Joe, then we’re going to pull our list and it’s just it’s like, it becomes this whole, like, you’re not going to agree with everybody. So you’re pulling your music. But that’s your business, you know. And, by the way, your fans. I’m going to tell you right now, half your fans like Joe Rogan. Why you just lost half your fans.

 

Scott D Clary  38:42

Yeah. Yeah, you gotta be careful when you’re talking about in particular. Yeah, I’m sure I’m sure more than half of them like Joe Rogan. But regardless, yeah, I’m

 

Deborah Driggs  38:52

saying you got to be careful, like you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face. And yeah, I just, it’s, it’s such a it’s such a

 

Scott D Clary  39:01

canceled culture is such a difficult. It’s a difficult topic, because it just doesn’t. And I think that it’s gotten even worse, it’s gotten even worse, people are angrier than ever at each other. It’s just so we know are so

 

Deborah Driggs  39:13

that’s why I swear, I tried very hard. And it’s hard sometimes because you just really want to, you want to have an opinion. And I haven’t done it in a very long time, up until this will be thing and then I got in on the tweet game of that because it kind of freaked me out what she said. But for the most part, I stay out of it completely. And I write a weekly blog that that kind of hopefully shifts the perspective to coming back to wellness and holistic thinking, which is everybody’s going to do what they’re going to do and the only control we have over anything is ourselves.

 

Scott D Clary  40:00

That’s everyone. Also, a lot of people are like, if you have people in the public sphere, just by the virtue of the amount of things that they say in public and emotions and opinions, they’re going to screw up at some point. But I can guarantee you, if you if the goal of canceling somebody is to change their view, I can tell you right now that bullying and just like online assault is not going to change their view on anything, if anything that’s going to make them double down, and they’re going to just migrate to their own little community or tribe of people that agree with them. It’s like, it’s a very polarizing, almost like and like you just mentioned, it’s it’s counterintuitive, it doesn’t do anything positive for anyone, because you have the people if somebody is actually is somebody is actually a very bad person, they say something that they actually truly believe in. And you cancel them, I understand that I understand the rationale. But that’s not going to change their opinion on anything. It’s not going to change their opinion or anything at all. And now you see these platforms popping up that they’re moving over to right, you’re seeing they’re moving over to different platforms. So I don’t, I don’t I just don’t see how it solves anything?

 

Deborah Driggs  41:09

No, I just think it’s like called habit. Stay in your lane. Have your beliefs and stay on your part. What’s my part? What, you know, what am I doing to make this a more positive experience for the world or for whatever I’m doing. And the minute you start worrying about what other people are doing, you’re kind of, you’re kind of at a loss, because we’re I’m never going to change, no matter what I write, no matter what I say about what will be said, I’m not going to change the situation or what happened. She said something so what Okay, next, you know, it bothered me for about five minutes it did, I got a little on the Twitter bandwagon about it, because I just wanted it to be known that it was, for me, I raised my kids Jewish. And, you know, it was just a little outrageous in that regard. But other than that, I’m not I can’t control what people say. And at the end of the day, I can’t control what people say, I can’t control what people do. And I can only focus on what I do what I say and you know, and just be really grateful that we live in a world where we do have free speech. And I think we’re forgetting

 

Scott D Clary  42:23

that fact that you know, I think that we have to be grateful sometimes that we can even say some of the Yeah, opinions on stuff in public. That’s it. That’s a blessing. That’s an absolute blessing. Because that everywhere in the world is better not everywhere in the world. All right, that’s enough. Oh, Kancil culture. It’s a it’s a sad, setting frustrating pain in the ass topic. That’s I don’t think we’re gonna fix it on this show at least. So let’s, let’s go on to it. On a business though. This is the whole point of the show.

 

Deborah Driggs  42:52

Speaking of canceled culture, I don’t mention, I will mention that. Donald Trump is on the cover of my 1990 March 1990 issue. So this is about this is very funny to What? What? Well, I’m the centerfold of March 1990. A place on playboy? He’s on the cover of my issue. So swear on it. Yeah, you can’t make this up. And so I get more fan mail today, because now everybody wants the issue signed, because it’s a collector’s item now. But you know, I didn’t know when I was doing Playboy that Donald Trump would one day be president and being on the cover, and he’s on the cover of my issue. And then I’m on the cover of the following month, on April 90. But yeah, speaking of canceled culture, I got a lot of it either goes either way. People either go that’s so cool. Or oh my god, you know.

 

Scott D Clary  43:57

I mean, that’s, that’s Yeah, and I

 

Deborah Driggs  43:58

can’t win. I can’t win. Unfortunately, it’s my issue. So I don’t really doesn’t buy you know, I don’t care. It’s part of my history.

 

Scott D Clary  44:05

So let’s take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode truebill. So let me ask you a question. How often have you signed up for a free trial? And then it converted into a paid subscription, and you forgot to cancel it? Or how often have you just not been able to cancel something because the process to cancel that particular? You know, monthly service is just horrible and painful and they make you jump through hoops? True bill is solving this for you true bill is letting you fight back against scammy subscription services. truebill is a new app that helps you identify and stop paying for subscriptions that you don’t need, you don’t want or you simply forgot about. On average people save roughly $720 per year with true bill and it’s honestly because companies make subscriptions difficult to cancel. True Bill makes it incredibly simple. You just link your accounts a true bill and they cancel everything unwanted with a single click and if something does cancel automatically, they actually have a concierge service that will follow up and cancel it for you so that you don’t have to true Bill has over 2 million active users and they saved people over $100 million. I used it myself, I saved about 578 bucks. But that’s just because I spent so much time in the past having to go back and cancel. I’m sure if I knew about them two, three years ago, it could have saved me like 1000s of dollars by now. So stop letting CEOs and bad businesses get rich off you being unable or just forgetting to cancel. Don’t fall for subscription scams. start canceling today with truebill at truebill.com/success story. Go right now. truebill.com/success story. That’s true. build.com/su cc ESS S T ROI. It could save you 1000s a year that’s true Bill comm slash success story take control of your subscription. Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s way before he was involved in politics anyway. So that’s going back a little bit. Yeah. It’s funny, though. I always forget sometimes when you actually look at his history, I see. I always forget all the funny stuff that he did over his career. Like, some really wacky shit, like he’s done the camera. I didn’t know it was on a Playboy cover. But he’s gonna see Yeah, he’s, uh, he’s good at promoting himself. You love him or hate him, but he’s good. I like getting his face in spots. And no, oh, yeah. Huh. We’re sure that’s really funny. All right. Okay, so let’s talk about let’s talk about, let’s talk about like rebirth. Let’s talk about what you did. Let’s talk about what you did after playboy. So you said when you were 40, or in your 40s when you were 14? Yeah,

 

Deborah Driggs  46:44

you know, here, you know, so my whole background was acting modeling and waitressing. You know, I mean, I waitress a lot of the times to to, to make up for money when you know, because with with the entertainment business, if you’re not working for a couple months, you got a waitress or do something. So I really never worked in the in a, in a real job, so to speak. I got married, I have three kids. And in 2004, I got divorced. And I found myself at 40 years old, broke divorced three young children. I’m having to say now what now now what is what is life going to look like? Now? What am I going to do? And so I did a lot of here, you know, odd jobs. I worked at a spa, I organized closets i i got my real estate license and started doing really well in real estate. And in 2008 Oh, by the way, I I raised my kids in Park City, Utah. Got them out of LA because I was getting a little tired of all the private school nonsense, and decided to raise them in a community where they could ride their bikes and walk to school and you moved your whole family over to Yeah, we all moved. And then I got divorced. So I raised my kids in Park City. And so I got my real estate license in Utah. And in 2008, when the market took a dive, my obviously my niche was second family, multimillion dollar homes, I lived in a resort community. So that was the first thing to go. And so I had to reinvent myself again, here, I finally settled into something that I was really good at. And what I had found out from real estate was that I was really good with people. And, and I was really good at taking care of people and customers and clients and all of that in sales. And so there was about a year where after 2008, where I just I didn’t know what I was going to do because real estate was done, especially where I was living. So I made the decision to take a job in New York. And I took a job in the print procurement business. And I reconnected with the the company that did my ex husband and I’s life insurance. And the reason I kind of reconnected with them is I had, I had referred them quite a bit of business after they did our insurance because I thought they were the best. So when I reconnected I said, I’m living in New York, I’m working for a print company, I do procurement and and so they said, Oh, well, we’re going to be in New York, we should meet. So we met and I said, you know, I’ve been referring you a lot of business. If I keep doing that, can I get a referral fee? And he said, Why don’t you just get your license. And I went, Oh, that would be that would be a smart thing to do. So on the weekends, I studied and, and and, and I also got transferred from New York to Irvine, we opened an office in Irvine, which was great because my kids were in California at this time with their dad. So now I was back close to my kids. Because I was having them fly back and forth to New York on holidays to visit me. And so that was a lot of money and a lot of expense. And so I got back to Irvine. And on the weekends, I studied and got my life insurance license. And by 2011, I was doing life insurance full time. By 2012, I was the number one life agent for one of the carriers. And when I say one of the carriers, I will I’m not captive to one company. So I’m licensed with accept PAC life mass mutual, you know, Prudential all I’m licensed with all the carriers across the board. But with this one, I had sold quite a bit, they had a product that was great. And I had sold quite a bit. And so I was their number one agent, never like, well, who is this person because I wasn’t captive to them. But I just would laugh, because I would get invited on all these, like, cruises, or, you know, like, there’d be perks that would come with. And I had three kids, and I didn’t have time to go on these per perk type of trips, you know, whatever, these trips that come with, with doing well, you know, so. But so, but

 

Scott D Clary  51:41

leverage network, though, you just leverage the network, cuz I’m only asking because life insurance, like insurance sales is like not an easy thing. You know, like, it’s horrible. Like, everybody’s like, it’s like, you know, there’s like real estate agents and insurance, insurance salespeople, and like, everybody has a license at some point, but nobody does it. And nobody does well, and everybody makes no money.

 

Deborah Driggs  52:01

I agree. It’s really, it’s so difficult. And, and what I did was, I was, well, I was relentless. You know, I had three kids, and I did not want to ever be in a situation, especially after the real estate crash, I did not want to be in a situation where I was ever wondering what my next thing was going to be. So I really wanted to, to make this work. And so I literally called every single person I knew relentlessly, and just asking for business. And if they didn’t give me their business, I said, Then will you refer somebody to me? And I basically, what I do is just putting some, you know, that thing in someone’s head, if they don’t know, they’re not going to refer you. So my whole thing is, people are not going to give you business if they don’t know what you’re doing. So I emailed I called, I texted people, I said, Can I meet you for coffee? I met with everybody. And I think the thing that I had going for me is one, I worked for probably one of the best companies in the US brokerage. And two, I had, I have a past in the entertainment business. So a lot. So my one of my first clients was the head of Warner Brothers, you know, and I said to him, If I get you as a client, then I can say, I have you as a client. And you know what I mean, then more people and more referrals. And so that’s how I built my business was basically, you know, the, the more people that I got that. And what’s interesting, too, is that you never, I don’t ever discount anything. So even though I may have had failures in real estate, or failures in print procurement, or maybe I didn’t get this or that. But the people that I worked with during those times, those all became my life insurance clients. Yeah. So you never know. You never know where where the tide is going to take you. And so you just got to stay in the game. So you were so yeah, so I had to really, I had to really reinvent and I had to really, and you know, I, I always knew, you know, because I had a few people, especially in the entertainment business, when I called and said, This is what I’m doing now. And they all knew me as like being on the cover of Playboy or being on or being a VJ Are you know, they knew me in the entertainment business. And they were like, Yeah, I don’t know, Deb. It’s like, I don’t care people are gonna take you serious because you know, and I was like, well just meet me for coffee. Yeah, the minute I met people for coffee, and we were in person face to face, and they saw Oh, this is a different. This isn’t the girl I knew in the 90s You know what I mean? That was doing music videos and partying with rock stars. You know, this is this a business woman now. And so that’s why I say when you have to reinvent yourself, you really I had to go, like, from one extreme to, to another because people really didn’t know me a certain way and, and I have to meet with them and explain that no, this is what I’m doing now. And also I you know, the thing that’s really, I think, also really good is that I retain information pretty well. And so I was really good at retaining information and remembering products that were available. And I could I could just off you know, I knew what was going on. And I made sure of that because in the insurance industry what a lot of people may not know this, but products change. So you may have bought insurance five years ago. Well, there may be all new products now today, five years later, but a lot a lot of the insurance agents and this is why it gets a bad rap a lot of the insurance agents that are out there, they’re usually captive, they usually work for Northwestern Mutual or so they just sell the one they just sell the one product Okay guys, where that’s not what I do. I analyze all the products that are out there. And I may call a client from five years ago and go you know what, there’s a different product we should switch you over will save you 20% On your premiums and get you more life insurance. So that’s the

 

Scott D Clary  56:29

difference. Why do people overcomplicate selling though? Why do people overcomplicate selling all the time you hit your Rolodex, you got your you got your network and you just sat down for coffee face to face? You know your products product?

 

Deborah Driggs  56:43

I love that you said Rolodex because you and I are the only one that knows what that means. And all

 

Scott D Clary  56:47

that to say that what what’s your Rolodex your contact list? It’s your contact.

 

Deborah Driggs  56:56

It’s your it’s it’s your contact list in your phone. It’s a Rolodex, yeah. So yeah, it’s you don’t want to overcomplicate and here’s that. Here’s my thing when it comes to selling. I don’t usually have to sell anything. Either people need the product, or they don’t. And so here’s add, anybody who’s in sales knows this. You’re going to get 20 nose before you get that one. Yes. So I used to always say my, my coined phrase was no means maybe. Because I would have so many people say to me, yeah, no. And I go, Okay, well, I’ll call you next week. Like as a joke. As they go, No, I said, I said no, like, No, I, I go, I know, but you know what things change? Your broker could close their business, or maybe there’s a great product that I need to tell you about. And they’re like, they were just like, roll their eyes at me. Because in my head, no means maybe. And sure enough, there was a product that came out that was really like, people would actually sit back and go, when I don’t understand I would explain it again. There was absolutely no reason why they should not do this, this product. And so when it was explained, they were like, well, yeah, of course, I’m going to do that. But are you sure and I’m like, every once in a while, these companies make mistakes. And this product is one premium payment, pre pays it for five years. And it’s a mistake, but they haven’t caught it yet. And until they catch it until they take it off the market, you should buy as much of it as you can. Because once you buy it, you own it. So you know, it’s like stuff like that. And that’s, I think that’s just knowing your products, knowing what’s out there, knowing who your clientele is. And then auditing constantly auditing so I constantly audit I constantly get go back through clients that I sold in 2015. And I go back and audit and see what they have where they’re at. Maybe there maybe they need more now you know, maybe back then they only needed 5 million but today, their business grew a lot and now they need 50 million. There’s you know what I mean? But how would I know unless I go and audit that

 

Scott D Clary  59:35

it seems it seems so straightforward when you like lay out the steps so why do people so much is Why do some people fail in this industry then in life insurance? Why is it because you said that well you said one thing a lot of people are captive to certain to certain products

 

Deborah Driggs  59:52

well that’s probably the number one reason is if you’re

 

Scott D Clary  59:55

captive that the number one Okay, so that’s number one. That would be my number one reason why

 

Deborah Driggs  59:59

people People get stuck in any sales situation because when you become captive to one product, it’s hard to sell one product.

 

Scott D Clary  1:00:11

Especially if it’s not a good product, especially if it’s not the best product.

 

Deborah Driggs  1:00:14

And so I can tell you, the one that we redo all the time is not saying that it’s a bad product. I’m not saying that. But we redo a lot of Northwest mes mutual products because doesn’t work for our clientele.

 

Scott D Clary  1:00:32

So you’ve so you’ve reinvented yourself, you’re now you’ve sold you sold, you sell to studio moguls, celebrities, fortune 500, a whole bunch of incredible individuals. So what do you do now in your career? You’ve reinvented now you still have a lot of life left. So what’s next? Yeah,

 

Deborah Driggs  1:00:49

well, yeah. Well, this last year, I spent most of the year writing, I formed a publishing company called Crystal Woods publishing. Don’t ask me why I chose that name. I don’t know. I just, I loved it. And I chose it. And I have a book that I’m publishing in the next six months called Son of a Basque. It’s a historical fiction. So that would be the first book I publish. My grandfather wrote the book, I read it quite a few times. And I, I actually fell in love with the book. And I learned a lot about him stuff I didn’t even know is in the book. And thank God, you know, he’s no longer with us. But thank God my mother is and so she’s been a tremendous help with helping me with certain things that I would be too young to remember. So that that book is getting published as we speak. And then you know, I write a weekly blog, I have a website, Deborah, Driggs calm, and I write a weekly blog. And my weekly blog is really excerpts from my memoir, which I’ll probably publish in 2023, after I’m doing the son of a basket first, and then I’ll do my memoir. So writing is a huge part of my of my life right now. And it’s so great that I feel so grateful. I think that, you know, in some ways, this whole pandemic and everything kind of shutting down and slowing down, kind of made everybody reevaluate certain things. And for me, the beautiful thing that came out of it was I really, I got to go back to being creative. And I really miss that a lot. I had forgotten just really, how much I love to create. And when I was in the entertainment world, and I would audition and have to prepare and have to get ready for certain things. There’s a creative process that happens. And for a long time, I didn’t use that instrument. And so I feel like this last year, I got to reuse it. I booked some modeling jobs this last year, and I worked on a film that’s going to go to the Idlewild Film Festival in March. So I’ve been just back doing creative stuff busy. Yeah. And I

 

Scott D Clary  1:03:09

you just listed off. I have notes here and you just list a whole bunch of stuff that I don’t even know that you were doing because like, I just have notes here that you you do a business strategy talk on sale. Yeah. And then you also now you’re doing motivational speaking on helping women break through negative self talk as well. So stuff that you’ve learned out over your entire life? Yep. And I will tell you that stuff.

 

Deborah Driggs  1:03:34

Yeah, I got asked to do some speeches right before COVID hit. And I spoke in January, right before COVID. And I spoke on stage in New Jersey. And I was one of those like, you know, 10 minute speakers, you know, like I came out and spoke for 10 minutes about insurance and how that is for me as a woman in a business that is 80% men. And so and then, and then somebody came on stage and spoke with me. And then we did this conversation and I got offstage. And I had like five people come up to me, and asked me if I would be their speaker at their event. And I said, Sure, I would love to speak. So I started it to well, you know, for me, I speak about everything that we’re talking about. I basically talk about the life skills from sports, to being in the entertainment business to falling down at 40. You know, I fell down at 1415 years old and fell down again at 40. I talk about reinvention, I talk about divorce, I talk about, you know what it’s like to age gracefully, you know, and I have another coin phrase that I say it’s on my, my, my website and on my email, I say Aging Gracefully is a full time job. Because it really is it requires so much inner work. It requires so much wellness and holistic thinking that it becomes really a full time job, you know, how we age, and, you know, people, people are always looking for some tricks serum, you know, for the wrinkles, and this and that. And, and I can just tell you that I turned 58 in December, and I feel healthier and younger than I did in my 20s. And there’s a reason for that. It’s, I think, the more stuff you do internally, the more you’re going to age gracefully. And so I talk about that. So, really, to be honest with you, if somebody called me and said, Hey, could you come and do a 20 minute keynote speech on how to use a Kleenex box? You know, I’d be like, okay, you know, it’s like, no, no, what I mean, like I just because you’re using your stories, you’re using your experience, and hopefully your experience and your suffering and your, your, your knock downs, things that brought you to your knees, hopefully those things will help somebody else. And that’s the whole point of the game. Really.

 

Scott D Clary  1:06:09

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Deborah Driggs  1:09:04

To name it, you know, to name that, that that person in your head to name that person? Oh, you know, whatever it is, you know, to name it. So you can tell it, you know, thanks for that thought today. But now you can go away because this person’s taking over. And I’m in charge. You know, and I think I think that when you give it a name or you give it a you get you you you make it so it’s yours, you own it. And so we’re all going to have negative talk. There’s just no getting around it there are going to be days where we wake up where we don’t want to get out of bed. We just want to pull the covers over. We just want to go you know what today is just not the day it’s not gonna happen today. And that’s the voice and I go Oh, really? Okay, really well, let’s tell you no, really, you know, and just make it funny like have a conversation really well. Why do you think that Why do you think that, you know, people might younger, She’s talking to herself, she’s absolutely fucking lost it. And it’s true, in a sense, you know, but I think that when you when you, when you call something out, or you write it down, it makes it less of a negative thing. Because I will tell you, anytime that I’ve gotten into, right when you get into that deep funk, or that deep like, Oh, I’m so irritated or upset by this. And if you check out and for me, this sits by me all day as just but you know, a yellow pad. And I know, it’s so old school. But literally, if something’s going, I literally write down all my thoughts about it, and why I’m upset about it. And all of a sudden, it’s like, it doesn’t bother me anymore. So it’s almost like go it seriously, it’s like doing yoga. If I’m really upset before I do yoga, I can guarantee I’m going to walk out of yoga Gwoza upset about? Yeah, so writing can be like that. Writing can just be like, you know, talking to yourself through writing about what it is you’re upset about, lessens the negativity of it. And I will say the other thing that I love a lot. And when I say a lot, because I really feel like it works is I write a letter to God or to the universe or to angels, whatever you believe in, you could write it to Mother Earth, I don’t care. You could write it to the plant on your desk. But you go to your plant. And you write what it is that’s really upsetting you like, why am I so upset about this? This, this, this and this and this? Then you write the second letter. Dear Deb’s as if you’re the plant. Here’s why you feel that way. And you write it as if you’re writing. And you’re you have all the answers, because here’s the truth. And here’s what I believe the answers are inside of us. We know. And when you really take the time to do that two part letter. It’s so tremendously insightful. Because you’re writing Dear God, I need help with this. I don’t understand. Why is this happening right now what whatever the situation is, and I write the whole letter, please help me love Deb. Turn the page. Dear Deb’s, this is God just got your letter. Here’s why this is happening. And you write it as if you know it.

 

Scott D Clary  1:12:47

That is a that is an exceptional self awareness tool. I’ve never heard anybody recommend that. But I could see how that could be super powerful. I think really, that’s a really smart, that’s a smart idea at the smart smart idea. Because yeah,

 

Deborah Driggs  1:13:00

thank you, thank you, I didn’t come up with it. I can’t take full credit for it. But it was, it was a recommend it was a recommendation to me, I just do it a different way. I just do it a little bit different I take, I take it and do it the way I do it. But I will say this that every third everything that we talk about is it’s been out there for millions and millions of years. So there’s, you know, we just all look at it with a different perspective, or a different idea or a different spin on it. But, but we’re all trying to figure out what works. And I can tell you that two part letter works for me, it may not work for somebody else listening to the program, there may be like, that’s not gonna work. You won’t know unless you try it. And by the way, there’s a lot of things that have been recommended to me that do not work. And I go, No, that didn’t work for me, but this did. And so I think that’s kind of the that’s kind of a fun thing. Because you can I can take from so many great mentors, coaches, masters, books, articles, blogs, podcasts. There’s so much available today that was not available not even 10 years ago, you know, and how beautiful is that? That today we have accessibility to such amazing wellness.

 

Scott D Clary  1:14:29

Amen. No, that’s awesome advice. I’ve never heard that one before. But I would suggest anybody who’s listening, try it because that could be something that you’re struggling with a personal problem. A mental health problem, a business problem, a family problem, whatever it is. It’s it’s incredible. How often the answers are so simple. It’s just forcing you to come to terms with those answers. By you know, by asking yourself, right, yeah, that’s really

 

Deborah Driggs  1:14:56

when you when you write after you write it all out like what’s wrong and then then you write you know your name dear Debs, and then you write, here’s why. And then you write it why, you know, it’s it’s very, very telling because it really does in some beautiful way. I don’t want to use the word forceful way because it’s not a forced way if you do it really from your heart. It’s like really just really looking at your part in the situation of why something’s happening.

 

Scott D Clary  1:15:35

I love that. Okay, let’s Yeah, let’s that’s a beautiful way to close this out. Because then I want to do some rapid fire anyways, so I always like and offer some rapid fire. Okay, we pivot where can people reach out to you? Where’s the best website social all that

 

Deborah Driggs  1:15:51

all social media, Deborah Driggs? You know, I’m every social media is the same at my name, Deborah Driggs. And then my website is Deborah drinks.com. And like I said, I have a weekly newsletter, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter, I have some free gifts. Coming up, we were just discussing this today with my web team that I really want to give back to my community because so many I’ve had so many people sign up for my newsletter that I want to give back. So we came up with some free gifts. So please sign up for my newsletter because I have some really cool stuff coming. Right and, and then I post a weekly blog, on my website. I have, you know, I model so I, I also my website is kind of like a whole array of things. So if people want to book me for modeling my my portfolios there as well. And then any any upcoming things I have, I have a book being published, I have a movie coming out all that well. There’ll be a page for all of that as well. So that’s the best place to follow the whole journey.

 

Scott D Clary  1:17:03

Amazing. No, that’s awesome. Okay, we’ll link that in the show notes as well. That’s, that’s okay. So let’s go into a couple rapid fire. So biggest challenge you’ve overcome in your life? What was it? How did you overcome it?

 

Deborah Driggs  1:17:17

My divorce, my divorce, my divorce really brought me to my knees and took me years to overcome it. I was filled with a lot of anger, and a lot of resentment. And it wasn’t until I took that time to really look at my part in the situation, that I was able to overcome it.

 

Scott D Clary  1:17:43

If you had to choose one person, obviously, there’s been many, but pick one person who’s been incredibly impactful in your life. Who’s that person? What did they teach you?

 

Deborah Driggs  1:17:54

That’s super hard. One person,

 

Scott D Clary  1:17:56

you have to pick one. I’m challenging you to pick one. Even though there’s been many just the first person that you think of and it can be a family member too. It doesn’t have to be like a business person.

 

Deborah Driggs  1:18:12

I am going to say this is going to be interesting because he had such a huge impact on me but it would be my my father’s father Percy Driggs was really had this really impactful thing on my life because he was very, very smart. But he was a farmer. And he was a very well known farmer. He was corn king. He was he won awards for potatoes. He won. He was also somebody who raised racehorses. And that always I actually wrote a report about him, I think, in fourth or fifth grade because he was so impressive to me. As just somebody who really, he was the he was the ultimate guy, you know, he was a man. He was a farmer, but he was also like a well known person in his community. He was from Moses, Lake Washington. Very small town and everybody knew him. And he was very well liked. great mentor.

 

Scott D Clary  1:19:26

Amazing. That’s a good answer. If you had to recommend a book or a podcast or something that you’ve read or consumed in your life, that you’d recommend people to check out. What would it be?

 

Deborah Driggs  1:19:38

Well, the book that I just read is I think it’s called I’m a badass by Jen Sincero.

 

Scott D Clary  1:19:46

That’s a new one that I love. I love and people recommend new books because I am one so

 

Deborah Driggs  1:19:51

she her book. I like it because it’s really there’s some phenomenal tips in there. I also Love this surrender experiment quite a bit. I think I’ve I’ve gone through that quite a few times. Just I have things highlighted in there. And then I love the atomic habits just because I love habits and love. Yeah.

 

Scott D Clary  1:20:17

Those are two good, well, three good examples, but I’ve read.

 

Deborah Driggs  1:20:20

You asked for one but okay, I got a bonus.

 

Scott D Clary  1:20:23

I got a bonus. That’s great. Okay, if you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be?

 

Deborah Driggs  1:20:30

You can be an entrepreneur, you can work for yourself. You don’t have to work for anybody else. You can start a business and you don’t have to know why. You don’t know why you don’t have to know how. Just do it.

 

Scott D Clary  1:20:47

Okay, and then last question, what does success mean to you?

 

Deborah Driggs  1:20:52

Love giving family experiences. Yeah, wealthy, wealthy and healthy, you know, wealthy life experiences and healthy. Not a lot of monetary stuff in that.

 

1:21:25

I’m Amira rose Davis, host of the new season of American prodigy all about black girls in gymnastics. My white coaches just said you may not get the scores that you deserve because you’re black is the story of a decades long struggle of black gymnasts trying to find and amplify their voices.

 

1:21:43

I can’t be the next mobiles. I can’t be the next Dominique does. I can only be the next version of myself.

 

1:21:49

Listen to American prodigies on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcasts